Piwigo

[Aubrey]

Is anybody using Piwigo ( piwigo.org )? I am thinking of this as an alternative to Juicebox.

As an exercise I am setting up my own server and plan to place Piwigo on it... I may need some tips and perhaps have a few questions.

Thanks,
Aubrey.

[Ferdinand]

I have a test install, although I haven't done much to it, and not for a while. 

It seems to be where a number of key Gallery3 users went, after development of Gallery3 ceased. 

Migrating a key Gallery3 production site to Piwigo is on my list of things to do, but I'm unlikely to get to it for a while.

IIRC there is an active support forum and an active community, and you're more likely to get answers there.

[Ted]

I too have tested it - about 18 months ago, but never got very excited about it.  It's still on my production site, but I never linked it into my menu system.  If you want to look, go here: http://tevern.us/Piwigo/

[hro]

I also installed and tested Piwigo. There is nothing wrong with it technically and it is quite stable in a Linux environment and easy to manage. However, I never really warmed to the available themes and it took me too much time to customize them to a level I liked it. I then moved on to Koken (www.koken.me). This is also installable on your local Linux server.  I found the management features much more powerful and really like the themes, much more professional looking. But you have to pay for the (nice themes). I found the support a bit difficult and confusing. NB: Koken used to be a little privately owned outfit but they have now agreed to be taken over by Netsuite, a big development company. Who knows how this will develop.

Fast forward, I found it too too time consuming to manage a library system myself and constantly updating software and tweaking themes I found not that appealing in the first place.  So, I switched to SmugMug and am extremely happy. Yes, it cost a bit of money, but not that much. The management interface is outstanding, the themes are really great and hugely customizable. I have installed an add-on into Lightroom and can manage my libraries directly within LR.

[Aubrey]

I have decided that Piwigo is too heavy for my needs. I don't need another database etc.
What I am looking for is a platform to display groups of photos.

I have looked at TinyWebGallery, http://www.tinywebgallery.com/ this again needs some customization but a lot can be done through a GUI. One can also adjust the config file directly. I quite like this software and spent yesterday setting up some stuff. In fact I used the image exporter of Juicebox to grab the images - the default that Mario has setup works nicely.

On rereading Mario's help file on Juicebox I found that one can set up galleries with sub folders using this software. his is a nice easy feature to use. The disadvantages are of course, the free version only allows 50 images per folder and does not have slide show capability. I could feature working locally but not on my server (I will post a question in a separate mail).

So now I'm trying to decide whether to go the TWG route or the Juicebox-Pro route.