Store, Tag and Print: 10 Great Photo Sharing Services
The photo sharing market is growing at a steady clip and new services are released regularly. In this round-up, we compare the features and usability of 10 of our favorite photo sharing sites. Two years ago, we published a similar list. So now seems a good time for us to revisit the topic.
Some of these sites focus more on mainstream users and photo-finishing, while others stand out because of their extensive social features. Note: we've included a full table of features for the services listed (see below).
Mainstream vs. Social Web
In our last round-up, we noted that there was a wide gap between mainstream photo finishing services with a social component like Kodak Gallery or Shutterfly, and more advanced photo sharing services like Flickr or Picasa which focus more on the social aspects of the experience. Today, that gap is still quite apparent, although Flickr, our favorite social photo sharing service, is starting to make some inroads with mainstream users since it replaced Yahoo Photos. Most of the mainstream services tend to emphasize photo printing over sharing, which becomes quite clear when you take a look at the feature sets of the services.
Click here for the full-size version of this table.
Flickr
Yahoo's Flickr is probably the most well-known photo sharing site in the Web 2.0 world. In terms of its social features and user community, no other service even comes close. However, development has been slow over the last two years and some of the newer services have surpassed Flickr's feature set. Also, while Flickr has no storage limits, you can only upload 100 megabytes a month. If you are looking for a free service, we still recommend Flickr over its competitors, not the least because it is supported by almost every desktop photo application.
Pros: active community; easy sharing; groups; Creative Commons licensing; RSS feeds for everything
Cons: might still be a bit too complicated for some mainstream users
Picasa Web Albums
Google's Picasa Web Albums profits greatly from its tight integration with Picasa, Google's popular desktop photo management application. Picasa also benefits from Google's minimalist design philosophy, which has kept the service extremely easy to use, even as Google has added new features over the last two years. The latest update to Picasa also added a lot of social features to the site, but we think it still doesn't match the feature set and active community of Flickr.
Pros: easy to use; face recognition; integration with Picasa; Creative Commons licensing
Cons: only 1GB storage with free account
SmugMug
SmugMug is our recommendation if you are willing to pay for your photo hosting. You do indeed get what you pay for. SmugMug is incredibly easy to use and is also one of the few services that accept uploads in the RAW format (if you enable the SmugVault). SmugMug courts professional photographers, who will especially like the fact that they can theme their accounts. Also, out of all the services we looked at, SmugMug had the best selection of theme templates.
Pros: easy to use; lots of options; rich feature set
Cons: not free (but worth the money)
Me.com
Apple's Me.com is a bit of an outsider here, as the gallery feature is only a small part of an extensive productivity suite. Thanks to its tight integration with iLife, its image gallery feature represents a good alternative for those who already subscribe to Me.com. We would not recommend Me.com to Windows users, by the way, as it integrates poorly with both Vista and XP. If you just want an easy way to share some pictures from iPhoto, you could do worse than using Me.com. If anything, the galleries are very well designed, even though the functionality of the service is quite limited.
Pros: tight integration with OSX and iLife; gorgeous galleries; very easy to use
Cons: very limited functionality; almost no social features
Photobucket
Photobucket is incredibly popular, but it also has some of the more stringent restrictions for its free accounts. Your pictures, for example, can't be larger than 1024x786. Thanks to its integration with Facebook, Photobucket is a popular spot for sharing pictures from college parties, but we wouldn't recommend it for regular use over Flickr.
Pros: easy to use; very easy to share pictures on social networking sites
Cons: lots of ads; limited functionality; no upload client; free account very limited
Kodak Gallery
Like many of its mainstream brethren, Kodak Gallery is squarely focused on getting you and your friends to print your pictures. Its feature set lacks depth for advanced users, but Kodak Gallery is easy to use and does have some surprisingly useful image editing features, including red-eye removal and photo cropping, as well as a limited range of effects and borders. As long as you make one purchase from the site per year, you get unlimited storage space and uploads, which makes it a good service if you tend to print pictures anyway.
Pros: easy to use; unlimited storage
Cons: no social features; limited sharing functions
Shutterfly
Shutterfly is also aimed at mainstream users, though it sets itself apart from some of the other services by offering a wider set of options for printing, including stickers, books, and cards. Its user interface is also very well designed.
Pros: unlimited storage; great printing options; easy to use
Cons: limited sharing options and social features
Webshots
Webshots sits somewhere between the mainstream and social sharing market. The site offers a good number of advanced features like tagging, groups, site-wide search, and a large number of sharing options. At the same time, it is also very easy to use for less tech-savvy users and features a wealth of printing options. Its upload restrictions are similar to Fickr's, though it allows you to upload 1000 pictures in your first month (5000 for pro accounts) and then 100 for every following month.
Pros: easy to use; lots of features; large user community
Cons: upload restrictions; lots of ads on the site
Snapfish
Snapfish is squarely targeted at mainstream users, though its interface could be more intuitive and the service has not really improved much over the years. The social features of the site are limited to sharing links by email.
Pros: themed galleries; lots of choices for prints, including books, stickers, mugs etc.
Cons: no social features; convoluted interface
Phanfare
Phanfare turned out to be a nice surprise, thanks to its extensive feature set, including a good selection of gallery themes, the ability to import photos from other online photo sharing apps, an iPhone app, and a well designed user interface.
Pros: easy to use; nice shared galleries; geotagging
Cons: just 1GB of storage with free accounts; unlimited accounts are pricey
Bonus: Gallery
Menalto's Gallery is a bit different from the rest of the sites featured here, as it is a self-hosted application. However, thanks to the large number of plugins and themes being developed around Gallery, it is worthwhile to consider for those who are comfortable installing it on their servers. Thanks to the copious amount of storage that often comes with hosting accounts these days, Gallery can be a good alternative for those who don't care too much about the social features on the site itself.
Pros: free (if you already have a hosting account); extremely flexible; great themes and plugins; no advertising; easy to set up
Cons: self-hosted; no social features
Did We Miss Something?
Did we miss one of your favorites? If so, let us know in the comments.
Logo courtesy of Flickr user Penmachine.
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you're missing the new kid on the block: ilovephotos.com! but it's currently only for macs.
Posted by: Philip | September 18, 2008 5:37 AM
I use self hosted Zen Photo (http://www.zenphoto.org/).
Posted by: xlt | September 18, 2008 5:47 AM
A few remarks: Flickr does have for-pay "pro" accounts, which remove all limitations; for a free account user, 100Mb/month should be more than enough; to be fair, Photobucket's limitation of photos to 1024x768 on free accounts is shared by Flickr.
As for ease of use, I suspect that someone who finds Flickr complicated can't use a camera phone either...
Posted by: Felix Pleşoianu | September 18, 2008 5:58 AM
http://photos.live.com/ (part of Live Spaces).
Posted by: Jasjeet Kaur | September 18, 2008 6:21 AM
I love Flickr BUT there is another limit for free users, other than 100Mb upload/month, which is that it will only show the most recent 200 items in your photostream (and in searches, probably API calls etc). For me this has meant that my most popular photos (admittedly not that popular) have been shunted off the end. I find this a more intractable limit than the upload one, it's a real problem. Perhaps there's some way round it.
Posted by: Jeremy | September 18, 2008 6:55 AM
I think you've basically covered the "Store, Tag and Print" sites, but there are other sites out there for telling a story with photos. Don't forget Tabblo for making artistic creations with groups of photos and text.
My site, OurDoings, is for sharing large numbers of photos that tell a long story, e.g. of kids growing up or travels over the years. For this kind of photo, automatically organizing by date makes albums and tags unnecessary. For example, if you want to see your kid's birthday pictures you just click on the right year and month. Christmas vacations are just as easy. I think this will be the first of many sites that emphasize chronology and deemphasize or omit albums and tags.
Posted by: Bruce Lewis | September 18, 2008 7:06 AM
I use KoffeePhoto and am very happy with my choice. Online storage, optional desktop software, photo enhancement functions, MRSS feeds, private/public sharing, some social networking functions. Worth a try.
Posted by: Carl | September 18, 2008 7:07 AM
@Jeremy Right, I didn't mention that because I'm far from hitting the limit yet, and I plan to upgrade soon anyway. Which is probably the only solution, except for periodically pruning your least popular photos. Don't you think it's fair for them to ask money in exchange for services? :)
Posted by: Felix Pleşoianu | September 18, 2008 7:10 AM
well, it seems you forgot ipernity (http://www.ipernity.com) which looks like Flickr clone with some tweaks here and there.
I like it ability to login using OpenID
Posted by: Anton Kudris | September 18, 2008 7:21 AM
Zenfolio is another one to add to your list. I use ZenPhoto (unrelated) self-hosted, and it works well. It would be very difficult to incorporate e-commerce though; for that, SmugMug is going to be hard to beat.
Posted by: Dave | September 18, 2008 7:32 AM
zooomr.com??
Posted by: bill | September 18, 2008 7:56 AM
There are Free Coupons. Actually you can get like 100 free printing by just signup.
http://dealspl.us/photo_printing_coupons
Posted by: Jason | September 18, 2008 8:36 AM
Hasn't zooomr.com been abandoned or something? I remember reading about a bunch of drama involving the founder leaving and no further fixes being done for existing users.
Anyways, I have a big honking spreadsheet with every site I could find. It's open to public edits, so I welcome everyone to take a look and add/correct as needed:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pes9Zmt9-3PySYn1CTTeNAw
BTW, what's up with Kodak Gallery? How long has kodakgallery.com had the "temporary maintenance" notice been there?
Posted by: Darryl Lee | September 18, 2008 8:39 AM
Hey, great post! And thanks for the love. :)
Couple of quick corrections:
- SmugMug does upload from iPhoto: http://www.smugmug.com/help/macs
- You can upload RAW even at the Standard and Power account levels - you just have to enable SmugVault (Pros must do this, too).
Thanks again!
Don
Posted by: Don MacAskill
|
September 18, 2008 9:05 AM
viewbook.com is quite new and aimes at professional phtographers, designers and artists. Quality of the galleries and portfolios are key features and easy image management. It's more an image presentation tool. Http://www.viewbook.com.
Posted by: rien | September 18, 2008 9:21 AM
@Don - thanks for the correction - I will update the spreadsheet ASAP.
Viewbook's simplicity and ease of use is great and it has the cleanest galleries of all.
Check it out http://www.viewbook.com
Cheers,
Alrik
Posted by: alrik | September 18, 2008 3:16 PM
My pics are Kodak, Snapfish, and Smug Mug. If you are into sharing with family and ordering pics go with the first two. If you are into showcasing your skills go with SMugMug. Well worth the money. If you are unsure about spending the cash try a free trial at http://printedproof.com/Photo-and-Prints/Deals/SmugMug.com-Discounts-and-Coupons.html
Posted by: PrintedProof.com | September 18, 2008 7:36 PM
I use 72 Photos - www.72photos.com - It's very simple to use, has a clean interface and some great features for sharing.
Posted by: Trav | September 18, 2008 8:08 PM
how can u miss Live Photo Gallery in wave3 public beta, by which u can tag people on msn contacts.
Posted by: tonni | September 18, 2008 9:06 PM
I use photoshop.com, 2GB of space with a great upload client are lifesavers.
Posted by: Ashish | September 18, 2008 9:28 PM
Although I use Flickr for my photos, for years I enjoyed a great community of Deviantart. I think you've missed it here...
Posted by: Aaron
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September 19, 2008 4:44 AM
Aaron I've also enjoyed the great DeviantArt community.
Posted by: Corrrvidarrrgh
|
September 19, 2008 4:59 AM
shutterfly now has a nice social piece to it.. my site:
http://saitz.shutterfly.com/
Posted by: bsaitz.myopenid.com
|
September 19, 2008 6:09 AM
Good time for me to start the flickr. Many friend has introduce it's a good one to store, and share your photos.
Posted by: smithveg | September 19, 2008 9:48 AM
Has anyone considered evaluating these photo-sharing sites on the actual designs they offer? That's half the battle sometimes - do they offer anything that's cool, interesting, artistic, that really helps you tell a story? Check out Ninebirdpublishing.com. They are brand new to this marketplace and while you can't do anything directly on their site, their designs will be available at drugstores and big box retailers - where a lot of people still have their photos printed.
Posted by: Erin | September 19, 2008 9:51 AM
Another minor correction, you list SmugMug video as Pro only, but Power users also have the ability to share video.
Posted by: Chris Abbey | September 19, 2008 12:31 PM
No mention of Fotki?
Posted by: Collin
|
September 19, 2008 2:02 PM
I am surprised pBase was left off this list. It is one of the older and still one of the better services.
Posted by: Sean | September 19, 2008 7:18 PM
Hi,
thanks for this informative post.
i miss a really powerful online photo service MAGIX Online Album (http://www.magix-photos.com)
It´s an easy to use service for publishing yout photos under a own webadress in the internet. very beautiful album design templates and a powerful online media manager.
cheers
daniel
Posted by: Daniel | September 20, 2008 7:30 AM
It makes sense to add several very large Websites, each with at least a million members - Fotki, Pbase, Imageshack, Piczo. It's nice to see several other sites included though - not the usual Flickr-Photobucket-Snafish-Shutterfly-Kodak
Posted by: Igor | September 21, 2008 3:22 PM
You forgot one service.
Imageshack.
The toolbar makes it easy to use, plus it seems there are no storage limits.
Posted by: Infonote | September 21, 2008 11:46 PM
Hi Frederic,
You forgot about Jalbum. Great photo album generator and photo sharing community. http://jalbum.net
Thanks for a great blog post.
/Björn
Posted by: Björn fant | September 22, 2008 12:21 AM
I like Picamatic because you don't have to register:
http://www.picamatic.com/
Posted by: Ben | September 22, 2008 6:45 AM
I notice that Multiply is missing. Multiply offers all of these features (without a limit on uploads for free accounts), with much better, more granular controls than any of the sites you mentioned.
Posted by: Julie | September 22, 2008 10:52 AM
I often use a site called PhotoWorks.com, not mentioned in your post. PhotoWorks is an "online personal publishing company and photography community" that allows users to share and store digital photos, host personalized Web pages and Storefronts, build communities and use their favorite pictures to create really neat, high-quality, photo-personalized products like hard-bound photo books, greeting cards, calendars, prints, tee-shirts, glossy puzzles, key chains, mouse pads, sticky notepads... and all kinds of other stuff.
PhotoWorks is really easy to use and its free to upload your photos. Their products are very reasonably priced and are of the utmost in quality. I highly recommend PhotoWorks.com.
Posted by: Jaime | September 22, 2008 11:55 AM
It's refreshing to know that you folks mentioned Gallery, the open source web based photo album organizer. I've been using for about 4 years now and not planning to switch platforms anytime soon.
Chances are, if you have a web hosting account somewhere, your provider's control panel probably have a Gallery 2 installer ready for use. Just click and install and follow the instructions.
If you want to give it a quick spin, have a look at http://pixi.me/ - it's a free service for personal use. We'll be migrating to the upcoming version 2.3 once it's out the door. I use it personally, for family (private viewing only) & friends.
Posted by: steve caturan | October 2, 2008 12:55 AM
Hello, you've missed pikeo.com
Posted by: Mglcel | October 6, 2008 5:33 AM
Check out lifesnapz. New site that combines photos, videos, timelines and maps. Very cool.
http://www.lifesnapz.com
Posted by: Bernie Carbo | October 9, 2008 12:50 PM