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Ownphotos
Self-hosted photo management with AI-powered face and object recognition
Django and React photo gallery with automatic face detection, object recognition, event album generation, and map-based browsing. Docker-ready alternative for managing personal photo libraries.
Overview
Overview
Ownphotos is a self-hosted photo management platform designed for users seeking control over their personal photo libraries. Built with a Django backend and React frontend, it combines modern web technologies with machine learning capabilities to organize and search photos intelligently.
Core Capabilities
The platform automatically detects and clusters faces, allowing manual labeling and training of classifiers to identify people across your entire library. Object detection makes photos searchable by content, while reverse geocoding enables location-based browsing on an interactive map. The system generates event albums with contextual titles like "Thursday in Berlin" and supports custom album creation.
Technical Foundation
Ownphotos leverages face_recognition for facial detection, scikit-learn for classification, and densecap/places365 for object recognition. The architecture includes backend caching, JWT authentication, and a virtualized React frontend for performance. Docker deployment simplifies setup with separate containers for frontend and backend services.
Important Note: Development has migrated to LibrePhotos. This repository serves as an archive of the original project, which was in early development stages. Users seeking active development and support should explore the LibrePhotos successor.
Highlights
AI-powered face detection with trainable classification for automatic person tagging
Object and location-based search with reverse geocoding and map visualization
Automatic event album generation with intelligent contextual naming
Docker-ready deployment with Django REST API and optimized React frontend
Pros
- Comprehensive AI features including face recognition and object detection out of the box
- Self-hosted architecture provides full control over personal photo data
- Docker deployment streamlines installation and configuration
- MIT license allows flexible use and modification
Considerations
- Development has moved to LibrePhotos; this repository is archived
- Was in early development stages with limited stability guarantees
- Requires Mapbox API key for reverse geocoding functionality
- Manual admin configuration required for user scan directories
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Fit guide
Great for
- Users migrating from Google Photos seeking self-hosted alternatives
- Privacy-conscious individuals wanting local control of photo libraries
- Developers interested in studying photo management ML implementations
- Home lab enthusiasts with Docker infrastructure already in place
Not ideal when
- Production deployments requiring active maintenance and updates
- Users expecting plug-and-play setup without technical configuration
- Organizations needing enterprise support and SLAs
- Projects requiring cutting-edge features and ongoing development
How teams use it
Family Photo Archive Organization
Automatically identify family members across decades of photos and browse memories by person, location, or automatically generated events
Travel Photography Management
Visualize photo locations on interactive maps and search by detected landmarks or objects captured during trips
Privacy-Focused Photo Storage
Maintain complete control over personal images without relying on third-party cloud services or data sharing
Machine Learning Experimentation
Study and extend face recognition and object detection implementations in a real-world photo management context
Tech snapshot
Jupyter Notebook78%
Python12%
Lua9%
HTML1%
JavaScript1%
Shell1%
Frequently asked questions
Is Ownphotos still actively developed?
No, development has moved to LibrePhotos. This repository is archived and maintained only for historical reference. Users should migrate to LibrePhotos for active development and support.
What are the hardware requirements for running Ownphotos?
The README does not specify minimum requirements, but face recognition and object detection are computationally intensive. A system with adequate CPU/GPU resources and sufficient storage for your photo library is recommended.
Can I connect Ownphotos to my Nextcloud instance?
Yes, users can configure Nextcloud endpoints in the Dashboard-Library page to scan and copy photos from a specified top-level directory in their Nextcloud account.
How does the face recognition training work?
You manually label some faces in your photos, then the system trains a classifier using scikit-learn to automatically identify and label those people in the rest of your library.
Do I need a Mapbox API key to use Ownphotos?
A Mapbox API key is required for reverse geocoding features that enable location-based search and map visualization. The first 50,000 lookups per month are free.
Project at a glance
Dormant- Stars
- 2,774
- Watchers
- 2,774
- Forks
- 226
LicenseMIT
Repo age8 years old
Last commit3 years ago
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languageJupyter Notebook
Last synced 3 hours ago