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Open source photo management with album hierarchies, granular permissions, 200+ plugins, and hosting that stays in Europe, self-hosted or managed cloud.
French open source photo management, self-hosted or on an EU cloud, since 2002.
Piwigo is a French open source photo management platform that has been organizing photo collections since 2002, from family archives to institutional libraries with hundreds of thousands of images. Album hierarchies, batch management, and granular permissions per user and group make it equally at home for a family and a museum.
Run it two ways: self-host the GPL code for free, or use the managed cloud that Piwigo states is developed and hosted in Europe. Beyond photos, it handles videos, audio, and documents, effectively serving as a lightweight digital asset manager, and an ecosystem of 200+ plugins and themes adapts it to almost any workflow.
Key features:
- Album hierarchies that stay navigable at hundreds of thousands of photos
- Granular permissions controlling exactly who sees which albums
- Batch management for tagging, moving, and editing at scale
- 200+ plugins and themes for customization without forking
- Videos, audio, and documents supported alongside photos
- Web-based with mobile apps for browsing and uploads
- Free self-hosted version under GPL, or managed European cloud
Piwigo is operated by PigoLabs SAS, registered in the Nantes area, France, with cloud hosting in Europe and clients including BNP Paribas and Thomas Cook. Two decades of continuous development make it one of the most battle-tested Google Photos alternatives in Europe.
Ideal for families, associations, and organizations that want their photo library on European soil, self-hosted or managed.
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European alternative to
Head-to-head comparisons
See how Piwigo stacks up side-by-side against the non-EU incumbent on jurisdiction, GDPR, pricing, and features.
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