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Picasa vs Flickr

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Best Online Photo Sharing Websites

Picasa and Flickr are two of the most popular free online photo storage sites. Members can upload their works, create free web albums, and comment on or rate photos of other people. Both photo hosting services have a lot of useful features; for example, Flickr allows you to write notes on specific regions of the image, while Picasa has easy editing capabilities that can help you fix common problems like red eyes. Perhaps most importantly, photographers using these sites can get noticed and receive feedback from people all over the world.

However, is Picasa or Flickr a better web photo sharing service, and why? Scroll down to see a comparison of these two picture hosting sites and take part in our Flickr vs Picasa Web Albums discussion and visitor poll.

Flickr

Flickr is a popular photo hosting website from Yahoo.

Flickr is one of the best and most popular image hosting site and photographer's community online. It's reported to host over 5 billion uploads as of September 2010. Flickr makes it easy to organize your photos into different sets, tag them by topic or geographical location and order prints. The site has an extensive search system that allows you to look for photos by their name, tag, camera model, license and topic.

Flickr has some limits on adding new images. As a free member, you can upload up to 100 MB worth of pictures a month (with the limit reseting monthly). For an affordable price of $24.95 per year, you can get unlimited photo storage, sets and collections. You'll also be able to see detailed visitor statistics and browse the site ad-free.

Besides photos, Flickr has recently started accepting video uploads, too.

Picasa Web Albums

Picasa is Google's online photo album site and photo editor.

Picasa is both an online photo album site and a photo editing / organizing application from Google. You can sort the pictures in your computer using the offline client by adding tags and whatnot, and then upload them to Google's servers.

Picasa has a number of features to make sharing your photos easier, such as tagging, geo-tagging, face recognition and printing. There's a 1 GB upload limit that can be lifted by purchasing additional storage starting with 20 GB for $5 a year.

Picasa versus Flickr Discussion

Which online photo album service do you think is better?

Picasa is better than Flickr!

boogie-setya says:

I dont know why but I used picassa more often than flickr

Akshit says:

Picasa is better than Flickr!

Julz says:

This article is outdated. Picasa now charges $30 for a 25GB increase... $5 for 20GB is no longer available :( booooo... I never used Flicker before, but I think I might start.

PhotoGlenn says:

I like Picasa for casual photography (family, travel). It integrates well on PC, MAC and iPhone and easy to share fun photos with friends and on facebook. Then again, I like Flickr for serious photography, semi-professional, and the community and resale opportunities and it integrates with MAC iPhoto and Aperture better. Dislike Flickr's limited video storage, but like their multi-size still photo options.

auee says:

im almost coerced to use flickr because of its popularity BUT I really like PICASA because of its integration with google

Pragmatic says:

I have been using Picasa, several years now, for more capacity and space at less cost: no upload limit with 1 GB free and 20 GB @ $5/yr. integrated and combined Google services have been nice too. But I dislike that in Google+, it disallow access non-gmail users, and force/coerce others to sign up for gmail account. This has become pain to my friends and felt like cyber-bullying.

I will retest Flickr and help Yahoo survive longer for healthy competition; in the process.

<a href="www.gabyweb.com">João Cunha</a> says:

flickr now allow to sell your photos easly, and there are best serch tool to WordPress. So i pick flickr.

Matthew says:

Picasa

Duncan says:

Picasa because it's Google (so it must be awesome), and extra storage is soo cheap.

Peter Hansson says:

None of them! I think there are others that are FAR better - and free - mejuba.com is one of them.

Ringo! says:

Picasa. with google, i pay 5 bucks a year for an extra 20GB added to picasa, docs, music, youtube, and gmail.

GOOGLE HAS ALOT TO OFFER WITH MAXIMUM SECURITY,SHAREABILITY, .AND CHEAP!

veryirie says:

I use Picasa's photo editing program.

Jargal says:

I prefer the Picasa than the Flickr

uu says:

heheheh geggege

darkp says:

Android integration FTW! and it's unlimited if you limit your image sizes to 2048x2048 or less, and 15 minutes of video or less.

prowebhosting33 says:

I am using Picasa more then Flickr, because it is more useful in what I do, and I can get index in Google with some of the picture, that means I can get more traffic to my website. I have some picture in picasa that are giving me traffic.

Alex says:

Just overall slicker, and 20gb a year for $5 is more affordable than $24.95 for unlimited.

Molina says:

Very fast, reliable and works great with my iphone and ipad.

Louis says:

I prefer Picasa to Flickr. Picasa has online and off-line editing of photos. Other than that, side-by-side, I think the Picasa online interface is slicker looking. It's only because of its support in Empire Avenue, that I'm going to begin using Flickr more.

MP says:

I love using Picasa because I used both Picasa Web and Desktop application. It is really easy to edit and upload photos and also to share with my friends and family since I love Gmail and other Google products. I just wish that Google would increase their free photo storage limit. I do not like Flickr's Sets option. For me PicasaWeb is better for storing Family event pictures and creating big albums, while Flickr is ideal for photographers who do not upload large albums at once.

Jago says:

Storage capacity is not a plus for Google, but Picasa Desktop makes so easy to seamlessly keep your picture albums in your computer mirrored in the web... Also, the sharing options are definitely way more comfortable. And integration with Google Contacts (Picasa - Google Contacts - Android Contacts) is perfect. Picasa is Winner!

matt says:

Maybe its just a matter of choice. I'm a Google fan, I think they always do the most cutting edge stuff, since Picasa is theirs, it integrates flawlessly with Google docs and Blogger. Now with the integration with Picnik, it's a hands down winner for me!

Varsity Photos.net says:

I use them both but SimpleViewer allows you to run your Google ads:
www.varsityphotos.net/ag/ag_main.htm

Hiking-Hong-Kong says:

I prefer Picasa as I find it easier to use.

Ryan says:

Has more editing features and its google I prefer google over yahoo anyone else agree??

mcochs says:

Picasa!

CCGAL says:

I use both, but I love Picasa for the photo editing and easy-peasy uploading to you-tube and my drop box.

Flickr is better than Picasa!

João Cunha says:

flickr now allow to sell your photos easly, and there are best serch tool to WordPress. So i pick flickr.

masterlizzard says:

I like Flickr because it allows hd videos to be uploaded

Rajani says:

Flickr is for real/near-to professional, that means it is for people who see photography seriously like me whereas casual photographers may like Picassa

Andrea Duni says:

While Picasa has better Album sharing, album collaboration and full album download, inside Flickr you can change upload and taken timestamps for each photo, in many ways. It is useful when you travel and forget to update time in your machine.

kombizz says:

I use both, but I love Flckr more than Picasa.
Wish there was a connection between these two, so I copy my images from one to another.

Elija says:

I use flickr. I have no special reason for that, I just like it. :)
Nice addition to flickr is click.to It is a free app (http://www.clicktoapp.com/)
Maybe somebody also likes it.

Elija says:

I use flickr. I have no special reason for that, I just like it. :)
Nice addition to flickr is click.to It is a free app (http://www.clicktoapp.com/)
Maybe somebody also likes it.

Monty says:

Flicker has unlimited storage. Picasa only 1gb

flickr.com/santhoshgv says:

quality photographers upload quality snaps @ flickr..!

Quickcutters says:

Flickr because i have never tried Picasa, but after reading what each do Flickr sounds better.

ashroc says:

I love flickr, i can oraganize my photos easily and find the ones i want in a flash

shanibne@ gmail.com says:

flicker good

Jon says:

I like Flickr better mainly because of interface of the site. Flickr is polished and professional, but Picasa makes your photos look like results on a web serach. There's a reason any company or organization that wants a web album will choose Flickr 99% of the time.

newbreedteacher says:

Flickr exports out of iPhoto, great for us Mac users!

JR Rodriguez IV says:

I am using over 100gb and it is getting bigger everyday, so Flickr is more cost effective for me.

jennabee25 says:

I love flickr! It's great for organizing and I love the community of friends I have there.

Lukas says:

It's free

Gera says:

Definitely Flickr. It's cool and easy.

hdkeulenaer says:

I use both, but currently tend towards Flickr. Not for a strong reason, though. Both services are largely equivalent - differences are quite subtle.

aesta1 says:

I have them both but I seldom use them except that in Squidoo, we can easily get pics from Flickr.

hung says:

Picasa has a rate-limit exceed that you cannot post your image in high traffic site as forum or ebay. let's google search "rate-limit exceed picasa"

emmalarkins says:

I've only really used Flickr. I like how it's easy to get images for Squidoo by searching for "commercial use" images, and I can almost always still find awesome images. Plus, you can leave links on the page of the photo, and create a backlink to your site!

Chadrew says:

Flickr feels a lot more polished and "finished" to me, has a bigger and more active community, and more features. Their premium membership is also affordable and provides unlimited uploads (although you could argue that $20/year for 80 GB at Picasa is reasonable, and that most people will never need that much photo storage).

Google has a lot of great products that I use (such as Gmail, which is much better than Yahoo! webmail), but I think when it comes to Flickr vs Picasa, Flickr is a clear winner.

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Comments

Share your favorite image hosting websites.

Reply

mirka s. Apr 21, 2012 @ 9:56 pm | delete

I love the network of enthusiastic photographers that exists on flickr. Other than that, I like flickr's design features (stream of recently posted photos vs albums with covers on picasa). That's because I cherry-pick my pictures (both editing from the digital raw format and film-scanning are time-demanding), and care more about displaying a few recent ones.

Reply

photonerd Jan 30, 2012 @ 6:56 am | delete

flickr is for some serious works...I Love it very much..it feels all reflective and bright as a photo sharing site must feel..while picasa is quite Dull and is more prefble to an average person....For serious Sharing go for FLICKR!!!

Reply

imagetext wedding photography Jan 7, 2012 @ 3:16 pm | delete

for me fickr is best, it gives us wedding photographers a chnce to view other photographers style-www.imagetextweddingphotography.co.uk

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rangiiria Jan 4, 2012 @ 12:21 am | delete

Picasa is my fav :-}

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Gordosk Nov 7, 2011 @ 5:17 pm | delete

Picasa's my choice. Flickr (free version) has another limit -- only the most recent 200 photos are viewable.

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Feibe Sep 13, 2011 @ 1:27 pm | delete

Since I have the program on my computer, I prefer use Picasa.
It is more simpler for me as the intermediate. I still want to discover all of its interesting options. I never use flickr, but I wanna try it ...

This topic is really increasing my knowledge. Thank you so much!!

Reply

prowebhosting33 Sep 6, 2011 @ 11:49 am | delete

In my opinion picasa is the best photo sharing website. It is easy to use, the quality of the picture is good, and the picture on picasa may appear on google search which is good if you want to get more traffic. But is good to have Flickr as well specially if you are using squidoo, and also if you want to integrate a photo album in your wordpress blog.

Reply

CruiseReady Jul 24, 2011 @ 10:39 am | delete

I have never used either ... but do think I need something, and this lens has given me some things to think about. The editing features in Picasa do sound good to me.

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gatorsquid Jul 14, 2011 @ 12:07 am | delete

good lens!

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Quickcutters Jul 2, 2011 @ 11:25 pm | delete

Well look at those stats. I'd say looks pretty even to me just personal preference.

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GG May 7, 2011 @ 4:45 pm | delete

I vote for Picasa. Mainly because of their desktop application. It's a great photo organizing tool, especially now that it has face recognition. It provides basic but surprisingly good editing tools, it provides very good tagging capability, it seamlessly integrates with Google Photos, it is perfect starting point in anyone's workflow.

Flickr is good on the web side, but it's the desktop part that makes Google great.

Reply

Dan May 2, 2011 @ 10:46 pm | delete

Totally depends on your situation and needs. Storage issue is only applicable for the most active users since for $25 a year you can get 100GB. If you have to have more than that, then sure, go with Flickr, but that does not make it a clear winner for anyone except the biggest users.

If you want editing and excellent desktop/web integration (among other things) then Picasa wins - especially if you need 20GB or less. If you are into the community at Flickr, and, as mentioned before, require massive amounts of storage (among other things) then Flickr is the winner. These "versus" posts are very seldom meaningful, except to help discerning readers compare features. So much of this stuff is relative.

Reply

John Apr 30, 2011 @ 6:45 pm | delete

Bit like comparing BMW against Mercedes... it's all subjective.
Tried Flickr years ago and ended going with Picassa, which I found much easier to use & better suited for my specific needs. They are both excelent, but for me the great thing about Picasa is that you can edit your photos offline (via their download-able software, by passing using excrutiang difficult Photoshop and the likes) before you upload them on Picasa Web. There are also so many cool time saving editing tools to use. You can create your slide shows for You Tube etc, ad tags and notes in the offline software on Picasa, so it’s all done and ready when you upload the photos. To me Picasa leaves Flickr behind, but others will have the opposite oppinion.
The ideal situation is to have both, but the process of duplicating your photo albums from one to the other is not easy. Wish they could sort that out.
Cheers,
John

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COUNTRYLUTHIER Mar 19, 2011 @ 12:45 pm | delete

I am leaning towards flickr but i see by comments there are other contenders. Great information!

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taranteddy Feb 25, 2011 @ 9:26 am | delete

i use both. dont forget photobucket. one of the if not the pioneer of photo sharing. and you can upload videos :)

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MarkUpshaw Nov 8, 2010 @ 5:49 pm | delete

I use both, but I like flikr for now.

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crosscreations Oct 25, 2010 @ 9:53 am | delete

I mostly use flickr but learned some new things about picassa here, too. Dandy duel!

Reply

mcochs Oct 15, 2010 @ 8:38 am | delete

Interesting lens-enjoyed visiting!

Reply

CCGAL Oct 7, 2010 @ 9:45 pm | delete

Excellent topic. I guess I'm on the opposite side of your duel, though, because I adore Picasa and barely tolerate flickr, and then only because I can make sets for one of the Squidoo modules.