DS photo vs Piwigo
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
DS photo
Access and manage your Synology NAS photo collection from your mobile device. Organize photos into albums, create virtual albums with tags, and view them offline. Effortlessly back up photos taken on your device to your personal cloud.
- Browse Synology NAS photo collection
- Organize photos into albums
- Create virtual albums with tags
- Timeline photo view
- Download albums for offline access
- Photo backup to personal cloud
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*You must own a Synology NAS to run this app and be running the latest Photo Station 6.6.0 package to get the complete set of features** DS photo allows you to browse through the photo collection on your Synology NAS server on the go, as well as interact with friends using the comments in real time. Organising your photos is easy: with traditional albums, using tags to create virtual albums or with a simple tap with the timeline mode! Better yet, download albums to the iDevice to view them even when no network connection is available, and use the Photo Backup to effortlessly upload your photos taken with your iDevice onto your own personal cloud. Find all detailed features about the app on our website: www.synology.com > NAS > DSM 6.0 > Apps > Mobile Apps > Software Specs https://www.synology.com/dsm/software_spec/mobile#DSphoto
Piwigo
Manage your cloud-based photo gallery from your mobile device. Organize albums, edit photos and videos, upload new media with detailed metadata, and share your creations. This app complements the web-based Piwigo software for a seamless photo management experience.
- Browse and manage albums
- Edit, download, and delete photos/videos
- Upload media with metadata
- Organize photos into albums
- Share photos and videos
- Set album cover images
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Piwigo for iPhone/iPad/iPod supplements the photo gallery software in the cloud Piwigo (v12.0 or higher): • Browse your albums, • Create, delete, move and rename albums, • Search, edit, download and delete photos and videos, • Copy and move photos and videos between albums, • Add and remove photos and videos from your favorites, • Set a photo as album image, • Upload photos and videos: - of modifiable size and quality, - with description, author, tags, EXIF metadata, - with or without GPS metadata. • Share albums, photos and videos. Piwigo empowers you to create your own photo gallery on the web. It includes many powerful features such as albums, tags, geolocation, many levels of customization, upload by visitors, privacy, calendar or statistics. Piwigo is free and opensource. Piwigo is also compatible with the following extensions: - Community: allows users to create albums and add photos - rotateImage: enables you to rotate images - Share Album: allows to share private albums with people who do not have an account - piwigo-two_factor: adds two-factor authentication (2FA) - piwigo-videojs: adds video support Feedback or questions ? Piwigo offers free support at https://piwigo.org/forum and we'd love to hear from you.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Piwigo at 69% against DS photo's 24%. Piwigo also leads on rating (4.6 vs 2.2) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). DS photo's advantage is iOS requirement (10.0 vs 15.5). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Piwigo holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 122 and 182 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 24% of DS photo's written reviews are positive against 69% of Piwigo's.
DS photo ships an update every 2 months, Piwigo every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | DS photo | Piwigo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.2 (122 ratings) | 4.6 (182 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 24.1% of reviews | 69.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 122 | 182 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 15.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 47 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Synology Inc. | Pigolabs |
Customer experience
DS photo
Piwigo
User reviews
DS photo
From 122 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast photo viewing
- 👍 Useful for backing up photos
- 👍 Ability to access photos remotely
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and login issues
- 🐛 Unreliable photo backup
- 🐛 Slow performance and freezes
- 🐛 Incompatible with newer iOS versions
- 🐛 Conversion of photos to JPEG format
Piwigo
From 182 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for photo sharing control
- 👍 Free and awesome
- 👍 Best for self-hosted pictures
- 👍 Sync feature is great
- 👍 Flexible photo organization
Room to improve
- 🐛 iPad app connection issues
- 🐛 Uploaded photos not showing
- 🐛 B&W images render blurry on iPad/iPhone
- 🐛 Pictures only display momentarily
- 🐛 Uploads have stopped
Bugs and requests
DS photo
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes on startup
- Login failures
- Issues with geofencing and background uploads
- Problems with uploading large files or videos
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for HEIC/HEIF photo format
- Improve background upload capabilities
- Add option to save photos/videos to camera roll
- Enhance album management and sorting options
- Improve slideshow and video playback functionality
Piwigo
Reported bugs
35 issues- iPad app connection issues
- Uploaded photos not showing
- B&W images render blurry on iPad/iPhone
- Pictures only display momentarily
- Uploads have stopped
Show 30 moreShow fewer
- Severe bug: deleted photo reappears
- Live Photos not uploaded with 'live' portion
- .MOV files fail to upload
- Images stuck uploading for hours
- Auto-download toggle deactivates
- Crashes constantly on iPad
- Permission errors on iPad
- App needs auto upload camera roll
- Users cannot delete their photos
- Images no longer load
- Cannot download original size photo via iOS app
- Uploads hanging after update
- Doesn't connect to custom domains
- Crashing since last update
- Album images layout issues
- Thumbnail size adjustment ineffective
- Uploading from cloud photos problematic
- Uploads fail or resize to tiny images
- Interface bugs, selection issues
- Not compatible with iOS 8
- Freezes on password entry
- Cannot see existing albums
- Album creation silently fails
- Cannot upload photos
- App not updated, upload issues
- Stopped allowing photo uploads
- Cannot select multiple pics at once
- Freezes during upload
- Uploads freeze after first photo
- Doesn't upload geo info from exif
Requested features
13 requests- Ability to browse in Photos and open in Piwigo to upload
- Double tap to zoom
- Auto upload camera roll
- Search capability
- Support for multiple accounts
Show 8 moreShow fewer
- Better album image layout
- Ability to see and add comments
- Video support
- Nextcloud integration
- Download original size photo via iOS app
- Support tag editing on upload
- Cache photo galleries for offline viewing
- Upload geo info from exif data
In-app purchases
DS photo
No in-app purchases
Piwigo
No in-app purchases









