Overview
Lychee is a polished, self-hosted photo management application offering grid and album views, drag-and-drop uploads, public/private sharing links, EXIF data display, and multi-user support. It supports a wide range of image and video formats and provides a clean, modern web interface. Deployable as a PHP/Laravel application with Docker support.
Where it falls short of Google Photos
- No automatic mobile backup; photos must be uploaded manually via the web interface
- No AI-based tagging, face recognition, or semantic search
- Some advanced features (smart albums, U2F login) require the paid Supporter Edition
- No video transcoding; video support is limited to direct playback of uploaded files
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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