LibrePhotos

_{Mockup designed by rawpixel.com / Freepik}

A self-hosted, open-source photo management service with automatic face recognition, object detection, and semantic search — powered by modern machine learning.

• Stable demo is available here: https://demo1.librephotos.com/ . User is demo, password is demo1234 (with sample images).
• Latest development demo is available here: https://demo2.librephotos.com/ (same user/password)
• You can watch development videos on Niaz Faridani-Rad's channel
• You can join our Discord.

Repository layout

This is a monorepo that consolidates what was previously five separate repositories.

Path	What it is	Previous repo
apps/backend/	Django 5 API, machine-learning pipelines, background jobs	librephotos
apps/frontend/	React 18 + Vite web client, i18next localization	librephotos-frontend
apps/mobile/	React Native mobile client (Android)	librephotos-mobile
apps/docs/	Docusaurus site published to https://docs.librephotos.com	librephotos.docs
deploy/	Dockerfiles, Compose configs, proxy, Kubernetes manifests	librephotos-docker

Commit history from all five repositories is preserved — git log --follow apps/<app>/<file> works across the move.

Installation

Step-by-step installation instructions are available in our documentation.

System Requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
RAM	4 GB	8 GB+
Storage	10 GB (plus your photo library)	SSD recommended
CPU	2 cores	4+ cores
OS	Any Docker-compatible OS	Linux

Note: Machine learning features (face recognition, scene classification, image captioning) are memory-intensive. 8 GB+ RAM is strongly recommended for smooth operation.

Features

• Support for all types of photos including raw photos
• Support for videos
• Timeline view
• Scans pictures on the file system
• Multiuser support
• Generate albums based on events like "Thursday in Berlin"
• Face recognition / Face classification
• Reverse geocoding
• Object / Scene detection
• Semantic image search
• Search by metadata

Tech Stack

Backend

• Framework: Django 5 with Django REST Framework
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Task Queue: Django-Q2
• Image Conversion: ImageMagick
• Video Conversion: FFmpeg
• Exif Support: ExifTool

Frontend

• UI: React 18 with TypeScript
• Build Tool: Vite
• Component Library: Mantine
• Routing: TanStack Router
• Data Fetching: TanStack Query
• Maps: MapLibre GL
• Internationalization: i18next

Machine Learning

• Face detection: face_recognition
• Face classification/clustering: scikit-learn and hdbscan
• Image captioning: im2txt
• Scene classification: places365
• Reverse geocoding: geopy

Infrastructure

• Deployment: Docker & Docker Compose
• Reverse Proxy: Nginx

API Documentation

After starting LibrePhotos, interactive API docs are available at:

• Swagger UI: http://localhost:3000/api/swagger
• ReDoc: http://localhost:3000/api/redoc

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md and the per-app READMEs:

• Backend
• Frontend
• Mobile
• Docs site

The Docker Compose-based dev environment lives in deploy/compose/ and is described in the development install guide.

How to help out

• ⭐ Star this repository if you like this project!
• 🚀 Developing: Get started in less than 30 minutes by following this guide. Also see our CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed development setup, code quality standards, and PR guidelines.
• 🗒️ Documentation: Improving the documentation is as simple as submitting a pull request here
• 🧪 Testing: If you want to help find bugs, use the dev tag and update it regularly. If you find a bug, open an issue.
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Outreach: Talk about this project with other people and help them to get started too!
• 🌐 Translations: Make LibrePhotos accessible to more people with weblate.
• 💸 Donate to the developers of LibrePhotos

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.