What is LibrePhotos used for?

LibrePhotos is a self-hosted, open-source photo manager with face recognition, object detection, semantic search and timeline views for personal libraries. It is a good fit for replacing a cloud photo service with a self-hosted one and organizing a large family photo archive.

Is LibrePhotos open source?

Yes. LibrePhotos is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at LibrePhotos/librephotos and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. LibrePhotos is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host LibrePhotos?

Yes. LibrePhotos can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is LibrePhotos an alternative to?

LibrePhotos is an open-source alternative to Google Photos, Apple Photos, Amazon Photos and Mylio Photos. Other open-source alternatives to Google Photos include Immich, PhotoPrism and Ente.

Is LibrePhotos actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to LibrePhotos was on 30 September 2026, and the latest release is 1.2.1, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 8.1k stars on GitHub.

LibrePhotos: open-source alternative to Google Photos

About LibrePhotos

LibrePhotos is a self-hosted photo management service for people who want to organize a personal library on their own server. It scans pictures on the file system and adds machine-learning features such as automatic face recognition, object and scene detection and semantic image search.

It supports all kinds of photos, including raw files, as well as videos, and offers a timeline view, multiuser support, reverse geocoding and search by metadata. Albums can be generated automatically from events, for example a day spent in a particular city. The README warns that the machine-learning features use a lot of memory: it lists 4 GB of RAM as a minimum and recommends 8 GB or more.

The project is a monorepo containing a Django 5 backend, a React and Vite web client, an Expo mobile app for Android and iOS, a Docusaurus documentation site and deployment files for Docker Compose and Kubernetes. It is released under the MIT licence and runs on any Docker-compatible system, with Linux recommended.

Key features

Automatic face recognition and classification
Object and scene detection
Semantic image search
Support for raw photos and videos
Timeline view and event-based albums
Multiuser support
Reverse geocoding of photo locations

Good fit for

→Replacing a cloud photo service with a self-hosted one
→Organizing a large family photo archive

Built with: Python; Django
Tags: photos; photo-management; face-recognition; self-hosted; machine-learning; django; docker; gallery

LibrePhotos: questions and answers

What is LibrePhotos used for?: LibrePhotos is a self-hosted, open-source photo manager with face recognition, object detection, semantic search and timeline views for personal libraries. It is a good fit for replacing a cloud photo service with a self-hosted one and organizing a large family photo archive.
Is LibrePhotos open source?: Yes. LibrePhotos is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at LibrePhotos/librephotos and is written mainly in Python.
Is LibrePhotos free?: Yes. LibrePhotos is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host LibrePhotos?: Yes. LibrePhotos can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is LibrePhotos an alternative to?: LibrePhotos is an open-source alternative to Google Photos, Apple Photos, Amazon Photos and Mylio Photos. Other open-source alternatives to Google Photos include Immich, PhotoPrism and Ente.
Is LibrePhotos actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to LibrePhotos was on 30 September 2026, and the latest release is 1.2.1, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 8.1k stars on GitHub.