Piwigo Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Piwigo hosting on xCloud gives you your own self-hosted photo gallery for the web, built for individuals, teams and organisations. Deploy Piwigo 16.4.0 and xCloud runs the official image with a private MariaDB 11.8.3 database, shows you the generated database details, mounts two persistent volumes and publishes the gallery over HTTPS in minutes. You then complete Piwigo's own installer to create the first administrator.

Deploy your Piwigo

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Piwigo?

Self-hosted Piwigo is open source photo gallery software for the web. Upstream says it is designed for organisations, teams and individuals to manage a photo library, and it needs a web server, PHP, a MySQL or MariaDB database and ImageMagick (recommended) or PHP GD. It is a self-hosted alternative to photo-sharing services such as Flickr, and the template README lists its licence as GPL v2.0.

On xCloud the template runs the official Piwigo 16.4.0 image, pinned by digest, with a private MariaDB 11.8.3 container. Two named volumes hold the application and gallery data, plus the database, and only the web interface is published. xCloud does not create an administrator: you finish Piwigo's installer with the displayed database values and choose the admin details yourself, inside Piwigo.

From Sign-Up to a Live Piwigo Gallery In Just 3 Easy Steps

Self-hosting a photo library normally means a container, a database, a domain and a certificate before a single album exists. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Piwigo from the OneClick catalog. Choose your site title, domain and target server, and confirm the timezone — there is nothing else to fill in before deployment.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the official Piwigo 16.4.0 image, pinned by immutable digest, alongside a private MariaDB 11.8.3 service, and publish it over HTTPS on your domain.
Step 03
Complete Piwigo's Installer
Open the generated HTTPS URL, enter the database host, name, user and password xCloud displays into Piwigo's own installer, then create the first administrator username, password and email. Create an album and upload a sample photo to confirm the gallery privacy settings.

Everything Piwigo Does, On Your Own Server

Piwigo runs in full here — albums, tags, metadata, permissions, themes and plugins, on infrastructure you control.

Centralized Photo Library
Centralize photos and organize them with albums, sub-albums, tags and metadata.
Browsable, Access-Controlled Gallery
Publish a browsable gallery while controlling access for individual users and groups.
Themes And Plugins
Customize the gallery with Piwigo themes and plugins to match how you want to present media.
Private Database
MariaDB stays private with no host port; only the Piwigo web interface is proxied over HTTPS.
Restart-Safe Gallery Data
Uploaded galleries, application configuration, users, albums, metadata and permissions persist across an xCloud Restart on two declared volumes.
Pinned, Reproducible Image
Start new installations from immutable Piwigo and MariaDB image digests rather than floating tags.

Everything You Need To Run Your Photo Library 24/7

Managed hosting for Piwigo, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Piwigo 16.4.0 deployed instantly
Official pinned image digest
Private MariaDB, no public port
Guided first-admin setup in Piwigo
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Piwigo

Run photo gallery software for your own pictures
A photographer publishes albums on their own domain, controlling who can browse them, instead of keeping their portfolio in a third-party photo service's account.
Share event photos with a club or team
An organisation uploads pictures from events into albums that members browse, with the files and database held on a Cloud VPS the organisation controls.
Move off a photo-sharing service
Someone leaving a hosted photo service sets up Piwigo on their own server and uploads their library there, accepting the 32 MB per-upload limit of the bundled web server.
Host a family photo library
A family keeps its pictures in albums on a server it owns, uploading in smaller batches and backing up the data and database volumes together.

Piwigo vs Alternatives

Flickr: Choose Piwigo as a Flickr alternative when you want your own gallery site. Upstream describes photo gallery software for organisations, teams and individuals; this is a category comparison, not a Flickr feature match.
Lychee: In a Piwigo vs Lychee comparison, Lychee is a self-hosted photo-management peer with its own OneClick page. Piwigo is the web gallery that runs on PHP with a MySQL or MariaDB database.
PhotoPrism: PhotoPrism is another self-hosted photo option with its own OneClick page. Piwigo is web gallery software that organises uploaded pictures into albums on PHP and MySQL or MariaDB.
Immich: Immich is another self-hosted photo option on this site. Piwigo is for publishing and browsing galleries on the web, and its template floor is 1 GB of RAM and 1 CPU core.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Piwigo hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom for a larger photo library and more concurrent users.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Cloud VPS 24 GB

Piwigo alongside a larger self-hosted media stack.

$84.99per month

24 GB RAM
8 vCPU cores
300 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Piwigo itself is free and open source.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Piwigo on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

1 server
10 sites

Start free

Starter

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

6–10 servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

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Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

11+ servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

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Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Photo Library?

Piwigo on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Is Piwigo free and open source?

Yes. Piwigo is open source photo gallery software, and the template README lists its licence as the GNU General Public License v2.0, so the gallery software carries no fee. xCloud bills for the dedicated Cloud VPS. Piwigo also runs a cloud service of its own, which this is not.

What does Piwigo need to run?

Upstream lists a web server, PHP 7.4 or newer, MySQL 5 or greater or an equivalent MariaDB, and ImageMagick or PHP GD. This template supplies the official Piwigo image and a private MariaDB 11.8.3 container, so you do not install any of those yourself.

How much RAM does a Piwigo cloud server need?

Piwigo's template floor is 1024 MB of RAM, 1 CPU core and 10 GB of disk, and the 6 GB Cloud VPS is sold on top of that for a Piwigo cloud gallery. Thumbnail generation, videos, plugins and large galleries can need substantially more CPU, memory and storage.

Can I run Piwigo with Docker?

Yes, and this template does it for you: the official Piwigo 16.4.0 image and a private MariaDB 11.8.3 container, both pinned by digest, with two named volumes behind HTTPS. It is Piwigo Docker hosting without writing the compose file.

Docker hosting on xCloud

How do I back up Piwigo?

Take one backup of piwigo_data and piwigo_database together, with the app stopped or from one consistent snapshot. The data volume holds code, configuration, plugins, themes and uploaded galleries; the database holds users, albums and metadata. Verify sign-in and thumbnails after a restore.

Backups in xCloud

How do I update Piwigo?

Updates are deliberate. The Piwigo and MariaDB images are pinned by digest, so you upgrade by adopting a newer xCloud template version. Back up both volumes first and read the Piwigo release notes. The official image copies newer Piwigo files into the data volume, and database migrations may not be reversible.

How do I create the first Piwigo administrator?

xCloud creates no administrator. Open your URL and finish Piwigo's installer with the database host db and the generated name, user and password from your credentials. Then choose your own admin username, password and email, and do it promptly so the installer is not left open.

What is the Piwigo upload size limit?

The official image's built-in web server caps a single upload at 32 MB, regardless of xCloud's proxy limit. Larger originals, such as RAW photos or video, are rejected before PHP sees them, so resize or transcode first, or upload in smaller batches.

Can I import my Flickr photos into Piwigo?

This page makes no import claim. The template installs no plugins for you, and the 32 MB per-upload limit applies to anything you upload. Test a small batch on your own domain, and check the result in your albums, before moving a whole library.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.