Mejiro
A self-hosted PHP web app for instantly publishing photo albums with EXIF data, maps, and search.
What is Mejiro?
Pellicola is a self-hosted PHP web application that functions as a pastebin for photos, allowing users to instantly publish photo albums without a database. It automatically organizes photos, displays EXIF data, and supports geolocation mapping, search, and multiple albums. The project solves the need for a simple, privacy-focused photo gallery that photographers can deploy on their own servers.
Photographers, hobbyists, and developers who want a lightweight, self-hosted solution for sharing photo collections with full control over data and no external dependencies.
Developers choose Pellicola for its extreme simplicity, lack of dependencies, and GDPR compliance. It offers instant publishing with rich features like EXIF display, maps, and search while being entirely self-contained and easy to deploy on any PHP server.
Overview
Pastebin for your photos
Use Cases
Best For
- Self-hosting personal photo galleries without a database
- Shooting photo albums with geotagging and EXIF data display
- Creating lightweight, privacy-focused photography portfolios
- Deploying a simple photo-sharing app on a Raspberry Pi or low-resource server
- Publishing photo collections with automatic RSS feed generation
- Managing multiple albums with search and pagination features
Not Ideal For
- High-traffic websites requiring scalable photo databases with user management
- Teams needing collaborative features like multi-user uploads or role-based permissions
- Projects demanding extensive theme customization or plugin ecosystems beyond basic CSS tweaks
- Environments where PHP is not available or preferred for deployment
Pros & Cons
Pros
Runs on any PHP server without installation or a database, as emphasized in the README's simplicity feature, making it easy to deploy on low-resource hardware like Raspberry Pi.
GDPR-compliant with no external dependencies or user data collection, ensuring full ownership and control over photos and metadata, as stated in the self-contained design.
Automatically extracts and displays EXIF data, shows geolocation maps via OpenStreetMap, and supports RAW file downloads, catering specifically to photographers' needs for metadata and organization.
Detects browser language and allows localization via .ini files, with automatic language-specific description files, making it accessible to a global audience without extra setup.
Cons
No built-in user accounts, authentication, or multi-user support beyond a simple download password, limiting use cases for collaborative or secure sharing environments.
Relies on directories and files without a database, which can lead to performance bottlenecks with large photo collections, as pagination and search are handled through PHP file operations.
Installation instructions prioritize Debian/Ubuntu with scripts, while other systems require manual Git cloning, ZIP extraction, or Docker setup, adding steps for non-Linux servers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
LibrePhotosA self-hosted open source photo management service.
Immich KioskHighly configurable slideshows for displaying Immich assets on browsers and devices.
sigalyet another simple static gallery generator
PhotofieldA self-hosted non-invasive single-binary photo gallery with a focus on speed and simplicity.
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