HomeGallery — Self-Hosted, Open-Source

Features

• Endless photo stream via virtual scrolling
• Video transcoding
• Reverse image lookup (similar image search). If you have one sunset image, you can easily find other sunset photos in your archive without manual tagging
• Face detection and search by similar faces
• Expressive query language with and, or, not operands
• GEO location reverse lookups
• Simple mobile app through PWA support
• Tagging, single and multi selection
• Media are identified by their content. Duplicated media (identical files byte-by-byte) are only processed once. Renaming is supported without recalculating previews etc.
• Fast file changes detection such as add, removes, renames or moves

Installation

curl -sL https://dl.home-gallery.org/dist/latest/home-gallery-latest-linux-x64 -o gallery chmod 755 gallery ./gallery init --source ~/Pictures ./gallery run server

Why self-host HomeGallery

Self-hosting gives you three things SaaS can’t: data ownership (the files live on disks you control), cost predictability (a one-time setup vs. recurring per-seat fees that grow with your household or team), and longevity (open-source means the app keeps working even if the maintainers move on, since you can pin a working version). The trade-off is that you take on the operational work of running a server, applying updates, and handling backups.

What hardware do you need

Most self-hosted apps run comfortably on modest hardware — a Raspberry Pi 4, a mini PC, a NAS with Docker support, or a small VPS is usually enough for personal or family use. CPU and RAM requirements scale with how many simultaneous users or how much data you push through HomeGallery. Storage requirements depend on the kind of data you keep; check the README for guidance on data retention.

Where to go from here

• Browse the full self-hosted app directory
• Compare self-hosted alternatives side-by-side
• DevOps roadmap — learn the skills to run your own server