Permafiles vs Piwigo

Permafiles is managed cloud storage built on the open-source Nextcloud platform, for files, photos, and folders. Users can share family photos and set permissions controlling who may access, edit, or download them. Shared links can also have passwords and expiration dates. Nextcloud Office supports online editing of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, while Nextcloud Talk provides calls with up to 10 people. The Nextcloud Mail app can connect to Gmail and other email services through IMAP and SMTP. Sync clients are listed for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, with web access as well. Security measures described include HTTPS/TLS, two-factor authentication, brute-force and antivirus protection, and optional end-to-end encryption for supported folders and use cases. Permafiles says its server infrastructure is hosted in Germany, while customer file data is stored with third-party S3-compatible storage in the United Kingdom. It also says it makes daily offsite backups and can restore a complete server failure within a couple of hours. The free plan includes 5 GB. Paid plans range from £1.99 per month for 64 GB to £27.99 per month for 3 TB.

Piwigo is open-source photo management software for organizing and sharing photo and video collections. Albums, sub-albums, tags, metadata, and search help structure a library; roles, groups, and permissions let users publish galleries or restrict access. The software can be extended with plugins, themes, settings, and custom code, and both cloud and self-hosted versions provide API access.

Piwigo Cloud is hosted in France on Piwigo’s own infrastructure; the company says customer data is not transferred to the United States. Android and iOS apps support browsing libraries, editing photo details, and uploading photos and videos. Piwigo describes automatic tag and description generation and OCR text extraction, with its AI hosted on its own infrastructure. Users can export photos, videos, and metadata without charge and switch between Cloud and self-hosted deployments. The self-hosted plan is free. Cloud Pro costs €32 a month, billed annually and excluding VAT, and includes 10GB storage, one administrator, unlimited users, and no contributors. Other listed plans vary in storage, formats, contributors, and support. A Cloud subscription is limited to one Piwigo.