MODERN STACK · MODERN UX
Cloud-native, not legacy.
R2 storage with zero egress, edge-rendered galleries, modern image variants (AVIF / WebP / HEIC). SmugMug is built on infrastructure decisions made when Flickr was the competition.
The SmugMug alternative
SmugMug is 2008. The job is 2026.
SmugMug was the answer when the question was 'where do I host these JPEGs.' The question changed. The platform didn't.
The argument
01
SmugMug shipped before HEIC, before R2, before TLS 1.3, before the social cycle that decides a photo's value in the first 18 hours. It's a storage locker that learned to render web pages. The pages render. The job has moved on.
02
Encore is built on a 2026 stack. Cloudflare R2 with zero egress fees. Variants generated through Sharp on demand. SHA-256 hash-chained audit log. Postgres. TypeScript. Edge middleware. Real engineering, not a CGI script with a CSS refresh every five years.
03
We don't charge for downloads. SmugMug's per-egress economics are an artifact of when bandwidth was expensive. R2 doesn't bill us for it; we don't bill you for it. Your gallery stays cheap to run no matter how many people view it.
04
SmugMug's shooter community is real. The product they're stuck with is not. If you're tired of explaining to clients why the gallery loads in three seconds in 2026, the answer is a different platform.
Where they fall short
Four reasons photographers leave SmugMug.
ZERO DOWNLOAD FEES
Bandwidth is free here.
Cloudflare R2 doesn't charge for egress. We don't pass through fees we don't pay. Your bulk-download zip is free no matter how big the gallery.
PIT PASS LIVE MODE
Ship during the shoot.
Push frames to a public gallery during the event. SmugMug has no concept of this — their upload pipeline isn't built for it.
REAL WHITE-LABEL
Your studio, not their brand.
Custom domain (CNAME, DNS-verified), custom fonts, custom email-from, custom vocabulary. SmugMug branding bleeds through everywhere. Ours doesn't unless you want it to.
Brutal honesty
Who Encore is not for.
We respect your time enough to name when SmugMug (or another platform) is genuinely the better call. Read this before you switch.
- 01
You have 100,000+ photos in a single SmugMug archive.
Migrating that volume is a real project. The Import flow handles it, but you'll be in there for hours. If your archive is the asset you're paying for storage on, the migration cost may exceed the value. Stay or migrate slowly, gallery by gallery.
- 02
You sell photos as e-commerce inventory.
SmugMug's storefront, bulk-pricing, print-fulfillment, and sales-tax handling are years of work we haven't done. If your business model is "photographer as e-commerce store," SmugMug's sell-side tooling is genuinely better.
- 03
You want unlimited storage at any cost.
SmugMug's unlimited-storage tier is real. We bill on stored bytes and we'd rather be honest than lie about "unlimited." If you're hoarding 5 TB of RAW masters as your pricing model, we're not the cheaper option.
- 04
You depend on SmugMug-specific APIs or plugins.
There's a 20-year ecosystem of LR plugins, Mac apps, mobile widgets that hit SmugMug's API. We have a clean modern API but no third-party integrations. Honest answer: if your workflow depends on a specific plugin, check the integration list before you switch.
Side by side
Encore vs SmugMug.
Live gallery during the shoot (Pit Pass)
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
Tamper-evident audit log (SHA-256)
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
Permanent Roll IDs across galleries
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
Modern image variants (AVIF / WebP / HEIC)
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
Partial
Egress fees on download
Encore
Zero
SmugMug
Yes
Edge-rendered, fast first paint
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
Slower
Auto-generated 9:16 highlight reel
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
1-Year-Ago anniversary email
Encore
Auto
SmugMug
No
Custom domain + custom email-from
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
Yes
Per-tenant vocabulary
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
Soft caps + grace period
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
Hard cap
One-click migration in
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
Built by a working photographer
Encore
Yes
SmugMug
No
| Feature | Encore | SmugMug |
|---|---|---|
| Live gallery during the shoot (Pit Pass) | Yes | No |
| Tamper-evident audit log (SHA-256) | Yes | No |
| Permanent Roll IDs across galleries | Yes | No |
| Modern image variants (AVIF / WebP / HEIC) | Yes | Partial |
| Egress fees on download | Zero | Yes |
| Edge-rendered, fast first paint | Yes | Slower |
| Auto-generated 9:16 highlight reel | Yes | No |
| 1-Year-Ago anniversary email | Auto | No |
| Custom domain + custom email-from | Yes | Yes |
| Per-tenant vocabulary | Yes | No |
| Soft caps + grace period | Yes | Hard cap |
| One-click migration in | Yes | No |
| Built by a working photographer | Yes | No |
"No" means the platform doesn't ship it. We'll happily update if SmugMug lands one.
Migration
On SmugMug? Export a gallery to zip, drop it on /import. We re-run every frame through the variant pipeline.
Export a gallery from SmugMug as a zip. Drop it on the Import page. We unzip, run every frame through the variant pipeline, and assign Roll IDs starting from your studio's next number. Brings entire shoots over in seconds.