Hey HN! I started building a free and open-source tool out of frustration with how difficult it is to share vacation photos and pictures of our son with friends and family. There was no tool that let me create a shareable web gallery with a great mobile experience, the ability to add detailed descriptions, and no login required.

I launched the initial version written in Python 5 years ago, and it got some traction (200+ on GitHub). This is now a full rewrite in TypeScript - a more modern, much faster, and better-looking version!

The CLI scans a folder and all sub-folders for photos and videos, generates thumbnails optimized for speed and finally creates a static web site to showcase the photos and tell their story. As the gallery is static, you can easily self-host it on any static hosting provider like Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages. Everything is written in TypeScript that the site is generated with Astro.

Happy about any feedback or questions :)