For a few years I’ve been using Flickr to post and share my photos, but as my Pro account was expiring a few weeks ago I have decided not to renew but rather to move on. Yes, my Flickr account is still alive, but since it’s no loner a Pro account only the latest 200 uploaded photos are displayed.
Why did I move on? Well, Flickr hasn’t changed a lot in years and the interface feels so yesterday. One of the major issues I had was the white background with no options to change. Yes, there are some third party ‘gateways’ to display the pictures on black background, but that’s really not it.
I explored number of alternatives and here are some that I have found: Zoomr, PBase, PhotoBucket, PhotoNet, SmugMug, Deviant Art, Zenfolio, 23, PicasaWeb, Fotki, Fotolog, Photo Dekho, Photo Buzz, Humble Voice, WebShots, DropShots… and all of them have their advantages and disadvantages. Some are free, some you pay for, most of them have a basic free account, but if you want real stuff you have to pay. Some of them look great, some are far from great and some just consfused the hell out of me.
In the end I have signed up with SmugMug. I found that SmugMug is the closest to what I really wanted, it has an excellent professional looking interface, number of ways to display your portfolio by using over 50 themes, endless ways of customising your site and has an awesome set of tools for uploading and managing your photos.
The Power and Pro accounts even let you point your own domain name to your SmugMug account, which is pretty cool. All account types offer unlimited storage and traffic for photos with Power and Pro accounts including unlimited HD videos.
Have a look for yourself
, you will get a 14 days free trial account and if you decide to sign up
, don’t forget to use the SmugMug discount coupon X6dRIaxh10P1k - that will save you $5.00 of the regular price for any type of the account.
By the way, my SmugMug gallery is here if you’d like to have a peek and let me know what you think.