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Beautiful self-hosted photo galleries. No subscriptions, no lock-in, deploys in minutes.

162 starsGo

DD Photos – open-source photo album site generator (Go and SvelteKit)

by dougdonohoe·Mar 10, 2026·71 points·22 comments
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AI Analysis

●MidCozySlick

Static photo gallery generator when Immich and PhotoPrism already handle this server-side.

Strengths
  • •Zero server-side code deploys to Apache, S3, or any static file host.
  • •PhotoSwipe lightbox with keyboard navigation and swipe gestures on mobile.
  • •WebP resizing via Go CLI produces fast-loading galleries under 20 seconds.
Weaknesses
  • •Manual folder export workflow from Lightroom or Apple Photos required.
  • •Static gallery generators like Thumbsup and Photoview already exist.
Category
Open Source
Target Audience

Photographers sharing albums with friends and family

Similar To

Thumbsup · Photoview · Piwigo

Post Description

I was frustrated with photo sharing sites. Apple's iCloud shared albums take 20+ seconds to load, and everything else comes with ads, cumbersome UIs, or social media distractions. I just want to share photos with friends and family: fast, mobile-friendly, distraction-free.

So I built DD Photos. You export photos from whatever you already use (Lightroom, Apple Photos, etc.) into folders, run `photogen` (a Go CLI) to resize them to WebP and generate JSON indexes, then deploy the SvelteKit static site anywhere that serves files. Apache, S3, whatever. No server-side code, no database.

Built over several weeks with heavy use of Claude Code, which I found genuinely useful for this kind of full-stack project spanning Go, SvelteKit/TypeScript, Apache config, Docker, and Playwright tests. Happy to discuss that experience too.

Live example: https://photos.donohoe.info Repo: https://github.com/dougdonohoe/ddphotos

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