Penombre

A self-hosted drive. All the convenience of cloud storage, on hardware you own, with a bill of exactly zero.

Docs · Docker Hub · Project page

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What it is

Penombre is a file storage and synchronisation platform for people who want their files back. Drop it on a box, mount a volume, and you get a modern web drive: uploads, folders, automatic categories for images, documents and music, recoverable soft-trash, recent files, and OAuth logins — without renting the disk from anyone.

It runs on SQLite out of the box: one container, one volume, no database server to run alongside it. PostgreSQL stays supported the day you outgrow that.

Features

• Modern web UI — SvelteKit 5, TailwindCSS 4 and shadcn-svelte. Responsive, fast, keyboard-friendly.
• Real auth — Better Auth: session cookies, OAuth providers and API keys for scripts.
• Smart categories — files sort themselves into images, documents, music and more as they land.
• Soft trash — deletion is recoverable, because everyone deletes the wrong folder eventually.
• REST API — OpenAPI-documented /api/v1 endpoints with API-key auth, generated from Zod contracts.
• Simple mode — run it as a bare shared file browser: mount a volume, share the login, browse together. See the docs.
• No database server — SQLite with Drizzle by default. Point DATABASE_URL at Postgres if you'd rather.
• Docker-first — one docker run off the published orochibraru/penombre image and you're storing files. Local filesystem storage at STORAGE_PATH.

Run it

Docker run

docker run -d --name penombre \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -v penombre_data:/data \
  -e ADMIN_EMAIL=you@example.com \
  -e ADMIN_PASSWORD=change-me \
  -e AUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) \
  -e ORIGIN=https://drive.example.com \
  orochibraru/penombre:latest

Docker Compose

services:
  penombre:
    image: orochibraru/penombre:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - penombre_data:/data
    environment:
      ADMIN_EMAIL: you@example.com
      ADMIN_PASSWORD: change-me
      AUTH_SECRET: a-long-random-string
      ORIGIN: https://drive.example.com

volumes:
  penombre_data:

Either way it comes up on http://localhost:3000. One volume holds the lot: the SQLite database under /data/db, your files under /data/storage. Those four variables are the only ones required on a first run.

The getting started guide walks through it properly, and the env reference covers everything else: OAuth providers, SMTP, Redis, Postgres, simple mode.

How it's built

• Frontend — SvelteKit with Svelte 5, TailwindCSS 4, shadcn-svelte
• Backend — SvelteKit +server.ts routes with Zod-validated contracts that also emit the OpenAPI spec
• Database — SQLite with Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL optional, chosen from the DATABASE_URL scheme
• Storage — plain local filesystem, so your files stay files
• Auth — Better Auth

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for local setup, commands, and the test and lint workflow.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Free, and staying that way.

Acknowledgments

Built with these open-source technologies:

• SvelteKit - Full-stack web framework
• shadcn-svelte - UI components
• Bun - JavaScript runtime and toolkit
• Drizzle ORM - TypeScript ORM
• Better Auth - Authentication library
• SQLite - Database
• oxlint - Linter
• Biome - Formatter