KB: Making a website? Advice needed

I think it depends on how far you want it to grow. Personally, I think if you want a place you can show your own images, share them, perhaps have people contact, have some customization over what it looks like then something like Smugmug or Zenfolio is absolutely ideal. If you think is probably fits your description then go with one of them. You can try it for a while and see what you think - even a year will pass quicker than you'd expect, and you may have some thoughts on limitations / expansion or be more than content with it.

I personally chose the route of wordpress. It enables the flexibility that I wanted.

Above all, avoid anything flash based. No need for it.

ricardovaste wrote: I personally chose the route of wordpress. It enables the flexibility that I wanted.

Richard, what theme have you based your site on?

I'm going to second Smugmug. There's also 500px and a few others.

I think "roll your own" is asking for trouble.

I already run my own server to host email and a little bit of other stuff related to my day job, and I don't run my own web gallery.

If you aren't a computer expert, don't run your own server. You'll get hacked and end up spamming the world. Plus, it costs WAY more to run your own server.

Smugmug basic is $40/year. Other paid portfolio sites are similar. A VPS or hosted site is going to be way more than that, especially if you want lots of storage.

Using one of the specifically made for photography sites is going to get you a more professional polished look, and they're going to upgrade over time. You also don't have to worry about what will happen if you have a sudden spike in popularity (which does not always correspond to a spike in sales).


If, for some reason, you do decide to roll your own, for heaven's sake use Ubuntu or one of the other distros that actually updates with some frequency. Red Hat/Centos is always a year or two behind. Ubuntu will have as many or more pre-supported projects/packages.

I think smugmug could be fine for you Leo . Give it a look .

I had the same questions years ago searching for a good site. Then I found SmugMug. And I must say, it's great! See my gallery.

paulofessel wrote: thornburg wrote: If, for some reason, you do decide to roll your own, for heaven's sake use Ubuntu or one of the other distros that actually updates with some frequency. Red Hat/Centos is always a year or two behind. Ubuntu will have as many or more pre-supported projects/packages. The security fixes for RHEL/CentOS are backported from recent releases of the packages. And additional repositories do provide pre-support projects/packages as well. Of course, what I've said before applies: if you don't have experience managing a computer server, don't roll your own.

To each his own.

I wasn't referring to bug fixes/security patches.

I was talking about features.

I tried CentOS twice. Each time I jumped ship because I googled "how do I do X with package Y" and the answer was "upgrade to the latest release of the package", which, with CentOS, meant waiting 6-18 months. On Ubuntu it has been 0-6 months.

Once again thanks for all your reactions!
They are very helpful.

What is clear to me now is that I don't need traffic: I don't have the ambition to sell my photos. I want a place where I can show them the way I like, plain and simple.

Neither do I want to spend a lot of time in maintaining the site and in getting to know the technicalities of it all.

So I guess what I'm after is a more or less ready made solution for displaying galleries. From what you showed me WordPress and (a customized form of) Zenfolio seem very attractive, and I will do some more research on these.

Further comments very welcome!