Lychee is a self-hosted photo management system that runs on a web server with PHP and MySQL, allowing you to upload, organize, and share photos through a web interface.
The tool solves the problem of managing personal photo collections without relying on third-party cloud services. It provides a native application-like experience for photo management directly in the browser. Installation requires only a web server with PHP 5.5 or later and a MySQL database. The system stores all photos securely on your own infrastructure, and Lychee handles image processing through Imagick when available for faster uploads and better thumbnail quality. The interface includes keyboard shortcuts for efficient navigation, support for sharing individual images via Twitter Cards and Open Graph metadata, and the ability to import photos from Dropbox.
Lychee suits developers and users who want complete control over their photo library and prefer self-hosting to cloud alternatives. It works well for personal photo collections and small-to-medium shared galleries. The project includes a plugin system that allows custom scripts to execute on specific actions, enabling extensibility for particular workflows. Docker builds are available for containerized deployment. The tool is ready to use immediately after installation, though developers can rebuild CSS and JavaScript files if they wish to contribute modifications.
The project moved to a community organization in 2018 to enable broader contributions beyond the original creator. Development activity shows ongoing maintenance with documentation covering installation, updates, settings configuration, and keyboard shortcuts. The codebase supports optional image processing enhancements and provides configuration options both through a web interface and direct database editing.
