Paul Nothaft
a7b74bcd87
* fix(external-media): store external paths from the media root (#1163) Importing a second folder into an event silently invalidated every photo already in it. photos.external_relpath was stored relative to events.external_path, and every import overwrites that column — so the older rows were rebased onto the new folder and their originals resolved to paths that do not exist. Nothing errored, and the grid still looked intact: thumbnails are written to local storage during the import while the base path is still correct. Only what needs the original broke — preview generation, the lightbox, downloads — which presents as a gallery that looks slow rather than one that is broken. The reporter had 7547 of 8004 rows pointing into the void and spent a while chasing it as a CPU problem. - external_relpath is now relative to EXTERNAL_MEDIA_ROOT, so a row is self-describing and nothing an admin does to the event afterwards can move an already-imported photo. - migration 187 folds each event's base path into its rows. Where the current resolution is missing on disk it walks up the base path for an ancestor under which the file IS there — the already-rebased case — and where it finds nothing it leaves the row resolving exactly where it resolves today. Skipped entirely when the media root is unmounted, since every file looks missing then. - the fold also runs after a .picpeak restore: knex_migrations is excluded from the archive, so a pre-#1163 backup would otherwise land base-relative rows on a migrated instance. - drops the duplicate-leaf-segment guess in photoResolver. It papered over this same double-prefixing and actively corrupts a root-relative path whose first segment legitimately repeats (base 'Trip', row 'Trip/x.jpg'). * fix(external-media): verify provenance and fold atomically (#1163) External review found four real defects in the fold. Repair could adopt the wrong file. Existence alone was accepted as proof that an ancestor candidate was the row's original — so a row whose file an admin simply deleted would adopt any same-named file one directory up (base `Trip/Sub`, relpath `photo.jpg`, an unrelated `Trip/photo.jpg`), and downloads would then serve a different photo. Worse than a dead link. An ancestor must now also match photos.size_bytes, which the import recorded from the very file the row describes; rows carrying no size are never repaired from an ancestor. The CURRENT base is still accepted on existence alone, because nothing is being inferred there — that is where the row already resolves. The fold was not atomic. Every UPDATE committed independently and the marker came last, so a process killed mid-fold left converted and unconverted rows with no marker — and the next run folded the converted ones a second time, putting every original one directory deeper with no undo. Probing is now a read-only first phase (so a slow cold NAS does not hold a write transaction open), and every rewrite plus the marker commit together. Failed rewrites certified a partial conversion. The per-row catch counted any error as a collision, carried on, and wrote the marker anyway — leaving that row in the old format for a resolver that now reads it differently. It also could not tell a genuine duplicate from a SQLite lock or I/O fault. Target collisions are now resolved in the planning phase, where they can be identified honestly, and a write that fails rolls the whole fold back. Restore ordering. The fold ran after the face requeue, with the worker live — so a worker could claim an external row while it was still base-relative, resolve it against the wrong path, and burn it to 'failed', a state only an explicit Re-scan clears. The fold now runs first, for the same reason the requeue already sat after restoreFiles. * fix(external-media): close the fold's remaining stranding paths (#1163) Second review round, three findings. A collision loser was left stranded. When an event imported one file through both `Trip` and `Trip/Sub`, two rows folded to the same path and the loser was skipped — keeping a base-relative value that the root-only resolver then reads as `<root>/<relpath>`, permanently wrong, with the marker claiming conversion was complete. It is a duplicate by construction, so it now goes through migration 186's deleteDuplicatePhotos, which reparents its feedback and marks and reconciles the face clusters instead of orphaning them. This branch is rebased onto #1162 for that helper. The other restore path had the same face-ordering bug. restoreService queued face scans in step 6, before step 7c runs pending migrations — so a pre-187 full or database restore handed the live worker rows whose paths were still event-relative, and it burned them to 'failed', a state the later fold does not clear. The requeue now happens after the migrations, where the files already are. A failed conversion was reported as a clean restore. The fold is transactional, so a failure leaves every external path in the old format under a resolver that reads from the media root — every original unreachable. It was logged as a warning and the restore returned success. It now returns externalPathsConverted/externalPathError, and suppresses the face requeue, which would otherwise mark those photos failed on top. * fix(external-media): make the fold safe against its own intermediate states (#1163) Third review round, four findings. A one-pass rewrite could collide with itself. Every FINAL path is distinct, but a final value can equal another row's CURRENT one — `photo.jpg` repairing to `Trip/photo.jpg` while the row already holding `Trip/photo.jpg` folds deeper — so the update violated migration 186's unique index halfway through. On Postgres that surfaces as 23505, which run-migrations-safe.js mistakes for "schema already exists" and records 187 as applied after the rollback, leaving every path unconverted with nothing to retry. Rows now park on a per-row staging value first, and migration 187 re-throws without the driver's code so the runner cannot misread it. The bulk update targeted rows the plan never saw. Phase 1 probes outside the transaction and can run for minutes; an import finishing in that window inserts an already root-relative row, and `where event_id` prefixed it again with the stale base. It now updates by the ids phase 1 captured. The restore UI never showed a conversion failure. The API carried externalPathsConverted, but PicpeakBackupCard neither declared nor read it and showed a green success either way — so an admin whose external originals were all unreachable was told the restore worked. restoreService requeued faces even when the migrations failed. The step 7c catch is deliberately non-fatal, so a pre-187 backup whose fold never ran still handed the live worker event-relative paths to burn to 'failed'. * fix(external-media): the fold's staging value must be storable on Postgres (#1163) External review of the stable twin caught this, and it was on both branches. The two-pass rewrite parks each row on a temporary value, and that value was written with a leading NUL. SQLite stores NUL in TEXT without complaint; Postgres rejects it outright — "invalid byte sequence for encoding UTF8: 0x00" — so migration 187 rolled back on exactly the installs that need the two-pass repair, and only on the engine most of them run. Restores hit the same wall and reported the conversion as failed. The prefix is ordinary text now. It still cannot collide with a real relative path and is still obviously wrong if a crash leaves one behind. Adds a gated Postgres test alongside the existing picpeakRestorePg one, because a SQLite-only suite structurally cannot catch this class: restoring the NUL makes exactly the two-pass repair case fail with that error, and nothing else. --------- Co-authored-by: Paul Nothaft <paul@MacStudio-von-Paul.local>
📸 PicPeak
Open-source, self-hosted photo sharing for events.
PicPeak is a powerful, self-hosted open-source alternative to commercial photo-sharing platforms like PicDrop.com and Scrapbook.de. Built for photographers and event organizers, it makes it simple to share beautiful, time-limited photo galleries with clients while keeping full control over your data and branding.
Important
PicPeak has moved to its own GitHub organization. Docker images are now at
ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/{backend,frontend,aio,ml}(and on Docker Hub aspicpeak/{backend,frontend,aio,ml}) and active development is onmain. The oldghcr.io/the-luap/...path still responds but its tags are frozen at 2026-05-27 — if updates never arrive, check your image path first. Seedocs/migration-to-org.mdfor the one-linedocker-compose.ymledit.
Contents
- Live Demo
- Quick Start
- Why PicPeak?
- Features
- Documentation
- Comparison
- Tech Stack
- Contributing & Support
- License
🎮 Live Demo
Try PicPeak without installing anything — demo.picpeak.app · admin panel
| Password | |
|---|---|
demo@picpeak.app |
Demo2026! |
The demo resets periodically. Uploaded content may be removed without notice.
🚀 Quick Start
Get PicPeak running in under 5 minutes:
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/PicPeak/picpeak.git
cd picpeak
# Copy the environment template — the defaults work out of the box.
# Machine secrets (JWT, DB, Redis) are auto-generated on first run, and the
# admin account is created in the browser. Edit .env only to customise
# (domain, SMTP, storage paths, …) — nothing is required.
cp .env.example .env
# Start with Docker Compose
docker compose up -d
# Access at http://localhost:3000
On first start, open http://localhost:3000/admin and follow the in-browser setup to create your admin account. Full details — the one-time setup token, Docker file permissions, and ARM64 notes — are in First-run setup.
Updating / release channels: set
PICPEAK_CHANNEL(stabledefault, orbeta) in.env, thendocker compose pull && docker compose up -d. See RELEASING.md for the promotion cadence.
Or: one container, no compose file
For a home server, a NAS, or a single small studio, the all-in-one image runs the whole app as one process with SQLite — no compose file, no separate database, no reverse proxy to wire up:
docker run -d --name picpeak -p 3000:3000 \
-v picpeak:/data \
ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/aio:main
No environment variables to set — the JWT secret is generated on first start and kept on the volume.
Then open http://localhost:3000/admin and read the setup token with docker exec picpeak cat /data/db/SETUP_TOKEN, or open db/SETUP_TOKEN on the volume with any file manager if the host has no shell.
:main is the active-development tag, and today it is the only one the all-in-one image has — Dockerfile.aio landed after the current stable release, so :stable and :latest first appear for this image once the aio build reaches the stable branch. Switch to :stable then, or pin a published version tag if you would rather not track main.
The compose stack above is still the right choice for anything busier — SQLite takes one writer at a time, and Postgres is what scales. You can move to it later without reinstalling: take a .picpeak backup and restore it into the full stack. See Single-container install for the volume layout, the external-Postgres variant, TLS, and the limits.
Docker images
| GHCR | Docker Hub | |
|---|---|---|
| Backend | ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/backend |
picpeak/backend |
| Frontend | ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/frontend |
picpeak/frontend |
| All-in-one | ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/aio |
picpeak/aio |
| ML sidecar (optional) | ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/ml |
picpeak/ml |
Both registries get the same digests and the same tags — stable/latest, a pinned x.y.z, and beta/main for the active development channel — for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64. Keep every image in one install on the same tag.
🌟 Why PicPeak?
Unlike expensive SaaS solutions, PicPeak gives you:
- 💰 No Monthly Fees — one-time setup, unlimited galleries
- 🔒 Complete Data Control — your photos stay on your server
- 🎨 White-Label Ready — full branding customization
- 📱 Mobile-First Design — beautiful on all devices
- 🌍 Multi-Language — built-in i18n (EN, DE)
✨ Features
For photographers — drag & drop upload, auto-expiring & password-protected galleries, automated emails, an analytics dashboard, custom themes, a public landing page, and a Live Slideshow projector view that auto-picks-up new uploads during live events.
For clients — clean mobile-optimized galleries, one-click bulk downloads, smart search, People in this gallery face grouping (opt-in per gallery, needs the optional ML sidecar), optional guest uploads, and download protection (watermarking + right-click prevention).
Technical — Docker-ready, automatic thumbnail generation, external media reference mode, smart archiving of expired galleries, S3-compatible storage backends, webhooks, and security-first defaults (JWT, rate limiting, CORS).
🧾 For studios — CRM & Accounting (Beta, off by default)
- 📝 Quotes → Contracts → Invoices — one deal lineage; cancel-and-reissue (Storno) keeps issued invoices immutable
- ⏱️ Hours Logging & Calendar — per-customer time tracking; admin calendar of events, logged hours, and pending quotes/contracts
- 🧾 Inbound Supplier Invoices & Expenses — capture received invoices (upload/camera, rasterised server-side), categorise, and re-bill costs to clients
- 📊 Tax Report & Accountant Export — period-scoped income/cost report with VAT breakdown; PDF/CSV plus a Treuhänder/Banana (Swiss/LI) journal export
- 🌍 VAT & Multi-currency — single VAT-code registry snapshotted onto each document
Warning
CRM & Accounting — examples only, verify locally. Feature-flagged off by default. Seeded contract blocks are written by the maintainer, not a lawyer; QR-bills/SEPA payloads and every tax, VAT and Treuhänder/Banana figure are computed from your input and defaults and are jurisdiction-specific guidance only. Have your lawyer review contracts, scan a test QR with your bank's app, and verify all numbers with your accountant / Treuhänder / tax authority before customer-facing use. Read the CRM disclaimers first.
📖 Documentation
Full documentation lives at docs.picpeak.app — deployment, admin settings, API, branding, and more.
| Topic | Link |
|---|---|
| 🚀 Deployment (Docker, env, reverse proxy, SSL) | docs.picpeak.app/deployment |
📦 Single-container install (one docker run, SQLite) |
docs.picpeak.app/deployment/single-container |
| ⚙️ Admin settings reference | docs.picpeak.app/guides/admin-settings |
| 🎯 Creating events | docs.picpeak.app/guides/creating-events |
| 📽️ Live Slideshow | docs.picpeak.app/features/live-slideshow |
| 🙂 People in galleries (face grouping) | docs.picpeak.app/features/face-recognition |
| 💾 Backup & Restore | docs.picpeak.app/guides/backup-restore |
| 🔌 API reference | docs.picpeak.app/api |
| 🪝 Webhooks | docs.picpeak.app/features/webhooks |
| 💾 Storage backends (local / S3) | docs.picpeak.app/features/storage-backends |
| 💻 System requirements & tuning | docs.picpeak.app/deployment/system-requirements |
| 🧾 CRM & Accounting | docs.picpeak.app/features/crm · disclaimers |
| 🗺️ Roadmap | GitHub Issues |
Project meta: Contributing · License · Security · Code of Conduct
📊 Comparison with Alternatives
| Feature | PicPeak | PicDrop | Scrapbook.de | Pixieset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-Hosted | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Custom Branding | ✅ Full | Limited | Limited | ✅ (paid) |
| Monthly Cost | $0* | $29-199 | €19-99 | ~$60 |
| Storage Limit | Unlimited** | 50-500GB | 100-1000GB | 3GB–Unlimited*** |
| Client Uploads | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Limited |
| API Access | ✅ | Paid | ❌ | ❌ |
| Open Source | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Customer Accounts | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Quotes / Contracts / Invoices | 🧪 Beta | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Incoming Invoices & Accounting | 🧪 Beta | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
*You bring your own server and, optionally, a domain. **Limited only by your server storage. ***Pixieset's "unlimited" is photos only; video is capped by plan. 🧪 Beta = built but feature-flagged off by default.
🏗️ Tech Stack
- Backend: Node.js, Express, SQLite/PostgreSQL
- Frontend: React, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion
- Storage: Local filesystem (default) or S3-compatible object store (AWS S3, MinIO, R2, B2, Wasabi, Spaces) — see Storage Backends
- Email: SMTP with customizable templates
- Analytics: Privacy-focused with Umami integration
- External media: point PicPeak at
EXTERNAL_MEDIA_ROOTto reference existing originals read-only, index quickly, and generate thumbnails on demand
📸 Screenshots
Click to see the admin dashboard, analytics, and event management
🎛️ Admin Dashboard
📊 Analytics & Insights
📁 Event Management
🤝 Contributing
We love contributions! PicPeak is built by photographers, for photographers — whether you're fixing bugs, adding features, or improving docs. See the Contributing Guide to get started.
Found a security issue? Please open a security issue. See SECURITY.md for the policy.
☕ Support the Project
PicPeak is free, open source, and self-hostable forever. If it saves you time or replaces a paid subscription, consider buying me a coffee — it directly funds new features, bug fixes, and keeping the demo + docs running. You can also ⭐ star the repo, share it, file good bug reports, or open a PR.
🙏 Acknowledgments
PicPeak is inspired by the best features of commercial platforms while remaining completely open source. It's developed with AI assistance, but human-tested end-to-end, security-audited, and human-reviewed for quality.
👥 Contributors
A huge thank you to the people whose code, reports, and feedback have shaped PicPeak:
@the-luap — creator and lead maintainer
- Gallery foundation (events, uploads, sharing, download protection, templates)
- Backup & restore, analytics, branding/theming
- The architecture every later feature builds on
- Native Apple Silicon multi-arch images
- CRM & accounting suite (quotes/contracts/invoices)
- Hours logging & Treuhänder/Banana tax export
- Gallery header/banner decoupling
@Rekoo-PS — bug reports & product feedback
- Login-loop fix, mobile-lightbox overhaul, bulk-delete workflow
- Also a BuyMeACoffee supporter
If you've contributed and aren't listed here, please open a PR — this list is meant to grow.
📄 License
PicPeak is released under the MIT License. Use it freely for personal or commercial projects.
Made with ❤️ by photographers, for photographers
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