Slink is a self-hosted image hosting and sharing platform — an AGPL-3.0-licensed Imgur alternative built with Symfony and SvelteKit — for homelab operators, developers, artists and teams who want private links, collections, screenshot uploads and optional single sign-on under their own control.

What it is

Slink is a web application, written in PHP on the Symfony framework with a SvelteKit front end, that lets an operator run an image hosting and sharing service on their own infrastructure. It is distributed primarily as a Docker image, anirdev/slink, and ships with documentation at docs.slinkapp.io and a public live demo at demo.slinkapp.io for evaluation before deployment. The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and is developed openly on GitHub.

The concrete problem Slink solves is sharing images with friends, family and colleagues in a private environment rather than through a third-party image host. It replaces the hosted image-sharing service pattern — the repository's own topic list labels it an "imgur-alternative" — with software the operator installs. Shares are private by default and accessible only to whoever holds the link; they can optionally require a password or carry an expiration date after which access is automatically revoked. Alongside that, it gives developers a place to host and share screenshots for GitHub, portfolios and blogs, and gives artists a community-focused gallery with public, explorable images, comments and bookmarks.

Key capabilities

• Privacy-first sharing with private-by-default links, optional password protection, shares that auto-expire, and a dedicated management page to list, edit, publish or revoke shares.
• URL shortening for image links, and Collections that group images so an entire set can be shared through a single link.
• Broad upload format support covering PNG, JPG, WEBP, SVG, BMP, ICO, GIF, AVIF, HEIC and TIFF, with multi-file parallel uploads, progress tracking and per-file error handling.
• Upload-time image compression and deduplication that detects duplicate images and notifies the user.
• ShareX integration for automatic screenshot uploads, plus guest upload so unauthenticated users can upload without creating accounts.
• Authentication by email and password, or SSO/OIDC through Google, Authentik, Keycloak, Authelia, Pocket ID and custom OIDC providers, with personal API keys and a public API.
• Storage providers for local, SMB and AWS S3 backends, with storage usage tracking, an admin dashboard and image moderation controls.
• Organisation features including nested hierarchical tags with search, upload history in list and grid views, bookmarks, comments and notifications, in a UI translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Ukrainian and Chinese with dark and light modes.

Who users are and how they deploy it

• Developers who capture screenshots constantly and want ShareX to push them automatically to their own host instead of a public image service.
• Artists and communities that want images publicly visible and browsable through Explore, with comments and bookmarks turning the instance into a small gallery.
• Homelab and self-hosting operators who run the anirdev/slink container and point it at a local volume, an SMB share or an AWS S3 bucket.
• Teams that already run identity infrastructure, connecting Slink over OIDC to providers such as Keycloak, Authentik or Authelia, and optionally requiring admin approval before a new user can upload.
• Administrators who need oversight: user and settings management, storage consumption metrics and moderation of image visibility.

Getting started

Slink is deployed as the Docker image anirdev/slink against one of its supported storage providers; the documentation at docs.slinkapp.io covers installation and configuration. A live demo at demo.slinkapp.io is available if the feature set needs checking before a self-hosted deployment.

How it compares

Among the comparable tools named in the facts, Slink is positioned as an Imgur alternative: Imgur is a third-party hosted service, whereas Slink is software under AGPL-3.0 that the operator installs and runs. That distinction is the whole point of the project — images, links and access rules live on infrastructure the operator controls, and sharing happens without relying on third-party services.

When to use it — and when not to

Choose Slink if someone is willing to operate a container and one of the supported storage backends — local disk, SMB or AWS S3 — and, when SSO is wanted, to have an OIDC provider such as Keycloak or Authentik already in place. It is a poor fit for anyone who wants a managed hosted service with no operational responsibility, since the facts describe no hosted offering beyond a demo instance. Two caveats are worth noting: the README marks HEIC and TIFF with an asterisk, suggesting qualifications that the excerpt does not spell out, and the available facts give no release version or cadence, so the project's long-term maintenance rhythm should be checked on the repository before committing to it.