kvanhook Loc: Oriental, NC

I have had an account with Zenfolio for several years. I create galleries for casual viewing, not for sales. I have about 2k images online. My main problem is that I am currently unable to view any of my photos. The thumbnails will not load into viewable size at all. Another problem is Zenfolio's current practice of the archiving of galleries. If want to view an archived gallery, you can theoretically restore it, but it may take 12 hours to do so. One more problem is the continuing upward spiral in price. It was $50 per year, then $60, now it is $77 for the "basic" plan. So, my fellow UHH readers, what say you about Flickr, or SmugMug? Or, any other place where I can create a nice site for family viewing (not just storage)?

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

"Nice site for family viewing" - Flickr is free, up to a 1,000 photos. It has handy features like being able to create albums to group your shots by subject or event, etc. Click on the link in my signature line if you're curious about an active user

As storage, the price is about the same as Zenfolio once you go over 1,000.

bobbyjohn Loc: Dallas, TX

I use Google Drive. Easy to use...my data on Google Drive looks like any other directory to the Windows system...thus I can drag & drop from or to Google Drive. I can authorize any specific (or all) directories/files to one person, a group of persons, or to anyone with the link. The link is the URL given to whomever you choose.
Here's an example: I have made my SKYS directory available to anyone with this URL link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Bm8HQ1ZBM_yj9ygQ76sfg4MP-Z5HEpeM?usp=sharing

Pricing is pretty good too. I have the basic plan of 100 GB which gets $19.99/yr. Upgrades are: 200 GB for $29.99/yr, or 2 TB for $99.99/yr.

kvanhook: you only say 2k Images, but didn't specify how much storage is consumed.

tshift Loc: Overland Park, KS.

I had Zenfolio for years and got rid of it a month or two ago. I used to have PhotoReflect 10-12 years ago, it worked just fine. Then thought Zen would work better. I have now gone back to PhotoReflect when I quit Zen. I am not sorry at all. I think they have a trial to see if you like it. Oh yea it only cost $9.00 a month and then a small 15% commerce fee. I used to think that was too much but 15 cents of a dollar you can easily make up on your photo sales price. Well, think about it. Thanks BE SAFE!!

Tom

jcwall396 Loc: Roswell, GA

I've used Zenfolio for about 9 years and am also tired of the price increases. And now this archiving mess is just the last straw. I've heard SmugMug is good. Anyone had any experience with it? I'm not looking to sell photos, but want a nice website where my family can view photos and customer of mine (I'm a real estate photographer) can view and download the images I take for them. I also need to be able to add a password to selected folders for my customers.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

If you subscribe to the Adobe Portfolio plan it does include the Adobe Portfolios. The best part is that you have already paid for it. Although it is marginally documented how to set it up, it you have any experience with web sites you should be able to figure it out. As I recall you can have up to 4 different websites and you can tag one with any address(URL) that you want.

ricosha Loc: Phoenix, Arizona

Has anyone tried Amazon's storage? Does Amazon provide "view" service. I'm following this thread as I used, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Zenfolio. Flickr seems to be the one most manageable; however many of my viewers (mostly family) don't want to take the time to sign up to view.

RKastner Loc: Davenport, FL

I believe flickr and Smugmug are owned by the same people.

When I flickr got bought I thought the it would disappear, so I joined Smugmug. The disappearance of flickr never happened, so I left Smugmug. Smugmug looks nicer but it's cumbersome to use IMO. Getting view data for Smugmug is harder that it should be, where flickr you can see it by just clicking the info icon for each image. flickr lets you share your images to flickr groups along with sharing the album/image link. Smugmug only lets you share the link. It doesn't have internal groups to share your images.

As mentioned above Smugmug looks more professional, but IMO not as user friendly.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

When I was choosing Flicker and SmugMug were separate and I chose SmugMug because it had better control over passwords and privileges. It also provided a publish “plug-in” for the Lightroom Classic Publish function which is fully integrated, maintained and provides full control of the presentation. Attractive if that works for you. I never revisited the choice in the dozen or so years since. I also do not use it commercially just for sharing with friends or relatives. I signed up with what was their second tier which provided more flexibility in site design and access control but didn’t include commercial ordering options. I believe my level includes using my url (I don’t have one) and a completely anonymous url. I have had many humorous responses from the younger generations, in their 40s and 50s. I exercise an option to block copying an image by selecting it. I get messages that it is broken. So I give permission to down load an image but it is not broken. Also nobody seems to think a password is case sensitive and should I say “Cat” don’t include the “” when entering the password. The only encounter I have had with their help was quite positive. I had some things missing so I contacted customer service via email (I probably didn’t have a smart phone then.) and the contacted me quickly to say the had a back room up grade that probably lost my stuff. Later that day the told me it was fixed and apologized. One persons view.

rangel28

As others have pointed out flickr and SmugMug are now owned by the same company (SmugMug bought flickr). I use both but primarily use SmugMug to store and show my photos. They have unlimited storage and building a website it pretty easy, although not all that intuitive. They also have a very responsive Customer Service team that answers questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you care to look, here is my site.

https://richardangeloni.smugmug.com/

jcwall396 Loc: Roswell, GA

For you SmugMug users, can you add captions to individual photos? Or password protect any of your galleries?

rangel28

Yes, you can add captions and password protect galleries and photos.
Here is an example of a captioned photo.

https://www.smugmug.com/app/organize/Birds/i-XWmb5G3