Image Hosting, What is the Best Option?
ADVERTISEMENTSThis is a guest post by Keith Dsouza from Techie Buzz. If you are interested in writing a guest post too, let me know
Images can say more than a thousand words. There was never a more truthful saying than this. Images make your posts livelier giving users a clear picture of what you are trying to explain.
Not only do images spice up your posts it also allows you to depict in a visual way what you want to explain to your readers. I tend to use a lot of images while I write how to articles allowing the user to have a view of what exactly they need to do.
While hosting your images you can either choose to host it on your own server or use a third party service like Flickr or Image Shack. There are certain advantages and disadvantages in choosing either of these options.
Here is a detailed comparison which will help you make a decision on where you should host your images.
Page Load Times
Self Hosted Images
Self hosted images have a faster load time since your web server does not have to access multiple resources to download and display the images. Page load times are very critical since a user attention span is less than 10-15 seconds. So having self hosted images definitely helps you to cut down on load times.
Third Party Hosted Images
When you are hosting images on a third party server the web server will have to wait for the third party server to relay the images back to them thus putting an extra strain on load times. Many a times a third party server may be slow to respond and your page load times get affected because of this.
Bandwidth Usage
Self Hosted Images
When you host images on your own server there will be an additional use of bandwidth to display the images, if you have a limited bandwidth with your hosting account, this may cause you some problems if you get lots of visitors.
Images consume a lot of bandwidth and you have to very careful about this while choosing to host your images on your own server.
Third Party Hosted Images
Hosting images on third party images does not consume any additional bandwidth on your server. If your web hosting package provides you with low or limited bandwidth you should choose to host your images on a third party server.
Again there may be a cap on bandwidth for the image on the third party server itself, so you need to check their bandwidth policy about hosting images.
Disk Space Usage
Self Hosted Images
Another one of the problems you could face while hosting images on your server is disk space usage. Images consume a lot of disk space and you need to have a good hosting package which provides you with large disk space to host your images.
Third Party Hosted Images
When you host your images on third party servers you do not have to worry about disk space usage. Also since there are many such image hosting providers that allow free image hosting you can easily host your images on them without having to worry about disk space.
Reliability
Self Hosted Images
There is a certain sense of reliability while hosting images on your own server. For one you can always be sure that your images will be displayed to the user since it resides on your own server.
Also even if you decide to move servers your images will move with you. You do not have to worry about the images not showing up in your content when you host the images on your own servers.
Third Party Hosted Images
This is where third party hosted images loses, there is absolutely no certainty that your images will be shown to the users. There are various factors which could cause this -
- The third party server is having a down time
- The third party server deleted your images without informing you
- You exceeded bandwidth limit on the third party server
- You exceeded disk space limit on the third party server
These are just some of the reasons why your images may not be displayed. But you have to know that when you host your images on a third party server there is absolutely no guarantee that it will always display on your site.
This could create a problem when images play a important part in what you are trying to explain, without the images the whole content can suffer.
These are some of the things you need to think about while hosting your images. I personally prefer hosting images on my own servers since I have the reliability to have those images as long as my site exists. What about you? What is the best option to host images according to you?
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Posted on November 4th, 2007 | Category: Blogging |
Madhur Kapoor
November 4, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Nice comparison Keith but since i have limited amount of bandwidth at my disposal,i prefer to host images on photobucket or imageshack.
maneesh
November 4, 2007 at 5:43 pm
nice stuff keith…
I guess the best thing for people to do would also be look for light images,, 10-15kb.. of course not at the cost quality… but lighter images always helps us to make the most of bandwidth twhether our own or third party..
I host most of my images on my owns erver, and the heavy ones on thrid party like imageshack…
CompuWorld
November 4, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Self hosting of images is always the best option. Most of the popular bloggers also follow the same way.
Bandwidth and disk usage is never a problem when you are using a good hosting service. I use dreamhost and there service is awesome. I get more than 200GB of storage and I guess I wont overuse that ever. The bandwidth is in TBs and once again more than required. Moreover both the numbers increase after a set period so as your site goes popular the numbers also increase to accommodate your increasing traffic.
Self hosting always!
CompuWorld
November 4, 2007 at 6:06 pm
by the way John long time after I see a post in your blog and that too a guest post? I am sure you are badly busy somewhere..
Hosting Talk
November 5, 2007 at 11:37 am
I’ve been using zooomr.com a lot for image hosting. They don’t have any file size or image amount limits. Been good to me so far. I really only use them for image galleries.
Other than that I always use my own web hosting account.
Make Money Solutions
November 5, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Self hosting of images haven’t been a problem if they do become one may consider a third party service, but self hosted does load faster.
Michael Woo
November 5, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Oh John, I’m feeling very evil today.. i have an evil plan which needs your feedback XD.. let me know what you think.. thanks!
Creativa
November 6, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Ok video, ok big dimensions file, but not image:) Self hosting is the best way.
Tai Tran
November 6, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Hi John,
I can see that you host most of your images on your site.
Would you let us know the circumstances in which you use a third-party hosting service instead?
***
Additionally, I’d appreciate if you could compare popular and good free hosting services such as Photobucket, Imageshack, Picasa, Flickr…etc
Thanks
Tai Tran
http://www.taitran.com
Innovations & Interesting Ramblings
November 7, 2007 at 10:56 am
Nice comparison…
AhBoon
November 8, 2007 at 11:49 am
My sites rely very much on images, I host it all on third party site; Picspay.Com
It not only let me host the images but also paying me when my visitors click on the images.
Tay - Make Money Blogging
November 11, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Great post, very helpful and detailed. I’m including it in this week’s roundup on my own blog. Keep up the great work.
jack frame
November 30, 2007 at 3:14 am
Take a look at It’s Hosted! (www.itshosted.com)
They offer cPanel hosting for $5.95 month to month with NO SETUP FEE or COMMITMENT. They allow you to host 2 domains per account & even provided SSH (Shell Access is a necessity for me). Many Webhosts claim to have hosting for $3-$7 per month, but then when you checkout, they want you to pay for 12-24 months! Or they require a whopping setup fee!
itshosted.com does not do this. Their $5.95 account actually costs $5.95/mo at checkout (go figure). That way if I am ever unhappy, I can move on without losing $50-$100 dollars.
Jim Vernel
March 14, 2008 at 11:31 pm
i’ve just found http://www.picamatic.com
it works very fast and has an easy interface
moreover, there’s no annoying / flickering ads there
tom
May 1, 2008 at 11:28 pm
If you guys need a good image host, check out http://www.thefilegarage.com
Works, great, and its very reliable
Allan
September 7, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I have found a better image hosting site called http://www.picoolio.com You can upload your pictures and photos for free, no limitation in size, you can share your staff with your friends, you can post directly to Facebook and MySpace
Nicko
September 9, 2008 at 5:10 pm
If you want to host multiple images with good bandwith and comfortable way ,just check http://www.multishack.com