When comparing SmugMug vs Flickr, the Slant community recommends SmugMug for most people. In the question“What are the best cloud photo storage and portfolio services?” SmugMug is ranked 3rd while Flickr is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose SmugMug is:
By simply dragging and dropping various content blocks (such as menu, galleries, social buttons, text) around it's possible to quickly and visually lay out the site. Customization options are context aware. So, if a gallery is open, gallery customization options will be shown, if a page is open, page customization options will be shown. To change the look of the site there are multiple themes available that can be further customized by changing HTML & CSS.
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Pros
Pro Easy to use, powerful website customization options
By simply dragging and dropping various content blocks (such as menu, galleries, social buttons, text) around it's possible to quickly and visually lay out the site. Customization options are context aware. So, if a gallery is open, gallery customization options will be shown, if a page is open, page customization options will be shown. To change the look of the site there are multiple themes available that can be further customized by changing HTML & CSS.
Pro Good SEO
SmugMug automatically pulls photo metadata such as keywords, descriptions and captions, and inserts them in appropriate places in the webpage so that search engines can properly index them. If that information is not set before uploading, it can be added via back-end as well. Also in the back-end it's possible to set site-wide metadata and custom URLs to further optimize.
Content still needs to be dispersed via social media, blogs, forums, etc for it to show up in search results, but SmugMug has a well polished codebase that takes search engines into consideration and won't hinder content's exposure potential.
Pro Intuitive drag & drop backend
SmugMug has a drag and drop interface that allows organizing photos into folders and galleries, adjusting how they're displayed, setting privacy preferences, editing meta keywords and descriptions, etc in an easy to use manner.
Pro Galleries and folders can be password protected
A gallery or a folder and it's sub-items can be given a password that will be asked when trying to access them.
Pro Reasonable commerce options with fair sales commission
It's possible to sell digital downloads of photos and videos as well as prints. SmugMug takes 15% of profit on sale.
Pro Visitors can be allowed to upload photos
Anyone accessing a gallery using a specifically crafted URL can upload photos to it.
Pro Good branding options
Watermarks can be added to photos, printmarks to prints, and branding can be applied to orders (shopping cart, thank you prints and stickers).
Pro Engagement and feedback tools
Photos can be shared, commented on and liked.
Pro Business account users can set passwords that give access to the backend
It's possible to set an assistant password that gives access to the backend (with some limitations). Very useful for letting someone trusted upload and arrange photos. The assistant won't be able to delete photos or galleries, customize the site or access private folders.
Pro Custom domain support
To use a custom domain a "Power" pricing tier or higher is required.
Pro Can be set to auto-upload images
Flickr has an app on Windows, OSX, iOS and Android, called Flickr Uploadr (available for download in the tools section) that can automatically upload images to Flickr. It can even pull images from external drives and other cloud storage services such as iCloud.
Pro Photos are backed up elsewhere
I mainly use Google Photos and keep separate local backup of all my photos, but also use the IOS app which transfers all new photos onto Flickr storage as well.
Pro Good search
Flickr is capable of searching images by a combination of content, color, shape, depth of field, style, pattern, size, license and other options.
Pro Built-in image recognition
Flickr will automatically attempt to figure out the contents of a picture and tag them appropriately. This will allow you to look for, for example, all images of flowers, bridges or butterflies.
Cons
Con Can't designate self as print provider
Con Lacks an integrated blog system
Con No offline view
While Google Photos and iCloud Photo Library allow you to select if you want to keep local copies of your photos, Flickr only allow you to view your photos online.
Con There are limits on file sizes
Images can't be more than 200MB a piece and each video can't take up more than 1GB of space.
Con No support for lossless file formats
Photos can only be saved as .jpg, .gif (non-animated) and .png files.
