spiralicious | Image Hosting

I have had issues with Photobucket for... well, since I got a Photobucket account several years ago and have been looking for any reason to leave. I have also actively been trying to find a new site for image hosting for about a year because of its issues and not wanting to host images for a blog I am working on there. Given the recent change in Photobucket's TOS, I thought I would share my thoughts on what I've looked at with you. So far, my account is not one of the affected ones, so I am not pulling my photos down until I find a new place to host them (so far), but I am sure as hell not adding to my account. I do not use Photobucket as a primary place for my photos, I only use it when I need to host photos for posting elsewhere.

Flickr – This was my first choice for switching from Photobucket. I used it a lot in college because a class I was taking required it and it seemed a viable option given its good reviews. However, I dug a little deeper and they pulled some major wtfery last year with what a free account could do vs a paid account not quite on par with Photobucket's ransom, but it did make the site incredibly user unfriendly.

Tiny Pic – I used to use them exclusively for posting banners from fic contests. It has been a while since I have used them, but you did not have to have an account for them to host a photo (which I liked). I have no clue if that is still the case. If you are using the site without an account, you do have to input captcha every three to five images, which can get annoying if you are doing a large batch, but understandable. (At least that is how it was two years ago. Things could have changed, but my images do still seem to be up.) On the bad side, they have so many ads, I always felt like I needed to take a shower and scan my computer after using it. Also, if they do take one of your images down for content, the code gets reused for a newer image, which can make things a bit strange if you don't notice right away and now have a new random image where the one you hosted used to be.

SmugMug – Is a use for pay site for professional photographers, as is 500px.

DeviantArt – Its not technically a photo hosting site, but I've been a member there for 11 years, so I thought I would check to see if you can image share there now. I haven't really played there in the last year and wasn't sure what changes were made after the merger with (I think) Wix. I logged in the other day and things seem pretty much the same and images do have an html code for sharing images. So its a viable option.

LJ Scrapbook – I know most of my LJ peeps use it. I never really have because it just always gave me fits, but for just posting things to LJ, its good. What I don't like about it is that it is not easy to back up as a whole and images embedded in posts do not always show up when you import to DW. Sometimes you get the image and sometimes you get “LJ-Embeded Code” in place of the image. (Yet, if you put an image on a DW post and crosspost it to LJ it will show up fine in both places.)

Google – I have not tried using Google's image hosting, though I am considering it for my blog, if WordPress doesn't have image hosting. For me, it's not good for fandom stuff as it links to your Google account. My blog is basically crafting and food though.

DreamWidth – DW technically has an embed image tool, but I have yet to meet anyone who can get it to work. It does seem to be on their list of things they are working on, but as of right now, its not really a viable option.

Imgur – It seems to be the most viable option so far. They are free, have html codes for photo sharing, and are fandom friendly. I have not really tried it out yet beyond giving it a once over to see its options and how it looks though. It has been recommended to me by other people.

Other sites I have found, but not yet looked into: imgBB, Ctrlq, ImageShack, and Pixady.

I know there are more out there, but those are my thoughts so far. Does anyone else have any suggestions or thoughts on any of these?