There are currently over 700 million monthly active users on Instagram, making it one of the most popular social networks in the world. Founded in 2010, it is probably the most well-known of all of the photo sharing websites, even though it is only half the age of Flickr, which was founded in 2004. So which is better, Flickr or Instagram? Despite the fact that Instagram has ten times as many users as Flickr, Flickr is actually the better photo sharing website of the two for a number of reasons. Here are some of those reasons:
Flickr has more Respect for your Photos
Just like Instagram, Flickr provides you with a news feed. However Flickr goes to the trouble of cataloguing and tagging your photos as well as putting them neatly into albums. This means that if you’re looking for a particular photo that you have uploaded to Flickr, you can go back and find it just as easily as you could on the day you posted it.
Instagram doesn’t have this much respect for your treasured photos. Each time you take a photo and upload it to Instagram, it replaces the top spot on your news feed, and essentially pushes all of your other photos down the feed. Over time your older photos are so far down the feed that it would take an age to scroll down and access them. This makes it very difficult to look for a particular photo that you took a year ago.
While some people might not be that bothered about finding old photos, if you’re a photographer or you just like to regularly look through your old photos you will probably be much better off with Flickr. If you’ve gone to the trouble of taking a photo and editing it (even if that does just mean adding a filter to it), then the chances are you will want to see it again in the future.
Flickr allows you to Upload Multiple Photos
If you’ve taken a collection of photos that you’d like to upload at the same time and keep in an album, then Flickr allows you to do just like that. Instagram on the other hand will only let you upload one single photo at a time.
While that may not be an issue if you’re just uploading selfies or pictures of your dinenr, if you’ve got a batch of photos to upload that you’d like to tag, describe and add a title to, it can get extremely monotonous.
Flickr allows any Size or Dimension of Photo
If you upload a photo to Instagram and you want it to look good, then it has to be square. If it’s not, then Instagram will crop it to a square anyway, so the chances are that something significant in the image will be cut out.
Unfortunately, not all photos are square. Some of the best landscapes in the world make for a rectangular photo, which will be butchered if uploaded to Instagram. Flickr will display such photos exactly how you want them to be shown – in the same dimensions as the original photo. You can even use your smartphone’s panoramic photo setting to take a photo and upload it to Flickr, and they will not molest it.
Flickr lets you Control your Privacy Settings on every Photo
Unlike Instagram, Flickr allows you to choose a privacy setting for every single photo that you upload. Flickr allows you to choose whether to make the photos public, or only viewable by friends, family, friends and family, or just yourself.
This is perfect for the average person who takes photos for personal reasons as well as to share with the rest of the world. Flickr allows you to have the best of both worlds so you can share your amateur wildlife shots with the world while keeping your baby photos between yourself and your family.
Flickr is more Social than Instagram
Considering that Instagram is considered one of the largest social networks, it isn’t anywhere near as social as Flickr is. Flickr will allow you to email people directly, whereas Instagram won’t. There is also a much better activity panel on Flickr than Instagram, so you can easily see who has commented and on what photo. You can also see photos from your favourite people or groups more easily.
Even the comment system on Flickr is better. On Flickr you can include links or photos in your comments, so you can link to or post related pictures or photos. You can even use emoticons.
Flickr also makes for easier sharing of photos than Instagram. On Instagram the only way to see someone else’s photos is to view their newsfeed or search for the hashtag Flickr allows you to share photos to groups where they’re much more likely to be seen.