Aphotopholio vs. Photoshelter vs. Koken vs. Wordpress vs. Smugmug vs. Zenfolio

Any recommendations or favorites around here? I've used Smugmug, Wordpress and Koken in the past, but am looking at Aphotofolio and Photoshelter, although they are quite pricier.

...what is it you want to do? Wordpress and Photoshelter are two very different beasts. I use both for very specific reasons. We really need to know what you want to do with the site before we can give any recommendations. Photoshelter is overkill if you just want to display your images. But if you want to be able to sell prints or deliver images via FTP then it might work for you. Same for all the rest.

As you've used three systems in the past already: what I suggest is that you put pen to paper and make a list of what your want your website/online portfolio to do for you. Then post that list here and we can give you better advice.

banquetbear wrote in post #17891809
...what is it you want to do? Wordpress and Photoshelter are two very different beasts. I use both for very specific reasons. We really need to know what you want to do with the site before we can give any recommendations. Photoshelter is overkill if you just want to display your images. But if you want to be able to sell prints or deliver images via FTP then it might work for you. Same for all the rest.

As you've used three systems in the past already: what I suggest is that you put pen to paper and make a list of what your want your website/online portfolio to do for you. Then post that list here and we can give you better advice.

High priority this month is strictly a portfolio and blog. In two or three months, sales is the next priority. I don't mind two separate services. Fast servers / load times and decent presentation is what I'm looking for. iOS integration would be icing on the cake for management/offline presentation, but I know there aren't that many options for that.

Basically, I've used wordpress in the past, but it's a bit cumbersome to actively maintain because of the way the file structure works. Smugmug has been great with upload (lightroom integration) and load time, but customization and overall look is generic. Koken is a good mix between wordpress's self-managed installation and smugmug's file structure, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet and wanted some outside opinions. Pixieset is also something I've tried out for prints, and the presentation isn't bad, but I don't think it's really designed for use as a portfolio (no custom text, pages, etc) and definitely not as a blog, at least when I tried it out for one wedding last summer.

idkdc wrote in post #17891826
High priority this month is strictly a portfolio and blog. In two or three months, sales is the next priority. I don't mind two separate services. Fast servers / load times and decent presentation is what I'm looking for. iOS integration would be icing on the cake for management/offline presentation, but I know there aren't that many options for that.

Basically, I've used wordpress in the past, but it's a bit cumbersome to actively maintain because of the way the file structure works. Smugmug has been great with upload (lightroom integration) and load time, but customization and overall look is generic. Koken is a good mix between wordpress's self-managed installation and smugmug's file structure, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet and wanted some outside opinions. Pixieset is also something I've tried out for prints, and the presentation isn't bad, but I don't think it's really designed for use as a portfolio (no custom text, pages, etc) and definitely not as a blog, at least when I tried it out for one wedding last summer.

...when you say "sales is the next priority" what does that mean? Do you mean people buying photos directly off your site, or more sales as in terms of "wedding sales" etc? Do you want to be able to digitally deliver images to clients?

I want to be able to digitally deliver images to clients, but find most delivery services unaesthetic as a primary front page, so I don't mind splitting the portfolio and blog portions from sales if needed.

idkdc wrote in post #17891937
I want to be able to digitally deliver images to clients, but find most delivery services unaesthetic as a primary front page, so I don't mind splitting the portfolio and blog portions from sales if needed.

...right.

I use a combination of wordpress/photoshelter​. Because of how customizable wordpress is I use it as the front end/blog/portfolio, etc. I'm just updating the site at the moment, but once its finished I'm unlikely to do anything more than tiny updates a few times a year. What sort of problems were you running into with the file structure?

I use photoshelter to host/sell/deliver images to clients. If I wasn't already so committed to photoshelter in terms of images uploaded/backed up, I would seriously consider moving to Shootproof. Photoshelter does everything I need it to do, but there are some things that are relatively "clunky" to do behind the scenes, mainly as a result of the original system being over nine years old and the adpations they have had to make to keep in line with the changing face of technology. But Shootproof has a more logical back end and I like the shopping cart better.

But they all work well and they all do the job: its really a matter of "ticking the boxes" for your requirements and finding the system that you like the look of. For example you can FTP into and out of Photoshelter, but you can't do that with Shootproof (as far as I can tell), so if there are features you absolutely will be needing then make sure you choose an option that has it. Financial longevity is something else to look at. Photoshelter and Smugmug and Zenfolio are established, long running brands. Consider this story: that was 9 years ago and photoshelter is still around. I think that Koken and Aphotopholio are relatively new: so whether or not they will be around in a few years time is something to keep in the back of your mind.

This is basically how I've set things up.

http://bigmark.co.nz/g​alleries/

Click the gallery link, you get taken to the archives. A simple split between the website and the galleries. There are other ways you could do it. Hope that helps.

If you are looking to do sales, PhotoFolio may not be the best option. They use a 3rd party shopping cart that is pretty kludgy with substantial fees associated with it. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find PhotoFolio sites that actually used the shopping cart and couldn't find a single one.

You may also want to consider Photodeck. Unlike other similar sites they do not charge a commision on sales. Squarespace is another possibility. They are fairly inexpensive and they also do not charge a commission on sales. However, it looked to me like it would be difficult for photographers to easily price prints at various sizes (ie, it looked like you had to set a price for every single print at every single size for every single image), although I know it's possible as I've seen some nice photo sites selling prints via Squarespace.

I use Wordpress + Photocrati/Nextgen pro. For blog and display only this might be the easiest with a bit of WP knowledge. Nextgen Pro has ecommerce built in, including digital downloads. It's pretty good. Another option is Envira gallery, which I haven't tried but looks very good. It can fully integrate with Woocommerce plugin which has tons of great options. Envira is pretty expensive though.