What are the most cost efficient options for photo hosting?

July 3, 2017 8:20 AM

With the recent gangsterization of Photobucket, I'm wondering what are the best alternatives for hosting images to use as embeds or links for demonstration purposes.

While I would like some decent sized storage options, the links or embeds would be few and not of a personal nature, so I am not worried about loss on my part as much as I would be in having links die should anyone look back to a post sometime long after it was made. So some hope for permanence would be a bonus, but not a deal breaker would it be lost at some future date.

I'd be willing to pay for the service, but not much since it isn't a money making venture on my part, so I'd prefer standardized monthly, or better, yearly fees or for it to be priced by use, but without my running into any danger should some image somehow unexpectedly go viral. Outside the box thinking is fine too as it needn't be a dedicated image host, just something that will work to provide links for people to see the images without unnecessary hassle, like a facebook login or anything of that sort.

I should also add I'm almost completely ignorant of the niceties of computer lingo, so self hosting is probably out, and don't have a cell phone or tablet or anything of that nature, just a PC, so anything aimed at phone users probably won't well work either.

posted by gusottertrout to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: I believe imgur is the thing for this. If you use the "Direct Link" it is very no-nonsense (like so). If you look at the "Most Viral" or whatever on the front page you might see some NSFW or offensive images (it was founded as an image host for reddit, if I understand correctly), but you and your users need not see any of that.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:48 AM on July 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I've been a smugmug customer for years now, and while I don't use it for that purpose, I don't think there are any issues with doing so. ~$50/year
posted by booooooze at 9:13 AM on July 3, 2017

Best answer: If you have Amazon Prime you have unlimited hosting with Amazon Photos.
posted by COD at 10:40 AM on July 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: If you're just hosting images and you don't need any web page framing around them, you can upload them to Amazon S3 and store them forever. Current prices are around 2¢ per GB/month; typically they go down over time.
posted by migurski at 1:08 PM on July 3, 2017