Photoview

Simple, free self-hosted photo gallery that reads straight from your existing folders.

Open sourceSelf-hostablePhoto storage and management apps

Verified facts: 3 of 3
Alternatives ranked: 4
Approved reviews: 0
Visits sent from here: 0

About Photoview

Photoview is a lightweight, open-source photo gallery for self-hosted servers. You point it at a folder structure on your server and it turns the folders into albums, generating thumbnails and showing photos and videos in a fast web interface, without moving or duplicating your files. It supports RAW formats by converting them with darktable, reads Exif data, shows a map of geotagged photos, and offers face recognition and public share links. Multiple users can each see their own paths. It runs in Docker and has a simple iOS app. Photoview is free and open source, and nothing leaves your server. It is less ambitious than Immich or PhotoPrism: there is no automatic phone backup, editing or advanced search, so it is best for people who already manage their photos as folders and just want a nice way to browse and share them.

Best for: People who keep photos in folders and want a light web gallery on top.

What works

Uses your existing folder structure
RAW support through darktable
Light enough for small home servers

Why people leave

No automatic phone backup
Limited search and no editing
Slower development than bigger projects

Top Photoview alternatives

See all 4

1
Lychee
Polished self-hosted gallery with upload-based albums.
66.5
2
PhotoPrism
Adds AI tagging, search and a richer interface.
62.6
3
Immich
Adds automatic phone backup and Google Photos-style features.
59.6
4
LibrePhotos
Adds face, place and event grouping.
57.2

Why people left Photoview

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Photoview: common questions

Is Photoview free?

Yes. Photoview is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.

Is Photoview open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at photoview/photoview. You can also run it on your own server.

What platforms does Photoview run on?

Photoview is available for Web, iOS and Self-hosted.

What are the best alternatives to Photoview?

The highest-ranked Photoview alternatives right now are Lychee, PhotoPrism and Immich. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 4 Photoview alternatives

Photoview facts

3 of 3 verified

Price: Free and open source; Checked Oct 25, 2026photoview.github.io(opens source in a new tab); “Free and Open-Source Photoview is completely free and the code is open for everyone to look at and modify.”
RAW support: Via darktable; Checked Oct 25, 2026photoview.github.io(opens source in a new tab); “RAW Support Darktable is used under the hood to convert RAW images, and thus supports many common formats.”
Privacy: Nothing leaves your server; Checked Oct 25, 2026photoview.github.io(opens source in a new tab); “Private Your media is valuable, with Photoview nothing leaves your server.”