20 Best Free Photo Sharing Sites For Photographers, Groups & Families
Photo sharing sites have come as a necessity. And It is difficult to do without them considering the sheer number of photos that we produce on our camera phones each day.
Digital cameras and smartphones mean that most of us have a ton of photos waiting to be published, sold, displayed and shared with our connections.
This need for a platform where you can upload and share your photos with your friends across the social media as led to the rise in photo sharing sites across the web.
There are myriads of top photo sharing websites that make the process of uploading, displaying and sharing photos an enjoyable and satisfactory experience.
You can edit your photos, create slideshows and even embed background music in your photo albums.
A lot of them also allow you to set the privacy options of your photos. You can set the viewing options to public or private.
In our bid to give you a fair and comprehensive list of the best photo sharing sites at your disposal, we tested over 50 of the sites and tried out various sharing options to discover the sites with the best range of features and service delivery.
There are several criteria at have been used in deciding what image sharing site will serve you best.
We’ve placed special emphasis on:
Ease of use, supported social media platforms, sign-up process, quality of the picture displayed, the cost of storage, the amount of storage space offered at minimal cost, photo syncing across multiple devices and privacy settings.
On this note, we present the best photo sharing sites for families, photographers and picture lovers at large.
20 Best photo sharing sites
1) Imgur
For our readers who are Reddit addicts, you’ve definitely used Imgur at one point or the other, a free online photo sharing site where you can upload photos and share with friends.
Imgur has many attractive features such as a custom account through which you can manage your uploaded images to suit your style and uniqueness.
You’ve also most likely heard about the April fools jokes that are played on Imgur users.
Another interesting feature is the album which allows you to collate your photos into a collection that can be edited and modified as much as you want.
Other cool and interesting stuff on Imgur includes the Meme generator, the GIFV (which converts GIF animations into lower sized MP4 videos).
2) Photobucket
Photobucket is quite an oldie, having been created since the year 2003.
It’s more than just an image sharing website but almost deserves a social media status with its strong online community which boasts more than a hundred million members and an image traffic of over 3.5million per day.
Photobucket also features personal accounts and allows the uploading of videos with a capacity of up to 500 megabytes and lasting at most 10 minutes.
Similar to Imgur’s album feature, Photobucket also has a feature called Photobucket stories which allow users to combine images.
This even goes further by allowing various individuals to combine their photos with just one background to create a graphic story that can be shared.
Photobucket has also introduced membership subscription fees of $99 per annum for allowing external links to photos on the website and $399 per annum for image embedding on third party websites.
3) Tinypic
This website, created, owned and run by Photobucket also provides a platform for users to share and link their pictures.
There is, however, a maximum image size in pixels above which images are automatically resized to the limit – which is 1600 pixels.
Similarly to Photobucket, Tinypic also allows the uploading of videos up to 500mb, but it features a larger video upper time limit of 15 minutes as opposed to Photobucket’s 10 minutes.
As opposed to Photobucket, Tinypic does not have a policy of requiring users to have individual accounts.
Images are also not retained indefinitely on Tinypic as they are taken down from the site’s servers once it is decided that the image has overstayed its welcome.
4) Pinterest
Pinterest is another image sharing website with a strong online community of 175 million active users per month as at April 2017.
Users need to register to be able to use this platform, and the images are known as pins.
There are various “boards” based on interests and inclinations, and you can follow any board that catches your fancy.
A particularly cool feature on Pinterest, which was introduced in 2015, is the image search which allows you to run a search with an image rather than words (imagine trying to google “dogs” and you can upload a picture of your Labrador in google search box rather than type the word dogs).
Pinterest remains free to use, requiring no subscription fees.
5) Google Photos
This is the brainchild of Google’s Google+ social network.
Google photos allow users to share and store photos with an image quality as a high as 16 mega pixel and videos with a resolution as much as 1080p.
The search capabilities which the Google brand is renowned for is deployed in Google photos allowing users to search under categories of People, places, and things.
The Google Photos service has apps on Android Google Play store and the apple app store to allow access to users on various devices.
Features on Google Photos include a shared album in which users can put together their pictures and videos to create a shared album from which the individual images and videos can be downloaded.
6) Instagram
Do we even need to say much about this? I mean, who needs a tutorial or user’s manual for Instagram, but chill, you just might find out a few things you didn’t know before.
A photo sharing app created in 2010, Instagram has been around for quite long, existing across various devices (apple, android, desktop).
Registered users have access to upload, share and download pictures and short videos.of
OF course, the filter feature on Instagram needs no introduction. The geotagging feature also allows you to group pictures based on location.
Instagram Direct, the app’s messaging feature solidifies the fact that Instagram is more than just a traditional photo sharing service and can compete even with other established social media brands.
7) Flickr
Flickr is another image hosting site where users can share images online.
Flickr is also a popular choice among bloggers and picture researchers for hosting social media and blog embedded pictures.
Created in 2004, Flickr currently has about 51 million registered users.
Users have to be registered on Flickr, and there are three registration options which include:
- Free (offering 1 terabyte of space with 200MB for each image and not more than 1GB per video which must last at most 3 minutes),
- Ad free (This registration option offers users freedom from advertisements for a fee), and
- Doublr (in which users have access to double the normal storage space of free users).
8) DeviantArt
An online community for photographers, videographers, and artists.
DeviantArt is a platform for creative and innovative artistic expressions where members can share their works, with users (referred to as deviants) and their works (tagged as deviations).
At the beginning of this year, the membership of the DeviantArt website stood at more than 26 million users uploading more than 250 million works.
Features of the site include: Groups- clusters of users with similar interests, Polls- voting on works, Journals and Portfolios.
Registration is not compulsory for users of the site.
Users can also choose to upload their works subject to a Creative Commons License which allows distribution of copyrighted works.
9) 500px
Based in Canada, 500px is an online community and photo sharing website created mainly for photographers to share their work and interact, helping them to learn from each other, exchange ideas, and develop their skills in the process.
Professionals can show case their work and get rated on the service which also has mobile apps for both the android and apple stores.
Starting in 2016, 500px has added a verified accounts features for specific brands to exclusively display their images.
With a population of well more than 7 million users, 500px is quite a popular choice among photographers and photo enthusiasts.
A photo is rated based on a ‘pulse’ which depends on the number of likes, favorites, and views.
10) Album2
This photo sharing site, created in 2004 by Sveinug Dammen, a Norwegian, was designed for old family pictures. featuring acquaintances and relatives, helping to scan old pictures and
It entails friends and relatives helping families to scan old pictures and cataloging them based on years and other characteristics.
The website helps to serve as a digital or internet version of the traditional family photo album.
Think about it, it’s not likely that in the year 2087, you will be showing your grandchildren (well, if you live that long) a paper or laminated album.
The internet revolution would have been complete by then, and Album2 helps you to prepare for that future by having your most cherished pictures stored away on the internet.
11) SmugMug
This image sharing website created in 2002. It is based in California (United states) and it is another platform where users can upload and share pictures online.
Registration is not required to view pictures on the website, however, users have to pay to be able to make use of the platform.
Subscription comes in four various forms each providing different plans.
Professionals can also sell their works on Smugmug with a unique watermark identifying it with them.
Smugmug also has a similitude of social networking, allowing users to interact, connect, and communicate
12) Fotolog
A combination of photo sharing and photo blogging in one website.
Fotolog was created in 2002 and it provides two options for membership which are free and paid subscription accounts.
The free version includes adverts, and there is a constraint on how many pictures free users can upload (just one daily).
Paid subscribers, on the other hand, do not have this kind of restriction and are entitled to up to 6 daily pictures.
Users have the flexibility of editing and modifying their accounts to suit their tastes and desires.
There is a Fotolog group feature which allows members to upload up to fifty pictures daily.
13) Dronestagram
Just as the name depicts, Dronestagram is an image saving and sharing site for pictures taken by drones.
Drone geeks and enthusiasts can share the pictures taken by their flying robots and show them off.
Of course, there are Dronestagram apps on both android and apple app stores.
Dronestragram takes their business to the next stage by organizing a contest for users to show case and compete with the aerial pictures taken by their drones from all over the world.
There is also a listing for helping to locate drone businesses.
14) Animus3
Another free photo blog allowing users to put up an unlimited number of images and offering a very large bandwidth.
Animus3 makes your photos easy to find by offering SEO properties, improving your chances of fulfilling your famous photographer dreams.
Photographers with various skill levels ranging from amateur to professional can share their pictures, get inspired and provide advice and suggestions to improve each other’s work.
The works on Animus3 are targeted towards various themes such as culture, education, politics among others, and apart from just displaying skill and talent, photographers can also share stories from all around the world with their pictures.
15) Art Limited
This is a site for artistic and creative minded individuals to upload their work and offer criticism thereby helping photographers to develop and get better at what they do.
There’s an observer account feature which allows you to simply make comments and analyze works posted by other people on the site.
Photographers can also sell their works, benefitting by making a profit and at the same time pushing their brand into the public space.
16) Pix.ie
Another strong photo sharing website from Ireland. It is often compared to Flickr, offering 500 MB of photo upload space to users per month.
Pix.ie also allows users to catalog their photos into albums and preferentially screen the other members of the online community who have access to their pictures and images.
17) Fotolia
Ever played the game 4 pics 1 word?
Then you definitely remember the tiny fotolia.com written after the names of the photographer who took the picture.
Yes, Fotolia is a strong picture sharing website offering more than 57 million pictures for people to access.
Created in 2005, Fotolia allows not just picture sharing but even videos, illustrations, and vector graphics.
Fotolia is currently owned by Adobe.
18) Fotki
If we described Photobucket as an oldie, then Fotki might well have been from the Jurassic age.
Created in the year 1998, Fotki has been around for close to 19 years.
A photo sharing platform available in about 17 languages, thereby providing a truly global graphical playground.
The features include unlimited picture storage space to members on their premium or paid package.
Users on the free package from some specific countries also have access to unlimited storage.
Users have something similar to a computer space on their accounts where they can move images around and create folders or subfolders for them.
Image editing options are also available, and users can edit their profiles to suit their tastes.
19) Photrade
An online photo sharing platform that allows photographers to sell and share their works while still offering the traditional sharing services offered by the other photo storing sites.
There’s also a provision for ad revenue, this means photographers will make money not just for selling their pictures but from adverts on their works.
20) Ipernity
This French website launched in April 2007 and serves a cross section of users from artists, writers, and of course, the everyday internet user.
It provides access to online photo storage, photo sharing and it also serves as a social media of some sorts.
Users can post pictures, videos, and audios and share them with other users.
Just like medium, Ipernity has a tag feature in which pictures can be classified under various topics and titles.
Visitors and users can also interact through comments, instant messaging and other channels on the platform.
Wrap up
These are the best photo sharing sites for friends, family, and professionals.
Obviously, there are other options out there, but we have come to a conclusion that if none of these image sharing sites serves your need, then it would be difficult to find one that will cater for your needs satisfactorily.
It is also possible to use more than one photo sharing service if that suits you.
All in all, we hope we have successfully nudged you in the right direction to finding a fulfilling photo sharing website. Happy sharing.