Freedom251 › Content Management Systems
Zenphoto
by Zenphoto
What Zenphoto is
Zenphoto is a free, self-hosted CMS designed for media-focused websites and galleries. It manages image, video, and audio files with uploads, albums, search, scheduled publishing, watermarks, and EXIF/IPTC metadata. The Zenpage plugin adds a news section and custom pages with nested pages and categories. Multiple users, groups, per-user rights, and password protection support shared publishing. Zenphoto provides editorial workflows, custom roles, multilingual content, SEO tools, and a translatable administration backend. Multiple-language sites require server locale and gettext support. Four standard themes are included, while custom themes can use HTML5, CSS, and PHP. A plugin system and extensions directory add options. Zenphoto is intended as a standalone CMS, not a plugin. The project says installations do not phone home and described release-check and news-feed plugins do not collect user data. The current version requires a web server, at least 55 MB of free space plus media and cache storage, and PHP 7 or PHP 8 through 8.4.
Who it suits
Zenphoto suits illustrators, artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, and musicians building personal media websites. It fits people comfortable managing self-hosted software and server requirements.
What it does well
- Free GPL-licensed self-hosted software
- Manages image, video, and audio libraries
- Supports users, groups, rights, and password protection
- Includes themes, plugins, and custom-theme support
- Provides multilingual content and SEO tools
What to know first
- Requires a web server and PHP setup
- Page permissions do not protect directly accessed image files
- Standalone CMS use is recommended over plugin integration
- Multiple languages require locale and gettext support
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Zenphoto 1.6.8 | GPL v2 or later · Self-hosted software | Free |
As zenphoto.org lists them, read 11 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.
Verdict
Zenphoto offers extensive gallery and publishing controls without a license fee. Its self-hosted setup and direct-file access limitation require planning.
Facts from Zenphoto's own pages
- Access limitation
- Zenphoto's page-level permissions do not protect image files accessed directly from the albums or cache folders. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Blog and pages
- The Zenpage CMS plugin provides a news section and custom pages, with nested pages and categories. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Custom user roles
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Editorial workflows
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Extensions
- Zenphoto has a plugin system and an extensions directory that includes officially supported and third-party extensions. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 2005 · zenphoto.org, 28 Sept 2026
- Free plan
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Integration
- Zenphoto is a standalone CMS; its guide describes matching its theme to another site and says using it as a plugin is not recommended. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Intended users
- Zenphoto describes itself as suited to personal websites for illustrators, artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, and musicians. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Languages
- It supports multilingual site content and a translatable admin backend, with server locale and gettext support required for multiple languages. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Media library
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Media management
- It manages image, video, and audio files, including uploads, albums, search, scheduled publishing, watermarks, and EXIF/IPTC metadata. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Multilingual content
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Platform type
- self_hosted · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Privacy
- Zenphoto says an installation does not phone home and that the project does not collect user data through the described release-check and news-feed plugins. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Product
- Zenphoto is a self-hosted, gallery-focused CMS for media websites. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Project history
- The project says Zenphoto was started in May 2005. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- SEO tools
- Yes · zenphoto.org, 22 Sept 2026
- Server requirements
- The current version requires a web server, at least 55 MB of free space plus media and cache space, and PHP 7 or PHP 8 through 8.4; Apache is the developed and tested environment. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Support
- Community help is available through support forums, while paid support services are offered independently by listed team members. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- Themes
- Zenphoto includes four standard themes and allows custom themes using HTML5, CSS, and PHP. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
- User access
- It supports multiple users, user groups, per-user rights, and password protection for albums and pages. · zenphoto.org, 11 Oct 2026
Where Zenphoto stands on Freedom251
- Content Management Systems#79 of 165
- Photo Storage Services#59 of 71