Installation Methods

LibrePhotos offers two main installation methods to suit different deployment scenarios:

🚀 Single Container Deployment

Recommended for most users

A simplified single-container deployment that serves both the API and frontend from Django. This method supports both internal and external database configurations:

With Internal Database (All-in-One):

• Beginners wanting a simple setup
• Users with external reverse proxies (Traefik, Caddy, cloud load balancers)
• Deployments that don't require nginx-specific optimizations

With External Database:

• Cloud deployments with managed databases (RDS, Cloud SQL)
• Existing PostgreSQL infrastructure
• Simplified container management

note

The unified image is CPU-only. It is built on the CPU base image, and no GPU-enabled unified image is published. If you want NVIDIA GPU acceleration, use the Standard Docker Setup instead, where the backend service is swapped to the reallibrephotos/librephotos-gpu image (see Utilizing GPU Acceleration).

🐋 Standard Docker Setup

For advanced users and high-traffic deployments

The traditional multi-container setup with separate nginx proxy. Choose this if you:

• Need nginx-specific features and optimizations
• Run high-traffic deployments
• Want NVIDIA GPU acceleration (see Utilizing GPU Acceleration — x86 only)
• Prefer the original architecture

Platform-Specific Guides

• Unraid Installation - For Unraid NAS systems