Here's another thing to consider -- as of May 16, Zenfolio will be able to send prints to only the U.S. and Canada. Basically, they used to have two printing companies -- but the one that shipped to customers out of North America is being dropped.
Zenfolio says they're "looking" for a replacement, but won't promise when they'll have one online.
I'd signed up for an account with Zenfolio about a week ago, but am beginning to wonder if I can really count on these folks as a business partner.
Here's another thing to consider -- as of May 16, Zenfolio will be able to send prints to only the U.S. and Canada. Basically, they used to have two printing companies -- but the one that shipped to customers out of North America is being dropped.
Interesting.. They kept mpix, and dropped ezprints. I wonder if Smugmug is keeping them too busy, OR if they are upset over the switch from Fuji to Kodak..... They did have the two choices before, now they can only offer Kodak--not Fuji. Of course, they also lose international shipping.. That's gotta suck.
Ya know, I smell a way to get a LOT of refugees from Zen. Add coupon codes, et al which will make you directly competitive with Zen in that area!
I evaluated both SM and Zen. I have had a paid account on Zen and have since let it expire and will be switching to SM.
Zen / Likes:
- Clean, intuitive user experience
- Simple, yet powerful organization of photos
- Fast page loading
Zen / Dislikes
- Frequent issues uploading large numbers of photos, whether uploading using their uploader or through their API
- Inability to enable others (friends & family) to download entire albums
- Slide show. Many in this thread seem to like it and while I like the layout, having small photos on my giant monitor with a big black or grey border is ... well ... irritating. I want to see my high-resolution photos FULL screen
- No video support
- No mobile / iPhone UI
- Support. While responsive, the answers were too often "works for us in the office here" I dont' care if it's working for "you" that doesn't help me ... you know, the customer.
SM / Likes
- Feature rich
- Uploads including the very large uploads (files & file size) that I tend to do work. Nothing irritated me more than trying to figure out and resolve photos that didn't upload to Zen
- Slide show
- Smuglr and other great tools. When Smuglr quickly and easily sucked photos during my tests from ALL the sites I've ever used, I was very impressed
- Video
- Flexible
- Outstanding community
- Support ... I get quick, meaningful answers to my questions. Not the quick replies that take me off the support reps queue and leaves me scratching my head wondering what to do next
SM / Dislikes
- Retro UI and user experience
- Figuring out how to do something is often just way harder than it should be
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
SM / Dislikes
- Retro UI and user experience
- Figuring out how to do something is often just way harder than it should be
These are my two highest priorities in life. We've been really lucky that customers have put up with weaknesses in our UI because it has enabled us to get big enough to afford a good UI team of artists, testers, designers and programmers, which we're assembling now. You should see a continual stream of better looking stuff.
- Support. While responsive, the answers were too often "works for us in the office here" I dont' care if it's working for "you" that doesn't help me ... you know, the customer.
A big portion of the SmugMug Support Heros work from home on home connections just as a large number of our users do. We typically see problems long before you do. Or, when there is something going on with SmugMug, we can validate it quickly because we are accessing from a different network than the SmugMug site.
Also, most of us are active photo shooters so we hate to see the system having problems as it effects us as well.
New to SM
As a new refugee from Pbase, I also had a tough choice to make between ZenFolio and SmugMug.
I must admit the look and feel of ZenFolio was mighty attractive but it feels far more remote from it's members. The SmugMug community and fanatical support clinched the decision above the polished front offered by Zen.
Being a troll here for a while, it has continually amazed me how customers are treated with respect and utter competence. I am sure there are features I will depair of not having but, after Pbase, anything is an improvement.
Looking forward to many happy times here.
Now ... if only I can find the time to migrate everything <sigh> Oh, and customise .. and add back the captions .. and tell customers of the change and reword all my footers and ....
I think you menat "lurker" not "toll." Lurkers are fine, trolls are generall not welcome.
Yep, we're a bunch of wild fanatics around here. With good reason. :D
Heheeh - yes, lurker indeed. Though we do refer to people trolling around our web site meaning people just browsing. Guess my brain fried with the effort of migration. Took me 2 hours to figure out how to switch to category view
It is a long-term bet on SM ; hopefully the interface and customization will get easier. Think I started drinking early this morning after a few hours trying to get my head around CSS etc.
I need to chime in here. In May of 2007 I needed to have a web presence for my little side venture . I had heard about both Zen Folio and SmugMug and opted to give SmugMug the nod because as a flickr user there was a special promotion, and I had heard AMAZING things regarding SmugMug support.
When I first started playing with the look and feel of my site I came to the DGRIN forums and was blown away by the timeliness of the responses to my questions...it really helped me finish the look and feel in a matter of a couple of days. It was very important, because aside form not being familiar with coding, I was a new dad with a normal day job and a new and growing weekend side business. Big thanks to Allen, Andy, RichW...and many others I am sure I am forgetting.
After getting my site in order I was able to offer clients there own galleries with prints and products they could buy. I can even offer a guarantee although I was hoping I would never have to have a client contact support because in this day and age good customer support is hard to come by.
Well, in November I did have an issue and on behalf of my client I shot a note to the SmugMug support heroes on a Saturday night. I was amazed that on a Saturday night I had a respone within about 20 minutes stating the order would be reprinted and sent as soon as possible. It is really nice to know that the guarantee I offer on my site...is well, just that a gurantee!!!
Fast forward to last week...I actually had an issue with a canvas that I had ordered from SmugMug. Normally I order canvases from MPIX, but I order a canvas for a client/friend as a gift. Actually, I was trying to kill two birds with one stone...A) I wanted to see the quality of the canvas in hopes of offering them to my clients, and giving the canvas as a gift. The quality of the canvas was sub-standard and not something I or my clients would expect from SmugMug. I contacted support and created a gallery to show them the difference in the two products.
SmugMug went above and beyond the call of duty to rectify the issue. I must have had 20 e-mails from support heroes since last Thursday...it was quite impressive and something that will be LONG remembered!
A big thank you to Andy, Markham, Don, Wendee, Anne and the rest of the SmugMug team. I am a full fledged Smuggie for life!
As a new refugee from Pbase, I also had a tough choice to make between ZenFolio and SmugMug.
I must admit the look and feel of ZenFolio was mighty attractive but it feels far more remote from it's members. The SmugMug community and fanatical support clinched the decision above the polished front offered by Zen.
Being a troll here for a while, it has continually amazed me how customers are treated with respect and utter competence. I am sure there are features I will depair of not having but, after Pbase, anything is an improvement.
Looking forward to many happy times here.
Now ... if only I can find the time to migrate everything <sigh> Oh, and customise .. and add back the captions .. and tell customers of the change and reword all my footers and ....
Make sure you enter the word: pbase in the coupon code field when you officially convert to a paid subscriber. It will give you 50% off your first year!
My only problem with Smugmug ...
is the price. It is one of the most expensive ones (compared to ZF,flickr,picassa).
For 40$/year I get:
- a gallery
- storage+serve for my pictures (which costs less than 5$ a year for them, because they are just resellers)
For an another 20$ a year I can use my own domain and customize (by myself) the website (no real added value from smugmug).
It's crazy. There are people who are saying that 60$ is too much for an OS (which can be used forever), and there you are, smugmug costs 60$ a year. And I am not making money from my website, it's just photos for my family.
I do not thing that smugmug is a good value for money and I will look around before my next payment.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Fast forward to last week...I actually had an issue with a canvas that I had ordered from SmugMug. Normally I order canvases from MPIX, but I order a canvas for a client/friend as a gift. Actually, I was trying to kill two birds with one stone...A) I wanted to see the quality of the canvas in hopes of offering them to my clients, and giving the canvas as a gift. The quality of the canvas was sub-standard and not something I or my clients would expect from SmugMug.
It's was good for us because we used it as an opportunity to put a fire under EZ Prints to improve their canvas quality. Sorry you had to get a mediocre canvas to build that fire.
is the price. It is one of the most expensive ones (compared to ZF,flickr,picassa).
For 40$/year I get:
- a gallery
- storage+serve for my pictures (which costs less than 5$ a year for them, because they are just resellers)
For an another 20$ a year I can use my own domain and customize (by myself) the website (no real added value from smugmug).
It's crazy. There are people who are saying that 60$ is too much for an OS (which can be used forever), and there you are, smugmug costs 60$ a year. And I am not making money from my website, it's just photos for my family.
I do not thing that smugmug is a good value for money and I will look around before my next payment.
Allow me to rebut...
SmugMug is a service. You're not paying for their storage space or their S3 usage. Yes, you cover these costs for them, but you're paying for their uber-dedicated support and their commitment to make everything under their purview "right." You're paying for their help in that self-customization step, which gives your site unparalleled individuality.
You can pay less for photo hosting; SmugMug has conceded that from day one. But you won't find better service on the planet. And it's a service they're continually improving.
I don't mean to harsh on you. Something just struck a chord.
is the price. It is one of the most expensive ones (compared to ZF,flickr,picassa).
For 40$/year I get:
- a gallery
- storage+serve for my pictures (which costs less than 5$ a year for them, because they are just resellers)
For an another 20$ a year I can use my own domain and customize (by myself) the website (no real added value from smugmug).
It's crazy. There are people who are saying that 60$ is too much for an OS (which can be used forever), and there you are, smugmug costs 60$ a year. And I am not making money from my website, it's just photos for my family.
I do not thing that smugmug is a good value for money and I will look around before my next payment.
To each his own: I bought a SM account because it was unlimited storage, upload and download, unlike several free services. It also allows me to share my photos with family and friends, without pressuring them to join anything or buy prints. Few other cheaper services provided this.
I haven't found one that is cheaper with similar offerings. Pbase, Flikr, etc are similarly priced, but with limitations I wasnt interested in.
Granted, the power account is a bit steep compared to others, but then its only a few dollars more, and allows you to customize. If you don't want to customize, there is no restrictions on the regular account.
I am not a SM zealot, and you will find plenty of non-SM users here on this board, but if you find something better for a better price, please speak up
To each his own: I bought a SM account because it was unlimited storage, upload and download, unlike several free services. It also allows me to share my photos with family and friends, without pressuring them to join anything or buy prints. Few other cheaper services provided this.
Both flickr and zenfolio provides this for 25$ a year.
Granted, the power account is a bit steep compared to others, but then its only a few dollars more, and allows you to customize. If you don't want to customize, there is no restrictions on the regular account.
I only wanted to add some kind of multi lang support for captions and found some samples here, but then I realized, that's not a basic feature, so I have to use the same caption for everything, but then again, what for I am paying? Originally I have subscribed to smugmug because they had their own backup, which is not the case anymore.
I am not a SM zealot, and you will find plenty of non-SM users here on this board, but if you find something better for a better price, please speak up
SM still has got the best non flash slideshow, I like it very much (the flash one is a good selling point, but it is very sad that they spent any developer resource on it, instead of creating a new admin interface).
40$/y is very steep currently, but they got it from me for this year.
Both flickr and zenfolio provides this for 25$ a year....
...What were those limitations. I am interested seriously before any change .
Careful: The Zenfolio $25 account isn't comparable: you get only 1GB of storage space per year, meaning 1GB in the first year. That won't work for me.
The $40 Zenfolio account is unlimited and comparable to Smugmug, so, in comparison, not sure how you can say that at $40, Smugmug is horribly expensive. Granted, SM doesn't have a cheaper account. That said, Zenfolio is the most comparible to Smugmug, and is comparible in price as well.
Flickr on the other hand is a photosharing site first, vs a photo viewing site. It is a good deal at $25 for unlimited upload and storage, but its display and presentation are extremely limited: it offers no themes, no way to change the display (I prefer black background to make my photos "pop" on the screen) and it doesnt offer dynamic sizes, you have to constantly click "more sizes" all the time. This just isnt good for Grandma Mason, who still isnt sure which end of the mouse to grab.
...but it is very sad that they spent any developer resource on it, instead of creating a new admin interface).
I can't disagree: SM focuses on the end-user look and feel over the admin look and feel. In this respect, it is well better than Flickr, and likely on par with Zenfolio. But as an admin, and in particular, someone who customizes, this aspect of SM is a big mess: it remains very difficult to customize simply...and does require the use of CSS and scripting. Certainly there is plenty of help around this board, but that is mostly because it is mandatory, and serves to mearly make the customization situation manageble.
Some things to think about with respect to ZF:
- $25 gets you 1 GB of storage with an additional 1 GB for every year you renew
- $40 is the first account that starts really being comparable to SM unless you only have a small number of photos to share or share only low rez
- Allowing family and friends to easily download entire galleries is not possible. Easily done with Album Fetcher with SM (thanks again Wellman!).
- Have you tried the iPhone or mobile version of Zen? There isn't one. And navigating the Zen site with an iPhone or other mobile device ... forget about it.
- Like seeing your slide shows in full screen with full screen photos? With Zen on a large monitor what you'll see is small photos and a lot of black or grey around 'em
- Bulk upload that works time, after time, after time without fail. Have you tried uploading 500 plus high res photos to Zen in bulk?
Outstanding community, service and for just a $1.50 or so per month more you can completely customize your site. If you don't want to learn HTML or CSS; post questions and you'll get answers spoon fed to you with people giving you direct snipets of HTML and CSS for you to copy and paste to make your site what you want.
SM still has got the best non flash slideshow, I like it very much (the flash one is a good selling point, but it is very sad that they spent any developer resource on it, instead of creating a new admin interface).
Hey! I liked the non-flash slideshow too! Is there any way to revert back to it? :-}
You say that like its a bad thing! I wish there was the option not to have one in Smugmug!
Huh? Oh -- because it provides a backdoor to your photos?
For my public site, I think any way for people to see my photos is good. Bit I'm not that obsessed over protection/presentation for that kind of stuff.
These are my two highest priorities in life. We've been really lucky that customers have put up with weaknesses in our UI because it has enabled us to get big enough to afford a good UI team of artists, testers, designers and programmers, which we're assembling now. You should see a continual stream of better looking stuff.
I'm currently evaluating both Smugmug and Zenvolio. By trade I'm a software architect so I understand the issues that come with developing software applications. I still have over week before I have to decide between Smugmug and Zenvolio. Below are several things Smugmug does that I dislike, but for the most part Smugmug has done a nice job.
I don't want to be limited to creating only two catagories (groups) for my galleries.
The creation of catagories is too complex.
If I enable security on a gallery I don't want a feature photo displayed.
Zenvolio does have a util that allows you to download all your pictures that you have uploaded, were as Sumgmug allows you only to download one picture at a time.
I'm currently evaluating both Smugmug and Zenvolio. By trade I'm a software architect so I understand the issues that come with developing software applications. I still have over week before I have to decide between Smugmug and Zenvolio. Below are several things Smugmug does that I dislike, but for the most part Smugmug has done a nice job.
I don't want to be limited to creating only two catagories (groups) for my galleries.
The creation of catagories is too complex.
If I enable security on a gallery I don't want a feature photo displayed.
Zenvolio does have a util that allows you to download all your pictures that you have uploaded, were as Sumgmug allows you only to download one picture at a time.
-- Chad
Hi Chad, we're actively working on multiple layers of groups
For download? We have it, too Try AlbumFetcher (PC) or SmugDav (PC or Mac).
Great! That is nice to know. I don't think I worded this well above. Here is what I was looking for. If I enable security on a gallery I don't want a feature photo displayed unless someone has already been authenticated. Also, I noticed that the featured photo of the first gallery listed in a category is also used on the sub-category and category. I would really link the option to display categories (groups) as a folder and not use a featured photo. I just want the featured photo to be applied to the gallery it resides in.
...we're actively working on multiple layers of groups
Are you (hopefully) also working on something along the lines of Flickr's / Zenfolio's ability to have an image belong to multiple groups at the same time?
Different people search for things in different ways, and it'd be nice if (for example) I could include a photo both in a location-specific group as well as a subject-specific group. So if I take a picture of a bird in Montana, the same picture could be seen in a gallery of Montana images and also in another gallery of bird images.
Are you (hopefully) also working on something along the lines of Flickr's / Zenfolio's ability to have an image belong to multiple groups at the same time?
Different people search for things in different ways, and it'd be nice if (for example) I could include a photo both in a location-specific group as well as a subject-specific group. So if I take a picture of a bird in Montana, the same picture could be seen in a gallery of Montana images and also in another gallery of bird images.
Argos
First things first Thanks for posting about how important this is to you
I have both and the two are very different. There are some great features with Zenfolio that makes managing folders and galleries very easy (the main reason I signed on). The choice of gallery styles are okay as well, just like the choice Smugmug offers. However, what I find interesting is that there are Zenfolio users that are now asking for more features that will allow them to customize their albums. This is probably the biggest plus with Smugmug, is that they allow for modifications through customization. For many people this may seem daunting at first, but if one takes their time and learns the tricks, creativity is limitless.
I find it interesting that there are Smugmug users that would like to see some of the features offered by Zenfolio, and at the same time Zenfolio users wanting the features offered by Smugmug (including allowing videos). For me personally I need to decide which service will allow me to grow my album as I learn. Smugmug allows for this in spades. Zenfolio, as good as they have designed their service, is well suited for those who do not want to experiment with their album beyond the initial offerings.
As for support. Zenfolio is good for responding to emails, but their forum does not offer much in the way of informative or timely support. Smugmug's support team excels in forum involvement. Andy at one time replied to a post by reminding the poster to either ask the question in the forum or by email, but not both. With Zenfolio you need to ask the question through both avenues if your looking for an answer. Nice to know that with Smugmug they read forum messages and respond accordingly and quickly. This also allows for a lot of knowledge sharing.
As for being reliable. While I have not experienced any down time with Zenfolio, I have experienced very slow periods for accessing my album. Zenfolio is a much smaller company than Smugmug, so comparing performance is difficult when one company has so many less users than an other. So far I have not seen Zenfolio tested with an outage, so I have no way of knowing how reliable they would be in restoring service. What I have seen is how hard Smugmug works at correcting errors, and that kind of service needs to be measured as "reliable."
In a nutshell, while I like the simplicity of Zenfolio, I keep getting drawn back into my Smugmug account. I know that once I spend the extra time to learn about all the possible features and coding, that I will that much closer to having a really professional photo site . . .
Video capability helped make my decision
I checked out Zenfolio and was really impressed with the polished look feel of it but the fact that they had no video made it a no go for me. I may be in the minority, as my account is not for professional use, but instead a place for family to go and check out pics and videos of our family. Needless to say there are many videos I would like to share as well, and SmugMug's ability to upload good quality video allowed me to host both photos and videos in one place. Granted I could host in a couple different places but it really needs to be as simplified as possible so everyone no matter their level of experience can get to your content.
I know many people think photos and videos should be separate, but I applaud SmugMug for allowing it's users to upload both.
My $.02 - I have a smugmug and a zenfolio account. I don't use Zenfolio anymore, and will probably let it lapse. I originally decided on Zenfolio because I thought it looked better, slicker, and more "polished" (I have to admit that was before Smugmug did a big revamp of the way it works). Part of my original decision was based on their info that "customization" of galleries was "coming soon".
That was over two years ago - and "coming soon" is still coming. In that time Smugmug has added features, changed features, polished up features, made their system better, provided tons of support toward customizing sites, provided really good service and info on this forum, and continues to evolve.
Comments
Zenfolio says they're "looking" for a replacement, but won't promise when they'll have one online.
I'd signed up for an account with Zenfolio about a week ago, but am beginning to wonder if I can really count on these folks as a business partner.
Lead dog at Old Dog Photography
Ya know, I smell a way to get a LOT of refugees from Zen. Add coupon codes, et al which will make you directly competitive with Zen in that area!
David
Twitter: @WolfSnap
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WolfSnapDesigns
SmugMug & Wordpress Customization - WolfSnap.com | Custom Domains
And if SM could swing something like Zen's "collections," it'd be a slam dunk.
Lead dog at Old Dog Photography
Zen / Likes:
- Clean, intuitive user experience
- Simple, yet powerful organization of photos
- Fast page loading
Zen / Dislikes
- Frequent issues uploading large numbers of photos, whether uploading using their uploader or through their API
- Inability to enable others (friends & family) to download entire albums
- Slide show. Many in this thread seem to like it and while I like the layout, having small photos on my giant monitor with a big black or grey border is ... well ... irritating. I want to see my high-resolution photos FULL screen
- No video support
- No mobile / iPhone UI
- Support. While responsive, the answers were too often "works for us in the office here" I dont' care if it's working for "you" that doesn't help me ... you know, the customer.
SM / Likes
- Feature rich
- Uploads including the very large uploads (files & file size) that I tend to do work. Nothing irritated me more than trying to figure out and resolve photos that didn't upload to Zen
- Slide show
- Smuglr and other great tools. When Smuglr quickly and easily sucked photos during my tests from ALL the sites I've ever used, I was very impressed
- Video
- Flexible
- Outstanding community
- Support ... I get quick, meaningful answers to my questions. Not the quick replies that take me off the support reps queue and leaves me scratching my head wondering what to do next
SM / Dislikes
- Retro UI and user experience
- Figuring out how to do something is often just way harder than it should be
A big portion of the SmugMug Support Heros work from home on home connections just as a large number of our users do. We typically see problems long before you do. Or, when there is something going on with SmugMug, we can validate it quickly because we are accessing from a different network than the SmugMug site.
Also, most of us are active photo shooters so we hate to see the system having problems as it effects us as well.
http://help.smugmug.com
As a new refugee from Pbase, I also had a tough choice to make between ZenFolio and SmugMug.
I must admit the look and feel of ZenFolio was mighty attractive but it feels far more remote from it's members. The SmugMug community and fanatical support clinched the decision above the polished front offered by Zen.
Being a troll here for a while, it has continually amazed me how customers are treated with respect and utter competence. I am sure there are features I will depair of not having but, after Pbase, anything is an improvement.
Looking forward to many happy times here.
Now ... if only I can find the time to migrate everything <sigh> Oh, and customise .. and add back the captions .. and tell customers of the change and reword all my footers and ....
Mike
http://photosignals.smugmug.com/
http://photosignals.smugmug.com
Yep, we're a bunch of wild fanatics around here. With good reason.
http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com/
Heheeh - yes, lurker indeed. Though we do refer to people trolling around our web site meaning people just browsing. Guess my brain fried with the effort of migration. Took me 2 hours to figure out how to switch to category view
It is a long-term bet on SM ; hopefully the interface and customization will get easier. Think I started drinking early this morning after a few hours trying to get my head around CSS etc.
http://photosignals.smugmug.com
When I first started playing with the look and feel of my site I came to the DGRIN forums and was blown away by the timeliness of the responses to my questions...it really helped me finish the look and feel in a matter of a couple of days. It was very important, because aside form not being familiar with coding, I was a new dad with a normal day job and a new and growing weekend side business. Big thanks to Allen, Andy, RichW...and many others I am sure I am forgetting.
After getting my site in order I was able to offer clients there own galleries with prints and products they could buy. I can even offer a guarantee although I was hoping I would never have to have a client contact support because in this day and age good customer support is hard to come by.
Well, in November I did have an issue and on behalf of my client I shot a note to the SmugMug support heroes on a Saturday night. I was amazed that on a Saturday night I had a respone within about 20 minutes stating the order would be reprinted and sent as soon as possible. It is really nice to know that the guarantee I offer on my site...is well, just that a gurantee!!!
Fast forward to last week...I actually had an issue with a canvas that I had ordered from SmugMug. Normally I order canvases from MPIX, but I order a canvas for a client/friend as a gift. Actually, I was trying to kill two birds with one stone...A) I wanted to see the quality of the canvas in hopes of offering them to my clients, and
SmugMug went above and beyond the call of duty to rectify the issue. I must have had 20 e-mails from support heroes since last Thursday...it was quite impressive and something that will be LONG remembered!
A big thank you to Andy, Markham, Don, Wendee, Anne and the rest of the SmugMug team. I am a full fledged Smuggie for life!
Noel
www.nkpix.com
http://www.nkpix.com
Make sure you enter the word: pbase in the coupon code field when you officially convert to a paid subscriber. It will give you 50% off your first year!
Also, you might want to check out this thread for a Pbase to SmugMug transfer tool: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=41813&highlight=base2smug
Markham
</sigh>
www.twitter.com/markhambennett
is the price. It is one of the most expensive ones (compared to ZF,flickr,picassa).
For 40$/year I get:
- a gallery
- storage+serve for my pictures (which costs less than 5$ a year for them, because they are just resellers)
For an another 20$ a year I can use my own domain and customize (by myself) the website (no real added value from smugmug).
It's crazy. There are people who are saying that 60$ is too much for an OS (which can be used forever), and there you are, smugmug costs 60$ a year. And I am not making money from my website, it's just photos for my family.
I do not thing that smugmug is a good value for money and I will look around before my next payment.
Allow me to rebut...
SmugMug is a service. You're not paying for their storage space or their S3 usage. Yes, you cover these costs for them, but you're paying for their uber-dedicated support and their commitment to make everything under their purview "right." You're paying for their help in that self-customization step, which gives your site unparalleled individuality.
You can pay less for photo hosting; SmugMug has conceded that from day one. But you won't find better service on the planet. And it's a service they're continually improving.
I don't mean to harsh on you. Something just struck a chord.
Swim for Them | WellmanHouse.net | AlbumFetcher | SmugShowBuilder
To each his own: I bought a SM account because it was unlimited storage, upload and download, unlike several free services. It also allows me to share my photos with family and friends, without pressuring them to join anything or buy prints. Few other cheaper services provided this.
I haven't found one that is cheaper with similar offerings. Pbase, Flikr, etc are similarly priced, but with limitations I wasnt interested in.
Granted, the power account is a bit steep compared to others, but then its only a few dollars more, and allows you to customize. If you don't want to customize, there is no restrictions on the regular account.
I am not a SM zealot, and you will find plenty of non-SM users here on this board, but if you find something better for a better price, please speak up
Both flickr and zenfolio provides this for 25$ a year.
What were those limitations. I am interested seriously before any change
I only wanted to add some kind of multi lang support for captions and found some samples here, but then I realized, that's not a basic feature, so I have to use the same caption for everything, but then again, what for I am paying? Originally I have subscribed to smugmug because they had their own backup, which is not the case anymore.
SM still has got the best non flash slideshow, I like it very much (the flash one is a good selling point, but it is very sad that they spent any developer resource on it, instead of creating a new admin interface).
40$/y is very steep currently, but they got it from me for this year.
The $40 Zenfolio account is unlimited and comparable to Smugmug, so, in comparison, not sure how you can say that at $40, Smugmug is horribly expensive. Granted, SM doesn't have a cheaper account. That said, Zenfolio is the most comparible to Smugmug, and is comparible in price as well.
Flickr on the other hand is a photosharing site first, vs a photo viewing site. It is a good deal at $25 for unlimited upload and storage, but its display and presentation are extremely limited: it offers no themes, no way to change the display (I prefer black background to make my photos "pop" on the screen) and it doesnt offer dynamic sizes, you have to constantly click "more sizes" all the time. This just isnt good for Grandma Mason, who still isnt sure which end of the mouse to grab.
I can't disagree: SM focuses on the end-user look and feel over the admin look and feel. In this respect, it is well better than Flickr, and likely on par with Zenfolio. But as an admin, and in particular, someone who customizes, this aspect of SM is a big mess: it remains very difficult to customize simply...and does require the use of CSS and scripting. Certainly there is plenty of help around this board, but that is mostly because it is mandatory, and serves to mearly make the customization situation manageble.
- $25 gets you 1 GB of storage with an additional 1 GB for every year you renew
- $40 is the first account that starts really being comparable to SM unless you only have a small number of photos to share or share only low rez
- Allowing family and friends to easily download entire galleries is not possible. Easily done with Album Fetcher with SM (thanks again Wellman!).
- Have you tried the iPhone or mobile version of Zen? There isn't one. And navigating the Zen site with an iPhone or other mobile device ... forget about it.
- Like seeing your slide shows in full screen with full screen photos? With Zen on a large monitor what you'll see is small photos and a lot of black or grey around 'em
- Bulk upload that works time, after time, after time without fail. Have you tried uploading 500 plus high res photos to Zen in bulk?
Outstanding community, service and for just a $1.50 or so per month more you can completely customize your site. If you don't want to learn HTML or CSS; post questions and you'll get answers spoon fed to you with people giving you direct snipets of HTML and CSS for you to copy and paste to make your site what you want.
Hey! I liked the non-flash slideshow too! Is there any way to revert back to it? :-}
Huh? Oh -- because it provides a backdoor to your photos?
For my public site, I think any way for people to see my photos is good. Bit I'm not that obsessed over protection/presentation for that kind of stuff.
I'm currently evaluating both Smugmug and Zenvolio. By trade I'm a software architect so I understand the issues that come with developing software applications. I still have over week before I have to decide between Smugmug and Zenvolio. Below are several things Smugmug does that I dislike, but for the most part Smugmug has done a nice job.
- I don't want to be limited to creating only two catagories (groups) for my galleries.
- The creation of catagories is too complex.
- If I enable security on a gallery I don't want a feature photo displayed.
- Zenvolio does have a util that allows you to download all your pictures that you have uploaded, were as Sumgmug allows you only to download one picture at a time.
-- ChadHi Chad, we're actively working on multiple layers of groups
For download? We have it, too
http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Hacks+and+Apps
http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/SmugDAV
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Great! That is nice to know. I don't think I worded this well above. Here is what I was looking for. If I enable security on a gallery I don't want a feature photo displayed unless someone has already been authenticated. Also, I noticed that the featured photo of the first gallery listed in a category is also used on the sub-category and category. I would really link the option to display categories (groups) as a folder and not use a featured photo. I just want the featured photo to be applied to the gallery it resides in.
-- Chad
Different people search for things in different ways, and it'd be nice if (for example) I could include a photo both in a location-specific group as well as a subject-specific group. So if I take a picture of a bird in Montana, the same picture could be seen in a gallery of Montana images and also in another gallery of bird images.
Argos
Lead dog at Old Dog Photography
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
This is possible now. I have a few password protected galleries on my site, and some have featured photos and some do not.
I find it interesting that there are Smugmug users that would like to see some of the features offered by Zenfolio, and at the same time Zenfolio users wanting the features offered by Smugmug (including allowing videos). For me personally I need to decide which service will allow me to grow my album as I learn. Smugmug allows for this in spades. Zenfolio, as good as they have designed their service, is well suited for those who do not want to experiment with their album beyond the initial offerings.
As for support. Zenfolio is good for responding to emails, but their forum does not offer much in the way of informative or timely support. Smugmug's support team excels in forum involvement. Andy at one time replied to a post by reminding the poster to either ask the question in the forum or by email, but not both. With Zenfolio you need to ask the question through both avenues if your looking for an answer. Nice to know that with Smugmug they read forum messages and respond accordingly and quickly. This also allows for a lot of knowledge sharing.
As for being reliable. While I have not experienced any down time with Zenfolio, I have experienced very slow periods for accessing my album. Zenfolio is a much smaller company than Smugmug, so comparing performance is difficult when one company has so many less users than an other. So far I have not seen Zenfolio tested with an outage, so I have no way of knowing how reliable they would be in restoring service. What I have seen is how hard Smugmug works at correcting errors, and that kind of service needs to be measured as "reliable."
In a nutshell, while I like the simplicity of Zenfolio, I keep getting drawn back into my Smugmug account. I know that once I spend the extra time to learn about all the possible features and coding, that I will that much closer to having a really professional photo site . . .
Anyway, thought I would put in my 2 cents worth.
Peter
I checked out Zenfolio and was really impressed with the polished look feel of it but the fact that they had no video made it a no go for me. I may be in the minority, as my account is not for professional use, but instead a place for family to go and check out pics and videos of our family. Needless to say there are many videos I would like to share as well, and SmugMug's ability to upload good quality video allowed me to host both photos and videos in one place. Granted I could host in a couple different places but it really needs to be as simplified as possible so everyone no matter their level of experience can get to your content.
I know many people think photos and videos should be separate, but I applaud SmugMug for allowing it's users to upload both.
That was over two years ago - and "coming soon" is still coming. In that time Smugmug has added features, changed features, polished up features, made their system better, provided tons of support toward customizing sites, provided really good service and info on this forum, and continues to evolve.