Phanfare Reviews

(based on 16 reviews)

131 of 265 people found this review helpful

Good points:
- Easy to sign up
- Can have a lot of folders
- Lot of preset themes
- Can load a folder and then decide to keep it private and undisplayed

Bad points:
- Uploading not great, if you try to upload a lot of photos it tends to time out partway through, and doesn't have a good way to figure out which ones need to be reset for uploading except by checking photo by photo to see which ones got successfully uploaded.
- Uploading fairly slow compared to other photo site uploaders on the same connection.
- On the site you see as a user, it will automatically have a top folder level that is based on which year you UPLOADED the photos. So if I upload sets of photos today with file dates of 2010, 2016 and 2015, it doesn't matter what I label those folders, they'll all show up in the 2016 folder in my user view.
- You have to use either Flash or Java to upload photos. Both have regular security problems and having to install one of those just to upload photos to Phanfare is ridiculous.
- Lots of preset themes, but at same time not a lot of... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

172 of 323 people found this review helpful

Phanfare is still the place I archive my photos, but since the founder sold out to a company named Carbonite, there is no longer customer service or upgrades and some features, such as the ability to upload music for the slideshows don't seem to work any more. There hasn't been an update since the end of last year (2013). While I would have highly recommended it while it was still owned by its founder, I wouldn't anymore, at least not until someone in the company gets serious about looking after it.
As for prints and gifts, I've never used those, so I can't really give an accurate review one way or another.

The pro version was $99 per year, and I believe that was unlimited, but not for RAW. You could also upload video, but it takes forever, as it has to convert to a different format, I believe.

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

202 of 412 people found this review helpful

With Kodak closing, needed replacement to upload/share family pictures. Shutterfly was not appealing as it will not allow users to customize subject lines and messages when sharing albums (cells greyed out with rather juvenile content already there). So, we are trying Phanfare. I decided to write this review after finding out that, to be able to upload a list of contacts rather than entering each one manually, you must purchase a higher priced version - not the newer $29 basic version. This is fine if your list of contacts is short and once you enter the info, it is stored. The real issue for me is the lack of disclosure. To learn of this limitation, I had to contact customer support - they were very responsive - because there is no clarification within the help section of the account. The product itself seems to work well. Just be prepared to spend more or do some typing/pasting up front to get your contact list in place. If I were rating this product on usability, I would undoubtedly give it several more stars.

One more thing that is not made clear and could be a waste of time if you try the 14-day... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would recommend Phanfare to a friend.