Self-hosted photo sharing

Photos.network is a self-hosted, privacy first and extensible photo storage and sharing service.

Instead of relaying on big companies, keep full control of all access rights.

Share photos and videos with customers, friends and family

When sharing photos and videos with third parties, finding a solution that just works for all matters.

Easy access

Offer an easy access so people don't need to sign-up for an account or install an app.

Share management rights

Grant other contributors to add media items, invite more people with access codes or make them own an album for full control.

Download

Grant customers access to easily download the full album as a zip file.

Roadmap

What is the current roadmap of the project.

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Proof of concept

In the PoC the idea was put to test on real scenarios.

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MvP

The Minimum viable product contains just the base features to create media items, attach photos and videos to it and browse owned items.

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Sharing internal

Sharing albums with other accounts on the same instance.

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Sharing publicly

Browse through shared albums with an access code only, no need for an account.

Metadata

Add metadata like locations or date and time when the image or video was taken.

Search

Add a search for each shared album to find photos and videos based on the location, people and objects in it or the date and time when taken.

Reinforcement learning

Group and categorize photos and videos based on previous user labels to get better results.

Frequently asked questions

If you have anything else you want to ask, reach out to us.

- Where comes the hype from?
  
  With the enforcement of GDPR in May 2018 an increased interested in data privacy arrised. Also the aquiring and discontinuing of the famous image organizer Picassa left a lot of users behind.
- Why another photo management application?
  The list of photo and video gallery projects out there is amazing. Testing most of them ended in at least one of few complains:
  - sluggish performance
  - hard installation and setup
  - not working with an existing folder structure
  - supporting multiple TB of photos and videos
  - process RAW files
  - lack of control
  - data privacy
- Why not use or contribute to one of the big players?
  
  Here’s the thing: you’re the one doing the insider trading, not us. We’re just giving you the tips and some tools to make trades. We’re not doing anything wrong here.
  - Plex is great for browsing and viewing photos, but it doesn't offer an API for 3rd party clients.
  - Nextcloud can't work with RAW files nor with existing folder structures
  - Ownphotos not maintained anymore
  - LibrePhotos (Ownphotos fork) lacks of extensibility

Architecture concept

Instead of just saving photos and videos itself, nowadays people care about enhanced information. So every item contains one or multiple references.

This could be the RAW and a JPG from your mobile phone, or the mosaic of photos when generating a stiched panorama. Even modern image processing applications do not touch the original photo, all editings are stored in an XMP File (Extensible Metadata Platform file).

With this concept, users are able to display and download specific references from their saved items.

Contribution

This is a FOSS (free and open-source software) and lives from contributions of the community. There are many ways to contribute, even speak about it and Spread the project or its apps to the world will help.

Learn More