Damselfly
Fast server-based photo management system for large collections of images. Includes face detection, face & object recognition, powerful search, and EXIF Keyword tagging. Runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Slowing: no commits in the last 90 days, last push Sep 2026.
Also an alternative to Google Photos.
At a glance
Damselfly quick facts
- Health score
- 53/100 SLOWING
- Stars
- 1,796
- Last commit
- 1 month ago (Sep 2026)
- Latest release
- 4.5.3, Jan 2026
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
Top alternatives to Damselfly
Full rankings: Google Photos alternatives
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Damselfly is a server-based Digital Photograph Management system. Damselfly is designed to manage a large, folder-based collection of photographs, with a particular focus on fast search and keyword-tagging workflow."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Damselfly scores 53/100, #20 of 25 in Photo Galleries: 0 commits in the last 90 days earn 0.0 of 35 points, the latest release (4.5.3, 10 months ago) earns 19.9 of 25, 1,796 stars add 13.0 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and Docker support adds the final 10. That places it in the slowing band (40 to 69). The biggest shortfall is commit activity, worth 35.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity biggest shortfall 0.0 / 35
0 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 19.9 / 25
4.5.3 released 10 months ago
- Stars 13.0 / 20
1.8k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 10.0 / 10
Docker image or Compose file available
Commit activity
- 0
- Last 90 days
- 60
- Last 12 months
- 1 month ago
- Last push
Ranked #20 of 25 tools in Photo Galleries by health , between Piwigo (#19) and HomeGallery (#21) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Docker, C#, .NET |
| Latest release | 4.5.3 · 10 months ago |
| Stars | 1,796 |
| Open issues | 182 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | webreaper/damselfly ↗ |
Damselfly vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a comparison page or a category with Damselfly (Photo Galleries), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immich | 100 | 118k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| Ente | 98 | 30k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| PhotoPrism | 98 | 40k | AGPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| LibrePhotos | 96 | 8.1k | MIT | today |
| Lychee | 95 | 4.3k | MIT | yesterday |
| Damselfly (this tool) | 53 | 1.8k | GPL-3.0 | 1 month ago |
Damselfly: common questions
What does Damselfly replace?
Repoly lists Damselfly as an open-source alternative to Google Photos. Each comparison page ranks every alternative by the same health score, so you can see where Damselfly stands against the others.
Is Damselfly still maintained?
Damselfly had 0 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 1 month ago; the latest tagged release, 4.5.3, is from 10 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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