Picture Hosting for Websites

[sumaer1261]

Hello All,
My team, 1261, is considering switching our photo hosting service. We have a lot of choices when it comes to this topic, and I was wondering which service other people had the best experience with. Here is a chart we made looking at the pro's and con's of different popular web hosting services.


Service Price (per month) Price (per year) Storage Advertisements Maximum photo quality Maximum photo size Maximum video quality Maximum video size Additional notes
Google Photos Free Free 30 GB No Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Google Photos Free Free Unlimited No 16 MP Unlimited 1080p Unlimited All images and videos are re-encoded, regardless of their size. This shouldn't make a noticeable difference for images and videos under the quality limit, but note that the photos and videos shown are not exactly the files uploaded.

Google Photos $1.99 $23.88 100 GB No Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited

Google Photos $9.99 $119.88 1000 GB No Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited

Flickr Free Free 1000 GB Yes Unlimited 200 MB Unlimited 1 GB Video playback is limited to 3 minutes each.

Flickr Pro $5.99 $49.99 1000 GB No Unlimited 200 MB Unlimited 1 GB Video playback is limited to 3 minutes each. Includes analytics.

Photobucket Free Free 2 GB Yes Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 500 MB If photos are viewed from outside Photobucket, there is a bandwidth cap of 10 GB. Videos are limited to 10 minutes.

Photobucket Free Free 10 GB Yes Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 500 MB Requires download of the Photobucket app. If photos are viewed from outside Photobucket, there is a bandwidth cap of 10 GB. Videos are limited to 10 minutes.

Photobucket $2.99 $29.99 22 GB Yes Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 500 MB Videos are limited to 10 minutes.

Photobucket $4.99 $49.99 52 GB Yes Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited 500 MB Videos are limited to 10 minutes.

SmugMug $5.00 $40.08 Unlimited No 210 MP 150 MB Unlimited 3 GB Free for qualifying charitable 501(c)3 organizations, but

SmugMug decides what organizations fit this description. Videos are limited to 20 minutes.

SmugMug $8.00 $60.00 Unlimited No 210 MP 150 MB Unlimited 3 GB Videos are limited to 20 minutes. This SmugMug plan is completely customizable, so the theme can match our website's theme. I could not find information regarding whether this is free for qualifying charitable 501(c)3 organizations; if we choose this option, we should ask about this.

Based on this research, we believe that our best options are either Flickr Pro or SmugMug (either plan).
Flickr Pro has no advertisements and has 1000 GB of photo storage for $49.99 per year.
SmugMug has no advertisements, has unlimited photo storage, and is free for qualifying 501(c)3 organizations or $40.08 per year otherwise.
Additionally, if we use the SmugMug plan for $60.00 per year, we can customize our SmugMug page and make it look similar to our website.

Thanks,
Sumaer
Webmaster
Team 1261

[MikLast]

while this is cloud storage in general, PCMag did a article on this, and persuaded us to use Google Drive, though this has not been fully implemented within the group just yet so i can not comment on how effective they are.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413556,00.asp

[DonShaw]

Are you looking at this from an integration stand point in relation to the website?

Ease of use for downloading,posting and maintaining?

Features that each service offers (ie. print copies directly)?

What is the level of functionality are you seeking?

[Boe]

We used to have a very unorganized system using flickr google drive team website ect, a few years ago we made the switch to smugmug and have had great success with it. https://frc2175.smugmug.com/