jAlbum

jAlbum: software for creating and publishing photo albums on the web

jAlbum is a desktop application that allows you to create photo and video albums to publish on the web. The program runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is aimed at those who want to display their images without relying on social media or cloud services. The focus is on user control over the album's design and hosting.

The site highlights that the generated albums are not subject to social media algorithms or quality loss, and that the user retains ownership of their galleries and can host them wherever they prefer. The company claims a score of 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot and over 120 million galleries published since its founding in 2002.

How it works and workflow

Creating an album is presented in three steps. First, the user drags images and videos from their computer into the application, where they can organize them into folders, add captions, crop, and edit. Second, choose a template or 'skin' from the available options, with customization options for colors, layout, and features; one click generates the gallery. Third, the album is published to any website via the built-in FTP client or hosted on jalbum.net. According to the site's information, the resulting gallery works without the need for server-side code.

Features and technical capabilities

The application includes a built-in image editor that allows you to crop, sharpen, adjust levels, apply auto-correct, and add watermarks without leaving the program. Batch processing makes it easy to edit multiple images at once. As an organizer, it supports sorting by date or location, removing duplicates, and adding searchable tags, and is designed to handle collections of thousands of images.

Key features include support for the AVIF image format, password protection for private or client galleries, and a built-in shopping cart to sell prints and digital downloads directly from the gallery. The application can handle albums of up to 50,000 images on an ordinary computer.

Uses and target audience

The site lists various user profiles: professionals, schools, families, event photographers, hobbyists, bloggers, and sellers. It also mentions use cases such as client galleries and online portfolios. The flexibility of the templates and the ability to customize the presentation are presented as a value for these groups.

History and community

jAlbum was founded in 2002 by David Ekholm, who, after a ski trip, couldn't find suitable software to share his photos and decided to develop his own solution. The application has been downloaded more than two thousand times a day and has been used to publish over twenty million albums, according to the company's own data. jAlbum works on all platforms and is available in over 30 languages. It has an active community that contributes to the development of skins, plugins, and language options.

The team includes founder David Ekholm and Anders Callertun, responsible for servers, both in Stockholm (Sweden). Also participating are designers and skin developers such as László Molnár (Budapest, Hungary), Jeff Tucker (Somers, New York, USA), Jim Berry (Busselton, Australia), and Robert Marshall (Cheshire, England), among others. The community of translators also collaborates on localization.

Business model and licenses

jAlbum offers a free version for galleries up to 24 images and paid plans that include standard, pro licenses, and hosting accounts with different levels. Downloading the application does not require an account and has no time limit. The site indicates that there is no cloud dependency and that albums continue to work even without the company.