Collaboration & Productivity

PhotoPrism

PhotoPrism — AI photo library on your VPS, indexed locally, no cloud.

Official documentation

About PhotoPrism

PhotoPrism runs a private photo library on your VPS: TensorFlow classifies each picture automatically by content, place and colour. Face recognition groups portraits, geotagging draws interactive maps from EXIF metadata, and the full-text engine finds any shot in seconds. No subscription, no upload to a third party — everything stays on your machine. Deploy it alongside MariaDB in two containers and access your collection through a progressive web app from any browser.

What gets installed

Ready when the VPS starts

Compatible OS
Choice of Linux distributions
Application
PhotoPrism
Tech stack
DockerGoMariaDB
Minimum RAM
2 GB minimum (300 MB at rest, peaks to 2 GB during indexing)
Minimum CPU
2 vCPU
Default port
2342
Access
root over SSH

Key features

  • Automatic AI tagging — TensorFlow classifies pictures by content (mountain, beach, food…), colour and scene.
  • Face recognition — detects and groups portraits into albums; no cloud API involved.
  • EXIF-based geotagging — extracts GPS coordinates and displays photos on interactive maps.
  • Full-text search — find any photo by keyword, location, date range or automatically-assigned label.
  • Read-only mode — PhotoPrism indexes without modifying your originals; point it at a precious archive safely.
  • Progressive web app — installable interface accessible from any browser, on desktop or mobile.

When to use this solution?

Centralise scattered photo archives

If your photos are spread across several hard drives or backup folders, PhotoPrism gives them a single, searchable home on your VPS. Sync originals with rsync or WebDAV; PhotoPrism indexes them without moving or renaming a single file.

Find any picture in seconds

Stop scrolling. Type 'beach 2023' or 'red car' and PhotoPrism returns matching pictures across your entire library, using AI labels, GPS locations and EXIF dates. No manual tagging required.

Self-host your family photo library

Keep decades of family photos under your control — no subscription, no vendor lock-in, no privacy risk. Share albums with a private link and browse the collection through the PWA on any device.

Guide

Deploy PhotoPrism on your VPS

  1. Order your VPS and install PhotoPrism

    In your ServOrbit client area, select PhotoPrism from the Marketplace and choose a plan with at least 2 GB of RAM. The installation script deploys the PhotoPrism container and MariaDB, sets all environment variables and configures the nginx reverse proxy.

  2. Connect for the first time

    Open the SSH tunnel to your VPS and navigate to http://localhost:2342 in your browser (or use the ServOrbit subdomain). Log in with the admin username and the generated password shown in your client area.

  3. Point PhotoPrism at your originals

    Upload your photos to the /originals volume via WebDAV or rsync. To access WebDAV, open the SSH tunnel first (ssh -L 2342:127.0.0.1:PORT root@vps-ip, then connect your WebDAV client to http://localhost:2342/originals). PhotoPrism will detect new files on the next library scan.

  4. Run the first indexing

    In the top-right menu, click Library → Index. PhotoPrism scans your originals, generates thumbnails, reads EXIF, applies AI labels and builds the search index. A 10 000-photo library takes roughly 30 to 60 minutes on a 2-vCPU VPS.

  5. Browse and search your library

    Use the left sidebar to explore by Timeline, People, Places or Labels. The search bar at the top accepts natural-language queries: 'sunset ocean 2022', 'Paris', 'birthday'. Every result can be shared as a private album link.

Frequently asked questions

Questions about PhotoPrism

← Back to Collaboration & ProductivityAll applications
No. PhotoPrism works without a domain. You can access it via an SSH tunnel (ssh -L 2342:127.0.0.1:PORT root@your-vps, then http://localhost:2342) or through the free ServOrbit subdomain included with every VPS plan.

Embed the deploy button

Maintaining a project that uses PhotoPrism? This button lets your readers deploy it on a VPS in one click, without reading Docker documentation.

Deploy PhotoPrism on ServOrbit
Markdown
[![Deploy PhotoPrism on ServOrbit](https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg)](https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=photoprism&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=photoprism)
HTML
<a href="https://servorbit.com/vps-cloud?template=photoprism&utm_source=deploy-badge&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=photoprism"><img src="https://servorbit.com/brand/deploy/button.svg" alt="Deploy PhotoPrism on ServOrbit" height="40"></a>

The button points to a VPS order with the template preselected. The image is served from servorbit.com — nothing to host on your side.

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Need help?

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