Hydrus Network

A personal booru-style tagging manager for large image and media collections, with optional user-run servers.

FreeProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinuxSelf-hosted
Official websitegithub.com

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About Hydrus Network

Hydrus Network is a desktop program for organizing big collections of images and other media by tags rather than folders, in the style of an image booru. It can import files and their tags from your hard drive and from popular websites, then lets you search the collection by tag combinations.

A separate server component lets users run their own servers to share content and tags with others. The client is written in Python and starts through scripts for Windows, macOS and Linux. It suits people with tens of thousands of files who have outgrown folder-based sorting.

Strengths

  • Tag-based search across very large collections
  • Imports files and tags from disk and websites
  • Optional self-run servers for sharing tags and files

Limitations

  • Takes time to learn compared with ordinary photo libraries
  • Interface is dense and built for power users

Details

Pricing
FreeFree, with source published on GitHub.
License
Proprietary (WTFPL)
Developer
The Hydrus Network contributors
Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted
How it runs
Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Account
Not required
Works offline
Yes
Best suited for
Collectors who want to tag and search a very large personal image archive
Last verified
Added
Provenance
Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.

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Software that can replace Hydrus Network for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.

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  • IMatch

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  • Photo Supreme

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    Photo Supreme is paid cataloging software for Windows, macOS and Linux that keeps existing folders and metadata and offers a server edition for shared catalogs.

Similar software

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