Open-source 500px alternatives

Pixelfed is photo sharing software that takes part in the fediverse. It lets people share casual shots and creative photography with an audience without algorithmic barriers, and because it speaks ActivityPub it can interact with other federated platforms.

Pixelfed is built with PHP and Laravel. The README lists officially supported databases as MySQL 9 or newer and MariaDB 11 or newer, with PostgreSQL 14 or newer supported on a best-effort basis but not recommended. As of September 2026 the maintainers recommend running instances with Docker Compose, while non-Docker installs remain supported. A YunoHost package exists, and some unofficial cloud providers offer hosting.

The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and publishes documentation on its own site, with Matrix for chat. It has a firm policy against contributions that are substantially generated by generative AI, including code, documentation, translations and issues.

Lychee is a free, open-source photo management tool that runs on your own server or web space. You can upload, manage and share photos through a web interface that is meant to feel like a native application, with the aim of keeping the photos stored securely.

Installation is described as quick, and the project provides Docker images, with version 7.0 bringing significant changes to the Docker image and an upgrade guide. Lychee requires PHP 8.4 or 8.5 and has documentation, a changelog and a Discord community. It is built with PHP, TypeScript and Vue.

Lychee is licensed under MIT. A Supporter Edition adds extra functionality for people who want more than the free version, and users can also support the team directly. Topics on the repository describe it as a photo gallery and photo management application.

Piwigo is open-source photo gallery software for managing and sharing a photo library on the web. It is designed for individuals, teams and organizations that want to publish and organize pictures on their own site, and it is tagged with privacy, photography and self-hosting topics.

The project advertises more than 200 plugins and themes to extend and restyle the gallery, and its website provides feature lists, demos, forums, documentation and news. To install it you need a web server such as Apache or nginx, PHP 7.4 or later, MySQL 5 or MariaDB, and ImageMagick or the PHP GD library. The code is written in PHP.

Piwigo is licensed under GPL-2.0. You can install it on your own server, or choose the Piwigo Cloud ready-to-use hosted service if you do not have one. It suits photographers, families, clubs and companies that want a self-controlled alternative to commercial photo sharing sites.