Self-hosting Tripsfolk

Your trips, places and photos live in a server you install on your own computer. No Docker required, no database to administer — one installer on Windows, one binary on Linux.

What you need

  • A computer that stays on while you use the app — a desktop, a home server, a NAS box or a small VPS all work.
  • Windows 10/11 or Linux (amd64 / arm64).
  • Modest hardware: the server is a single ~40 MB program with an embedded database. Photos are the only thing that grows.

Install

Windows

Download and run the installer — it starts with the system and sits in the tray. Updates are one click from inside the app.

Download for Windows

Linux

Download the binary for your architecture and run it. It serves the web app and the API from one port (9088 by default).

Download for Linux (x86-64) ARM64

Not sure which? Run uname -m: x86_64 is the first, aarch64 the second.

Or straight from a terminal:

curl -fsSL https://tripsfolk.com/download/linux-amd64 -o tripsfolk
chmod +x tripsfolk
./tripsfolk

All builds are published on GitHub Releases with the source they were built from.

Reaching it from outside

Three options, pick one:

  • Home network only — connect to the machine's local address.
  • Official connection tunnel — your server gets a *.connect.tripsfolk.com address with no router setup.
  • Your own reverse proxy — point any HTTPS proxy you already run at the server's port.

How photos find their place

A photo uploaded to a trip is filed under the stop it was taken at, using the coordinates its camera recorded — within about 250 metres. One with no coordinates, or taken away from every stop, is grouped by the day instead, so it still shows up in the trip's recap rather than disappearing.

Backups

Everything the server owns lives in one data folder — database, settings and photos. Copy that folder and you have a full backup; restore it on any machine and pick up where you left off.

What stays hosted, honestly

Accounts, invitations and the optional connection tunnel run through a small hosted control plane, so sharing with friends works without anyone opening ports. Your trips and photos never pass through it. Account secrets are sealed client-side — the control plane stores blobs it cannot read. It's in the same AGPL-3.0 repository, so you can audit it — or run the whole stack yourself.