Google Photos is a great service for storing images across devices. But Google Drive and Gmail only offer 15GB of storage for free. Google Photos used to offer free unlimited storage of images, but that is not the case anymore.
If you are looking for a better photo storage plan, different features, or just want to move away from Google’s ecosystem, here are some alternatives.
Free storage: 1,000 photos
Typically, storage services offer storage with limit on size. But Flickr is taking a different approach: It lets people store 1,000 images and videos for free. One advantage of Flickr: You can upload an image of up to 200MB in size, compared to the 75MB limit on Google Photos on the free plan. Flickr’s paid plans start at $10.44 per month for unlimited storage.
If you want to look at features beyond personal usage, Flickr allows you to make your photos public so others can find them. You can also join groups based on different topics.
Free storage: 5GB
Dropbox is not a storage service centered around photos, but that could be an advantage if you are looking to store things beyond photos in the cloud. The company has paid plans starting at $9.99 per month for 2TB of storage, which is similar to Google One’s premium plan.
Free storage: 5GB
Ente was created by a former Google engineer as a more private alternative to Google Photos. The service has end-to-end encryption protection for photos, which means the company doesn’t collect any data. The app is available across platforms and includes features to identify and annotate people; show photos from different locations; and create categories like sunsets, memes, and documents. All of this is processed on your device.
Ente’s monthly plans start from $2.49 per month for 50GB of storage, which can be shared with five other people. Ente’s core code is open sourced, so you can modify it to have a self-hosted version as well.
Free storage: 100MB
Cryptee is another photo-storing service that focuses on privacy; it’s also open source. You can create an account with a username and a password (there is an option to use email and password as well). While its free tier offers not a lot of storage, the paid tier starts at $3.30 per month for 10GB of storage. The service works on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux through a progressive web app and uses AES256 encryption to protect your media.
Apart from being a photo storage service, it has a built-in document editor that supports markdown, code, and KaTeX math. Plus, you can use a side-by-side view for documents, store and edit files as PDF and docx, and use elements like tables and checkboxes.
Free storage: 5GB with Prime membership
This is a great perk for Amazon Prime members. You can cram some extra images you have into the free tier of Amazon Photos, and if you want more, storage plans start at $1.99 per month for 100GB.
Free storage: 21 high-resolution photos per week uploads
500px is geared more toward hobbyists or professional photographers. It has community features to highlight your work and a way to showcase your snaps in an uncompressed format. Plans cost less than $50 per year, with a discount that lets you store unlimited high-resolution photos. The premium plans remove ads from the platform and also offer insights into how your photos are performing on the platform. Its higher-tiered Pro plan, priced just under $100 per year, gives you tools to build a portfolio with a custom domain as well.
Free storage: No free storage
Offering no free tier sounds like a bummer, but Photobucket offers one of the lowest storage rates, with $5 per month for 1TB of storage. If you pay for the plan on a yearly basis, the price is lower. Photobucket offers an ideal way to share photos with different groups with its group bucket plans at $8 per month for 1TB storage, which also gives you access to its editing tools.