Photo sharing apps are huge right now. Ever since Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for 1 billion dollars back in 2012, photo sharing and collaboration has been at the top of developer’s hit lists. Obviously, Instagram is the most popular, and you are probably already on it. But if you are looking for something new, or for something that has more of a focus and theme, check out a couple of the options listed below.
1. WeHeartIt: Similar to social sharing app, Pinterest, WeHeartIt lets you “heart” and favorite images from other users. Search a vast array of images by using keywords; then favorite images that inspire, and follow those who continually post things that you find appealing. WeHeartIt is less about “look at me,” and more about “look at what inspires me.”
2. Swipe: An up-and-comer in the photo sharing market (it’s actually still in beta at the time of this writing), Swipe is an app that treats photo sharing in an entirely new way. You add friends either by username or based on phone numbers in your contacts, and that’s it. Based on the simple UI of Tinder, users simply swipe right if they enjoy the photo or swipe left if they do not. You can also swipe up if you want to comment on a photo. Unlike other apps though, Swipe does not tell you which user’s picture you are viewing, giving this app a very unique twist.
3. Cirqle: A relatively new contender to the photo sharing ecosphere, Cirqle allows you to create “cirqles” and then share photos and videos with your friends, family, and the world. Users can allow others to be collaborators in their cirqles which allows them to add content in the cirqle, as well. These cirqles allow for a unique experience when multiple collaborators come together. Create a cirqle for “hiking,” add some collaborators, and watch as your cirqle grows with unique content from hikers around the world. As an added bonus, Cirqle makes it very easy to embed feeds into your blog or website.
With Cirqle 2.0 releasing soon, Cirqle plans to differentiate themselves from the crowd by offering an offline mode that uses Bluetooth to share content with others in your area. While this feature is nice, the main attraction is that it allows you to share your photos with other collaborators in poor signal areas and as soon as someone gets a connection it will push all offline posts to your followers.
4. Snapchat: You can’t have a photo sharing list without including SnapChat. The self-destructing photo app continues to make waves throughout the young adult and tech fields. The basic gist of Snapchat is this: Take a picture, set a timer on the picture, send the picture. The recipient will receive the picture and upon opening will only have a limited amount of time (the amount YOU set) to look at the picture. After the timer is up, the picture goes away and is deleted forever.
While it is unlike the rest on the list, Snapchat is continuing to grow into more of a social app as new features are added allowing for things like My Story, which publishes your photos (or videos) for all of your friends to see for a 24 hour period.
5. Flickr: A staple for online photo sharing now has a mobile app. You can share and connect with the entire Flickr community. Follow other users and see their uploaded pictures in your feed. Unlike Instagram, Flickr allows you to upload and share albums in addition to single photos. As an extra bonus, Flickr doubles as a photo storage product and gives you 1000GB of storage for photos and videos.
The photo sharing market continues to dominate with apps like Instagram and Pinterest, but if you are looking for an alternative, these five are a good place to start.
*Photos courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net 
