You have many choices of free, high quality software to put your photos online on your own webiste. Here are some of the important comparisons you might want to consider in your decision.
| Camera Life | Gallery2 | Coppermine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| License | GPL | GPL | GPL |
| Upoading | Web form, FTP, iPhoto, Mac/Windown/Linux/Java client, Kipi, supports the Gallery Remote API | HTTP/FTP upload, Windows publishing wizard | |
| Support | Quick access to the lead developer, straightforward API and PHPDOC, a bug tracker, paid support | Mailing lists, Wiki, piles of automatically generated documentation, IRC channel, active forums, paid support | Forum, mailing list |
| Themability | Edit a stylesheet, or use the theme API to roll something really custom | Edit the code | |
| i18n | No | Yes | Yes |
| Permissions | An access level approach | An ACL approach | |
| Installation | Simple, 2 steps | Simple, 10 steps | Simple |
| Unique features | All edits on the site have a full audit trail and are reversable. Don't be afraid to let random visitors rename and flag your photos, you can undo any bad behavior | There is a plugin to do ANYTHING you want with Gallery | Very customizable interface |
| Background | Started in 2001 | Started in 2000 | Started in 2003 |
Other software to run a photo website
- Zenphoto - a very simple, straightforward approach
- Plogger - This is a little less mature and has a nice clean interface. There aren't nearly as many features as the more mature options
- PHPGraphy - This is another newcomer. I like how this is fairly simple, and has a few features you would expect from a photo gallery. You can get your hands dirty and put together a little theming to make this look right on your site
- THE FULL LIST ON WIKIPEDIA
And of course, there are places where you can put your photos online on someone else's server. Let's compare...
| Camera Life | Picasa Web Albums | Flickr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | 1GB free, $5/yr for 20GB | 100MB/mth free upload, $25/yr for unlimited |
| Upoading | Web form, FTP, iPhoto, Mac/Windown/Linux/Java client, Kipi, supports the Gallery Remote API | These options and more | |
| Getting your photos back | cp -r cameralife ~ | Install Picasa desktop client on a supported platform and use software function. | Try some software like Photo Grabbr |
| Getting your metadata back | mysqldump cameralife > backup.mysql | RTFAPI | |
| Logging in | Your users need to make an account | Users already have an account | |
| Organizing, tagging | Good support | Good support | Good support |
| Face detection | No | Yes | No |
| Theme & Themeability | Looks OK, could be better. You can customize to back your own website | Looks great | Looks OK. You can use widgets to put content on your blog |
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