Lychee vs PhotoPrism
Lychee
lycheeorg.github.io
PhotoPrism
photoprism.appSide by side
| Figure | Lychee | PhotoPrism |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €5/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 7 |
| Spec score · Photo Sharing Software | 9.1 (#3) | 8.5 (#10) |
| Spec score · Photo Management Software | 9.1 (#5) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Audience | The maker describes the free edition as an optimal choice for personal use and the Pro add-on as aimed at professional photographers and businesses selling pictures. | The maker describes PhotoPrism Pro as providing organizations additional configuration and deployment options on their own infrastructure, backed by its team. |
| Metadata | Lychee supports and displays EXIF and IPTC metadata. | It extracts and merges Exif, XMP, and other metadata, including Google Photos JSON. |
| Privacy | LycheeOrg says the gallery ships without analytics or other tracking mechanisms. | PhotoPrism says it will not sell user data or share it with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, or Apple unless users intentionally upload files to those services. |
| Security | The maker recommends putting production deployments behind a reverse proxy with TLS. | The editions comparison lists two-factor login, app passwords, client credentials, session monitoring, and hardened security for Plus. |
| Sharing | Albums can be shared with specific users or made public, and the homepage says albums can be password-protected. | Users can share albums with secret links that can optionally expire, without recipients installing an app or registering. |
| Support | The maker points users to documentation, GitHub Issues, and Discord for help. | Community users can get help through public forums and community chat; Plus includes private chat, and team plans list email and chat or SLA support. |
Plans
PhotoPrism
- CommunityFree
- Essentials€2 a year
- Plus€6 a year
- PikaPods$6.50 a month
- Starter€79 a month
- Business€219 a month
- Enterprise€1,499 a month
In their own words
PhotoPrism
PhotoPrism is a photo and video manager for browsing, organizing, and sharing collections, available in the cloud or self-hosted. It classifies images by content and location and recognizes faces; combined search filters and six high-resolution world maps help users explore them. The app indexes, displays, and converts common image, video, and RAW formats, including JPEG, PNG, HEIF, HEIC, MP4, MOV, WebP, and WebM. It also combines Exif, XMP, and other metadata, including Google Photos JSON. Albums can be shared through secret links that may expire, without recipients needing an account or app. PhotoSync can back up phones, and WebDAV clients such as Finder and Windows Explorer can connect. The Community Edition runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows via Docker, with other listed options including Raspberry Pi and NAS devices. Platforms include Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, web, and self-hosting. Community is free; Essentials is €2/mo billed annually. PhotoPrism is based in Berlin, Germany.