Fishing for an answer: Please tell me your favorite self-hosted photo web app (or share with your friends who know one) that:
Can run in linux, docker
Supports multiple users, each with the ability to manage their own independent photos and albums.
Includes a nice slide-show feature over user-curated albums, include "smart" albums (i.e. albums created dynamically based on search criteria).
Has good metadata support (geolocation, timeline, tags, faces), including preloading metadata from EXIF tags.
Includes a smartphone app that syncs the device's camera roll.
Basically, a practical replacement for Google Photos. Any ideas?
Immich ticks all of those: Docker, per-user libraries with their own quotas and passwords, shared albums, and originals kept as plain files you can back up normally. On an older box, Piwigo is the lightweight multi-user classic (PHP + DB). Either way, put the library on a checksummed filesystem and scrub - photo archives are exactly what bitrot eats first.