List of image-sharing websites explained

This article presents a non-exhaustive list of notable image-sharing websites.

Active image-sharing websites

Name	Location / Owner / Hoster	Description/Focus/Registration requirements				Other	Registered users	Storage Space Allowed Per User (standard)
500px	Canada / Amazon AWS (hosting)	Free, registration required				ChromeOS	^[1]	7 uploads/week free plan, unlimited for paid accounts
Album2	Oslo, Norway / Sveinung Dammen	Free 30 day trial, registration required					^[2]	150 prints/year
Dayviews	Sweden / Dayviews AB (Bilddagboken AB)	Free image hosting, registration required					^[3]	Unlimited storage for 547×410 pix reduced images, also unlimited resolution and size for paying BDB HD users, costing approximately equivalent to $10.50 a year.
DeviantArt	United States	Free image hosting, registration required. Subscription option provides additional services, and unlocks hidden features. Generally allows art-specific content only, as the service is not a generic image hosting service.					^[4]	Unlimited uploads with 30 MB limit per image for all account types.
Dronestagram	France	Free, Dronestagram is a photo sharing community dedicated to drone photography. The site that has been described as "Instagram for drones", allows hobbyists to share their geo-referenced aerial photos and videos.^[5]					^[6]
Facebook	United States		Yes	Yes			1B	Unlimited
Flickr	United States / SmugMug	Photologging/hosting Free registration/Pro service			^[7]		(May 2015)^[8]	Since 20 May 2013, 1TB free, 200MB per image, all photos display, original files downloadable. Starting January 8 of 2019, free accounts will be limited to 1000 images. The 1TB limit for Pro accounts will be removed.^[9]
Fotki	Estonia^[10] / Fotki, Inc.	Free registration photo sharing service and communication portal.					^[11]	50MB for free, unlimited storage for $30/year.^[12]
Geograph Britain and Ireland	United Kingdom / Geograph Project Limited	Geo-located Geographical Images whole of Britain and Ireland, free, registration required						Unlimited
Google Photos		Image and video hosting service.					^[13]	Files use a storage quota (15 GB free).
Instagram	United States / Facebook	Photologging/Social networking . Registration is required.					^[14]	Owned by Facebook
Imgur	United States	Free image hosting, no registration required.					Unknown	From 9 Feb 2015 all Imgur accounts are treated as Imgur pro accounts. No limits.^[15]
Ipernity	France^[16]	Photo, video & blog sharing. Operated by the world's largest non-commercial photo sharing community, without profit interest, advertising, data trading or sale of any content.					^[17]	100 GB for €44,90/year (Standard), including unlimited uploads, geo-mapping, picture processing (PicMonkey) and the worlds best integrated translator (DeepL). Basic subscription with reduced limits and features for €22,90/year.
jAlbum	Sweden^[18]	Free hosting of galleries created with Jalbum software.					^[19]	30MB of space given for free accounts, upgrade to 1GB space for €19/year.
Photobucket	United States	Free registration service. As of July 2017, payment of $400/year required if hosted images are to be displayed on external sites^[20]					^[21]	With a free account, the user can use up to 10GB of bandwidth per month and 2GB storage. Unlimited free storage, 1MB per photo and 10 minutes per video (with image size restrictions). No size restrictions with Pro account.
Pinterest	United States	Photo sharing/social networking					^[22]	Unknown
Pixabay	Germany^[23]	Sharing of high-quality public domain photos. Free to browse and download, registration required to contribute. Includes social networking capabilities.					Unknown	Unknown
SecureTribe	United States	Free registration service					^[24]	Secure photo/video sharing
Shutterfly	United States	Free registration service					^[25]	Free, unlimited picture storage. Shared Albums are limited to 1,000 photos. Full resolution downloads only possible via purchase of archive DVD.
SmugMug	United States	Free search, subscription hosting					^[26]	"unlimited" storage
Snapfish	United States / Hewlett-Packard	Free registration service, also provides services for Costco's online photo processing store.					^[27]	unlimited, pay per download
Unsplash	Montreal, Quebec / Unsplash, Inc.^[28]	Free, registration required to upload pictures. Unsplash license only. It's similar to CC0, but the user can't use the pictures to replicate a similar or competing service.^[29]		^[30]			Unknown	Unknown
VK	Russia	Free, Russian social network	Yes	Yes				Unlimited
Wikimedia Commons	United States	Free, Creative Commons license, Public domain^[31]	Yes	Yes	Yes			Unlimited

Defunct photo-sharing websites

These also include sites that may still operate, but do not accept new users. Listed in chronological order of shutdown.

Name	Location/Owner (if any)	Description/Focus/Registration requirements	Date closed	Status/Notes	Registered users	Storage Space Allowed Per User (standard)
Zooomr	United States / BlueBridge Technologies Group	No registration service since 2007.		Users are no longer accepted.		Unlimited uploads and unlimited storage for ALL users.
Radar.net		Free registration.		Radar shut down on May 26, 2010 at noon (PDT).^[32]	Unknown	?
GazoPa Bloom		Flower photo sharing service			Unknown	?
Fotopic.net	UK/Snappy Designs Ltd				Unknown
Ovi Share	Finland / Nokia	Nokia's multimedia sharing service, formerly called Twango. Service closed on May 30, 2012.		Other Nokia services still available with the registered account.^[33]		unlimited, pay per download
MobileMe Web Gallery	United States / Apple Inc.	Subscription service. Ended June 30, 2012		For an advertised "limited time", data was still able to be retrieved from MobileMe until July 31, 2012, when the site finally closed completely. Services moved to iCloud on June 30.	^[34]	10GB (standard level)
Kodak Gallery	United States	Free registration service, archiving photo service for $25/year.		(Closed down on July 2, 2012; all accounts moved over to Shutterfly)	^[35]	Used to be unlimited low-resolution, paid users can download high-res images that they've uploaded. New minimum purchase requirements 3/09: $4.99/yr for 2GB or less, $19.99/yr for more than 2GB.
Webshots	United States	Free registration service. (Discontinued on December 1, 2012, including paid service.)		All old user photos from accounts not migrated to Shutterfly were deleted. Webshots still operates in other fields, and is owned by Threefold Photos.	^[36]	One 800×600 image per day
Pixorial	United States	Personal photo and video sharing platform. Registration required. Free subscription available.		No new accounts being accepted.		Free subscription available with 7 GB of storage for photos or videos. No limits on resolution of images or length of videos. Additional paid subscriptions available with increased storage. Unlimited uploads of photos or videos.
Lockerz	United States	Free registration service			^[37]	Unlimited uploads for all users; 5MB per image
Bayimg	Sweden / The Pirate Bay	Free image hosting, no registration required, uncensored	^[38]	Temporarily reopened in 2016 for file recovery.
imm.io	United States / Autodesk	Free image hosting, images removed if not viewed in the last 30 days.	^[39]		Unknown
Streamzoo	United States	Mobile photosocial game, free registration service, unlimited storage and sharing, available on Apple iOS, Android and Web		All services stopped and photos deleted.	Unknown	Unlimited
Trovebox	United States / Wide Angle Labs, Inc.^[40]	Free image hosting, registration required. Subscription option provides additional features.			Unknown	100 photo uploads per month for free users, unlimited for Pro accounts. 30MB per photo.
Panoramio	Headquartered in Switzerland / Google	Free registration service				Unlimited provided the photos comply with the Google Earth Photo Acceptance Policy.
Phanfare	United States / Carbonite	Subscription-based photo sharing		Phanfare and SmugMug have worked out a transition plan.^[41]		Unlimited storage. Subscription accounts only. Bought out by Carbonite.
yfrog	United States / ImageShack	Twitter photo sharing. Registration required. holds approximately 29% of the Twitter photo sharing market.^[42] ^[43]	?
TinyPic	United States / PhotoBucket	Free image hosting, no registration required		All services stopped. Uploaded photos downloadable up until September 19, 2019.	Unknown	No known limit, but largest image dimension limited to 1600 pixels.

Comparison of photo-sharing websites

Legend:

• File formats: the image or video formats allowed for uploading
• IPTC support: support for the IPTC image header
  • Yes - IPTC headers are read upon upload and exposed via the web interface; properties such as captions and keywords are written back to the IPTC header and saved along with the photo when downloading or e-mailing it
  • Some - IPTC headers are read but information added via the web interface is not saved back to the IPTC header; or, IPTC headers are lost on resizing^[44]
• Tags/keywords: the ability to add to and search by tags or keywords
• Comments: the ability of users to leave comments on the photo
  • Yes - full control over who can leave comments (friends, registered users, non-registered users)
  • Some - users must register with the website to leave comments
• Rating:
  • Yes - star rating: the ability to rate photos numerically, usually on a scale from 1 to 5
  • Some - thumbs up/down rating, "mark as favorite", or a rating system accessible only to logged-in users
• Download originals:
  • Yes - anyone can download the original photo
  • Some - only photos of "pro" members can be downloaded
• Notes/annotations: the ability to overlay textual notes to areas of a photo
• Friendly URLs: human-readable URLs (e.g. /photos/greece_album/athens.jpg) vs. numeric identifiers (MemViewImage.asp?AID=5610943&IID=205062034&INUM=5&ICT=5&IPP=16)
• Subscriptions
  • Some - RSS feeds^[45] and web interface^[46]
  • Yes - RSS feeds, web interface, plus photo updates can be sent by e-mail to non-registered members^[47]

Name	File formats	Upload	Folder/ album structure	Limitations	IPTC support	Tags/ keywords	Comments	Rating	Download originals	Notes	Geo- tagging	Friendly URLs	API	Custom layout	Subscriptions
Flickr	JPEG, GIF, PNG, (TIFF displayed as JPEG, compressed up to 58:1 for a 16bpc TIFF)			After 20 MAY 2013, 1TB free, 200MB per image, all photos display, original files downloadable.				^[48]	^[49]
Fotki	Animated GIF,^[50] JPEG, PNG;^[51] BMP and TIFF are converted to JPEG	e-mail, FTP, Java, browser (mass/fetch from URL; upload one photo at a time), desktop app (basic), desktop image viewers		50MB for non-paying users; can get 20MB extra/month; filenames are truncated to 34 characters			^[52]		^[53]			^[54]		^[55]
	JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, mkv, mp4, MOV, AVI, MPEG, wm, 3gp, flv	browser (one at a time), browser (multiple, zipped)			^[56]	^[57]
OneDrive	JPEG, ?	HTTP, Silverlight	albums	100MB per photo^[58] (7GB total)					^[59]				^[60]
Picasa Web Albums	Animated GIF, JPEG, PNG	browser, Google+, Picasa, Exporter for iPhoto, the Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in, Uploader on Mac OS X,^[61] or F-Spot on Linux		Unlimited for photos smaller than a certain resolution; 1GB free for larger photos; Additional storage for monthly fee.^[62]	^[63] ^[64]				^[65]
Shutterfly	JPEG only	Flash batch			, even Exif support is incomplete
SmugMug	JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, Video			12MB per Photo (Standard/Power), 24MB per Photo (Pro and during 14 day trial)			^[66]	^[67]	^[68]				^[69]
Snapfish	JPEG only								$0.25/photo
Webshots	JPEG, ?			5,400 photos, 540 videos			^[70]	^[71]	^[72]

See also

• Digital photo frame
• File-hosting service
• File sharing
• Image hosting service
• Image sharing
• List of photo and video apps
• Timeline of file sharing

Notes and References

1. [500px]
2. Web site: Album2 . Album2.com . 2016-09-10 . 2020-08-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200811214953/https://www.album2.com/ . dead .
3. Web site: Dayviews - A place for your photos. A place for your memories.. bilddagboken.se.
4. Web site: DeviantArt . About DeviantArt . 2018-06-27.
5. Web site: Sim. David. Dronestagram: Award-winning aerial photographs of climate change captured by drones. International Business Times. 4 December 2015 . 4 December 2016.
6. Web site: McKenzie. Sheena. Dronestagram: See the world through the eyes of a bird. 13 November 2015 . CNN. 4 December 2016.
7. Web site: Flickr: Tools. www.flickr.com.
8. Web site: Zhang . Michael . Flickr Launches New Design and Features, Now Has 112M Members . PetaPixel . 2015-05-07 . 2023-01-08 . 2022-12-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221225113011/https://petapixel.com/2015/05/07/flickr-launches-new-design-and-features-now-has-112m-members/ . live .
9. Web site: Why we're changing Flickr free accounts. 2018-11-01. Andrew Stadlen. Beginning January 8, 2019, Free accounts will be limited to 1,000 photos and videos. If you need unlimited storage, you’ll need to upgrade to Flickr Pro..
10. Web site: Why some of your photos are not being displayed . CSS3; Renders passably with Internet Explorer 7 / Firefox 4, or newer; viewing with Firefox 2 / SeaMonkey 1.1 or equivalent with Gecko 1.8 strongly advised against . Fotki Blog . Fotki, Inc. . 2013-01-15 . 2013-08-30.
11. [Fotki]
12. Web site: Fotki Help . help.fotki.com . 2012 . 2012-03-31.
13. Web site: Google Photos passes 500 million users, gets better sharing features and $10 photo books. May 17, 2017.
14. Web site: Instagram hits 100M monthly active users. Geeks Hut. 2013-05-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20130302133519/http://www.geekshut.com/instagram-hits-100m-monthly-active-users/8930. 2013-03-02. dead.
15. Web site: Imgur Pro for Everyone – Imgur Blog. imgur.com. 2015-07-06.
16. Web site: Terms of Service . Requires JavaScript . Ipernity . 2019-05-31 . 2019-10-23.
17. Web site: About ipernity . ipernity.com . 2019-10-23.
18. Web site: TERMS OF SERVICE . jAlbum . 2013-08-07 . 2013-08-30.
19. Web site: Jalbum Forum . Jalbum.net . 2012-03-31.
20. http://support.photobucket.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010128088-What-users-are-affected-by-the-changes-to-our-3rd-Party-Hosting-policies- Photobucket policy page regarding the change. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
21. http://mashable.com/2007/08/29/photobucket-50-million/ Photobucket reaches 50M users
22. Web site: Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever -comScore . TechCrunch . February 7, 2012 . February 15, 2012.
23. Web site: About Us . 2013-08-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150128114859/http://pixabay.com/en/service/imprint/ . 2015-01-28 . dead .
24. Web site: SecureTribe .
25. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1125920/000112592008000011/0001125920-08-000011-index.htm SEC 10-K filing
26. Web site: 315,000 paying customers. https://web.archive.org/web/20080509104248/http://www.smugmug.com/price/. dead. May 9, 2008.
27. http://www.snapfish.com/aboutUs Snapfish.com AboutUs
28. Web site: Hello, Unsplash, Inc.. Mikael. Cho. 5 January 2017.
29. Web site: License Unsplash. unsplash.com.
30. Web site: Mysplash - F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository. f-droid.org.
31. Web site: Commons:User pages - Wikimedia Commons .
32. News: MG Siegler . Radar Locates The Deadpool On May 26 . TechCrunch . May 10, 2010 . 2011-10-11.
33. Web site: Service Notification: Ovi Share is closing on 30 May 2012 . Nokia . 2012-02-28 . 2013-08-30 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120626131648/http://nds2.fds-comms.nokia.com/SiteCollectionImages/2012/02/Global/Ovi_Share/Ovi_Share_Shut-down_Email_initial_mirror.html . 26 June 2012 . dead . dmy-all .
34. Web site: Apple Press Release, 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20060727063119/http://www.apple.com/ca/press/2002/10/dotmac.html. dead. July 27, 2006.
35. [Kodak Gallery]
36. Web site: Webshots' overview page, 2004 . 2012-03-31.
37. Web site: Source . TechCrunch.com . 2011-04-12 . 2012-03-31.
38. Web site: Pirate Bay's Image Hosting Site 'Bayimg' Returns, For a Bit - TorrentFreak. 26 April 2016.
39. Web site: I'm sorry to say that imm.io is officially shutdown.. developexaccount. . Feb 3, 2014. July 3, 2016.
40. Web site: Privacy Policy . Trovebox . 2013-01-19 . 2013-08-30 . https://archive.today/20130830081128/https://trovebox.com/privacy . 2013-08-30 . dead .
41. Web site: Photo Sharing. Stunning Photo Websites. - SmugMug.
42. Web site: A Snapshot Of Photo-Sharing Market Share On Twitter . June 2, 2011 . . June 8, 2011.
43. Web site: How People Currently Share Pictures On Twitter. June 2, 2011. Sysomos. June 8, 2011. August 2, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110802233224/http://blog.sysomos.com/2011/06/02/how-people-currently-share-pictures-on-twitter/. dead.
44. Web site: Photo Resizer . Bulk-photo-resizer.com . 2012-03-31.
45. Web site: Wikipedia's "Test album" album . https://web.archive.org/web/20110626095940/http://feeds.fotki.com/wikipedia/album_rbskbksgtsqgk.rss . 26 June 2011 . dead.
46. Web site: What's new on Wikipedia's "Photo Albums" pages - Fotki.com, photo and video sharing made easy.. https://web.archive.org/web/20110706024052/http://whatsnew.fotki.com/wikipedia/. dead. 6 July 2011. 6 July 2011.
47. Web site: 23: Help. www.23hq.com.
48. members can mark an image as favorite
49. Web site: If you have a free Flickr account, no one (including you) can access your original file . Flickr.com . 2012-03-31.
50. Web site: animated GIF hosted on Fotki.com . Public.fotki.com . 2008-09-17 . 2012-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110927031250/http://public.fotki.com/harwons/funny_screenshots/43placesmaps.html . 2011-09-27 . dead .
51. Web site: PNG file hosted on Fotki.com . Public.fotki.com . 2008-09-17 . 2012-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110927031301/http://public.fotki.com/harwons/funny_screenshots/yahoomail1of1.html . 2011-09-27 . dead .
52. no CAPTCHA
53. anyone can download photos uploaded by Premium members
54. Fotki limits the length of the file portion of the URL to 24 characters
55. Fotki: paying users can edit the HTML of their album layout (Co-branding. Non-paying users can only select the photo frame style.
56. Web site: No support for description or tags . https://archive.today/20120711234012/http://img510.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chickenoftheseachunkligzv5.jpg . dead . July 11, 2012 . Img510.imageshack.us . 2012-03-31.
57. The user can add tags, but they are not displayed on the photo page
58. Web site: IMZuber . IMZuber . 19 April 2019 . 111.
59. Originals"
60. "RSS feeds"
61. Web site: Picasa Web Albums . 2012-03-31 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081119234918/http://picasa.google.com./web/mac_tools.html . 2008-11-19 .
62. Web site: Free storage limits - Picasa and Picasa Web Albums Help . Google Inc. . 2011-12-29 . 2012-07-31.
63. tags added via the web interface are not written back to the IPTC header; Exif and IPTC headers are lost when saving resized versions of the image
64. Web site: Google Groups. groups.google.com.
65. filenames are preserved
66. CAPTCHA-protected for anonymous users
67. both star-rating and thumbs up/down
68. files get renamed to unique ID
69. Web site: SmugMug API . Wiki.smugmug.net . 2011-05-11 . 2012-03-31.
70. "To be able to leave a comment please Log in or Sign up."
71. only Pro or Premium photos can be star-rated; rating by members or anonymous users
72. attempting to download the full-size version of a photo produces a Flash file of the photo and the message "This photo may only be saved by friends"