is it time to set up my own website, for hosting my images.
Discussion
My Flickr pro account is due for renewall, but are they going to be around long-term?
They sent an email this morning, claiming that they have been losing money since launch and need more members/increased prices to continue - now offering 25% discount for friends.
My main concern, if they do eventually shut up shop, is the potential future loss of my current photo hosting site, which I mainly use for posting my images to other sites. At £40.00 a year, it's not expensive, but is it time to host my own images on my own website and who would you recommend for hosting etc?
I'm happy to pay a bit more and have more control over my images, but i'm no expert with computers and was looking at something like 'go-daddy'.
Anyone got any 'sensible' suggestions?
Cheers
Glynn
They sent an email this morning, claiming that they have been losing money since launch and need more members/increased prices to continue - now offering 25% discount for friends.
My main concern, if they do eventually shut up shop, is the potential future loss of my current photo hosting site, which I mainly use for posting my images to other sites. At £40.00 a year, it's not expensive, but is it time to host my own images on my own website and who would you recommend for hosting etc?
I'm happy to pay a bit more and have more control over my images, but i'm no expert with computers and was looking at something like 'go-daddy'.
Anyone got any 'sensible' suggestions?
Cheers
Glynn
I've used Go-daddy. I took the website over for a friend. I moved it immediately.
I'm not sure, from your post, what you want from your images. I assume you want to display them. The question is, to whom? A website might not be the best answer. What do you want from your website?
If you merely want to ensure their security, then there are many other cloud storage solutions. I use a couple, but for security back up my images, video and data on external hard drives. They are cheap enough nowadays; 4/5TB is around £100. With one or two of those, you are not dependent on the business model of a cloud storage company.
I'm not sure, from your post, what you want from your images. I assume you want to display them. The question is, to whom? A website might not be the best answer. What do you want from your website?
If you merely want to ensure their security, then there are many other cloud storage solutions. I use a couple, but for security back up my images, video and data on external hard drives. They are cheap enough nowadays; 4/5TB is around £100. With one or two of those, you are not dependent on the business model of a cloud storage company.
As Derek says, it depends on what use cases you have and what's important for you.
I moved from Flickr to building a Zenfolio portfolio site and really like it for what it does for me.
The main use case I have is being able to upload galleries and subgalleries of events under their own custom URLs and distributing the passwords for them to the client. The site uses my own domain registered elsewhere and once you work out how to use the uploading interface it becomes second nature.
It does have the ability to hotlink images for use elsewhere but I don't really host images for embedding into forums anymore so can't comment if that's your primary use case.
I moved from Flickr to building a Zenfolio portfolio site and really like it for what it does for me.
The main use case I have is being able to upload galleries and subgalleries of events under their own custom URLs and distributing the passwords for them to the client. The site uses my own domain registered elsewhere and once you work out how to use the uploading interface it becomes second nature.
It does have the ability to hotlink images for use elsewhere but I don't really host images for embedding into forums anymore so can't comment if that's your primary use case.
Derek Smith said:
I've used Go-daddy. I took the website over for a friend. I moved it immediately.
I'm not sure, from your post, what you want from your images. I assume you want to display them. The question is, to whom? A website might not be the best answer. What do you want from your website?
If you merely want to ensure their security, then there are many other cloud storage solutions. I use a couple, but for security back up my images, video and data on external hard drives. They are cheap enough nowadays; 4/5TB is around £100. With one or two of those, you are not dependent on the business model of a cloud storage company.
I only really use flickr for storage and for hosting my pictures for use on other forums etc. I'm not sure, from your post, what you want from your images. I assume you want to display them. The question is, to whom? A website might not be the best answer. What do you want from your website?
If you merely want to ensure their security, then there are many other cloud storage solutions. I use a couple, but for security back up my images, video and data on external hard drives. They are cheap enough nowadays; 4/5TB is around £100. With one or two of those, you are not dependent on the business model of a cloud storage company.
Having said that, I would like to be able to show some work on my own site and I do write a regular 'blog'. I'm not looking at running a big business from it, but I have sold some of my work and my own website would give me a platform to display images.
I'm too old to study/understand writing code, so just need a simple platform that will allow me to upload images and control layout.
Vintage Racer said:
I only really use flickr for storage and for hosting my pictures for use on other forums etc.
Having said that, I would like to be able to show some work on my own site and I do write a regular 'blog'. I'm not looking at running a big business from it, but I have sold some of my work and my own website would give me a platform to display images.
I'm too old to study/understand writing code, so just need a simple platform that will allow me to upload images and control layout.
Most hosting companies nowadays provide web builder software. It is, in many cases, quite crude, but (no offence meant) it might be enough for you. Having said that, I would like to be able to show some work on my own site and I do write a regular 'blog'. I'm not looking at running a big business from it, but I have sold some of my work and my own website would give me a platform to display images.
I'm too old to study/understand writing code, so just need a simple platform that will allow me to upload images and control layout.
If you want something a bit more sophisticated, there's Xara web-authoring software. I've used it. It's easy enough to start with but for more sophisticated sites you might have to work at it a bit. It's not particularly cheap. Another route is Wordpress (WP). It has recently been updated to blocks, so very similar to that supplied by hosting companies but with the option of more sophistication with the addition of fairly easily mastered add-ons, or plugins in the WP lexicon.
You can have free hosting with wordpress.com. It's fairly basic but gives you a way of seeing if WP is for you. If so, you can have them host a more sophisticated site or pick a host from the myriad of hosting sites for WP. Mine costs me £40pa. There are no additional costs unless your audience goes up a bit. If you are unlikely to use much in the way of bandwidth, it's £35.
I use self-hosted WP sites.
One thing: many people will tell you that WP is complicated. Nowadays, with the block builder, it's a piece of cake. You have a tremendous choice of free themes, templates is another word for them, for the whole site. They can look quite professional if that's important to you.
Putting your own website on WordPress is not that hard and you get full control + you can actually write blog posts and add more things like contact, services and lot of other things. Of course, this will require some knowledge and it depends on what you are really looking for 
I personally never used external image-hosting solutions. Never understood why I should do that...
Dropbox is enough
I personally never used external image-hosting solutions. Never understood why I should do that...
Dropbox is enough
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