Lychee

Name: Lychee
Brand: Lychee

Self‑hosted photo gallery for photographers and hobbyists

softwarePhoto Organizers Photo Management Self-hostedEasy-to-use

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Our Verdict

Best for

Private photo collectors

Skip if

Pro editors needing built-in tools

What is Lychee?

Lychee is an open‑source, server‑based photo management solution that lets you organize, share, and view your images from any web browser. It runs on your own hosting environment, giving you full control over privacy and storage. Designed with simplicity in mind, Lychee offers an intuitive interface for uploading, tagging, and creating albums, while supporting high‑resolution previews and easy sharing links. It’s free to use and maintained by a vibrant community.

SpecificationsAI-estimated

deploymentSelf-hosted

open source✅ Yes

github stars4,245

api available✅ Yes

support optionsGitHub Issues, Community Forum

primary languagePHP

Key Features of Lychee

Facial recognition groups photos by the people in them, included in the free edition

Smart albums surface recent, starred, public and on-this-day photos automatically

Decodes EXIF data and plots GPS-tagged photos on a map for location browsing

Justified, masonry, square and timeline album layouts, each configurable per album

Hotlink protection and AES-secured image links stop photos being embedded elsewhere

Password-protected albums, per-user upload quotas and nested albums within albums

Chunked uploads handle large files, with zip download of whole albums

Worker mode processes imports and thumbnails asynchronously in the background

Use Cases for Lychee

Portfolio Showcase

Photographers can host a sleek online portfolio without relying on third‑party platforms.

Family Photo Archive

Hobbyists can store and share family albums securely on their own server.

Event Gallery

Create temporary galleries for events, allowing guests to view and download photos.

Collaborative Curation

Teams can tag and organize images together using shared access links.

Pros & Cons of Lychee

Pros

Fully self‑hosted, giving complete data control
Free and open‑source with active community support
Simple, clean web UI that requires no client software
Easy to set up on standard LAMP/LEMP stacks

Cons

Requires a PHP server with a MySQL/MariaDB database rather than a single binary
No native mobile app, only browser access
Statistics, watermarking, user groups and anonymous uploads are locked to the paid EUR 5/month Supporter Edition

Frequently Asked Questions

What server requirements does Lychee need?

Lychee needs a PHP web stack with a MySQL/MariaDB database. Installing from source requires PHP 8.4 or newer plus Composer and npm; official Docker images are also published.

Can I restrict access to certain albums?

Yes, you can set password protection or make albums private for logged‑in users only.

Is there a way to import photos from other services?

Lychee supports bulk upload from local files; external imports can be scripted via its API.

How is support provided?

Support is community-driven through the official Discord server and GitHub Issues.

Pricing Overview

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Freemium

Detailed plans are not listed. Visit the official website for pricing information.

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