Paul Nothaft
bbce3cd2a2
Phase 1 of #1096. Clustering picks the cover, and its idea of a good one and a human's do not always agree. A cluster whose avatar is turned away or softer than the rest stays that way in the guest-facing people strip too, and nothing in the UI could change it. A picker reachable from each person row, reusing the face list the split dialog already loads — same query, same grid, different action on a click. Making the choice actually stick took four changes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- event_people.cover_face_id has existed since migration 177 and the PATCH already accepted it, so the first version of this was frontend-only. It was also a no-op: - facePeopleService.listPeople SELECTED cover_face_id and then discarded it, recomputing the cover as the best-scoring VISIBLE face on every read. The picker saved, said so, and the avatar reverted immediately. It now prefers the stored pick whenever this audience can see it, and falls back to the score-ordered choice otherwise — so visibility scoping still wins, and a guest is never handed a crop of a photo they cannot open. - recomputeCentroid overwrote cover_face_id unconditionally. It runs on rescan and on photo replacement, so any reprocessing silently undid a deliberate choice. It now keeps the chosen face while it is still a member of the cluster. - The face list is cached per person, and split/merge move faces between people. Until now the only reader closed itself after acting, so nobody saw the stale copy; the picker is a second reader of the same key. - cover_face_id meant two things. assignFaces seeded it with whichever face opened the cluster and recomputeCentroid overwrote it with the highest scoring one, so an automatic guess was indistinguishable from a deliberate choice — and honouring it would have pinned every UNCURATED person to that guess, which is worse than the fallback it replaced (the fallback is computed per audience and skips photos a guest cannot open). Both writers are gone, migration 179 clears the stored guesses, and the column now means one thing. That also removes the need to defend the choice against rescans: nothing overwrites it, and a dangling id self-heals to the derived cover. Clearing existing values is safe rather than destructive: no install has ever been able to SET a cover, so every stored value is an automatic guess by construction. Also fixes a PostgreSQL-only 500 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GET /admin/events/:id/people/:personId/faces joined `photos` but did not table-qualify its WHERE, and photo_faces and photos BOTH have an event_id: column reference "event_id" is ambiguous Postgres refuses it, so the endpoint 500s and the Split dialog — its only consumer until now — has been broken on every PostgreSQL install since the join was added. SQLite resolves the ambiguity silently, which is why the suite stayed green. Reproduced against a real Postgres before and after. The query is now a named builder the route calls and the test imports, rather than a copy: an earlier version of that test re-declared the query, so the route could regress to the bare form while the assertions kept passing. Merge and recluster preserve the choice as well. Both already carried labels and privacy flags across; the chosen cover is human state of the same kind, so it now rides along — through a merge when the target has none, and through a recluster by following its FACE into whichever cluster ends up holding it, rather than the majority-descendant rule the label uses. The picker and the endpoint disagree past 500 faces, so the picker now says when it is showing a capped list rather than presenting it as exhaustive. Frontend suite 178 passing, backend 23 across the touched suites, build clean, no new type errors. Mutation-checked twice: dropping the cover preference fails the new listPeople test while the visibility-scoping test still passes, and restoring the auto-seed in assignFaces fails it too.
📸 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 \
-e JWT_SECRET="$(openssl rand -base64 48)" \
ghcr.io/picpeak/picpeak/aio:main
Then open http://localhost:3000/admin and read the setup token with docker exec picpeak cat /data/db/SETUP_TOKEN.
: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 version tag (3.107.4-beta.0) 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 |
| 💾 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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