Compare Zenphoto Hosting

Zenphoto is a standalone, open source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and designed to display images and media. Zenphoto focuses on providing a professional and good looking website for the display of visual content and other forms of media while still providing the usual text-based content features.

Zenphoto requires Apache / Nginx, PHP 5.2 or later, MySQL 5.x or later, at least 25 MB for installation (consider that you will also need plenty of space for storing images and other media you wish to host). The following PHP extensions are also required: GD graphics library or Imagick, gettext and mbstring. Also, Zenphoto needs the following PHP settings: safe mode off, magic_quotes off, register_globals off.

Not really, since Zenphoto uses the JavaScript framework jQuery as the standard library. The recommended browsers are Internet Explorer 7 or newer, Safari 5.1 or newer, Google Chrome (any current version will do) and Opera 12.1/Opera 19 or newer. Of course, using the latest browser version is recommended.

Zenphoto supports the following image formats: .jpg, .gif, .png, and generally all image formats that your server’s graphics library can handle. Supported video formats are: .mp4, .m4a, .flv, .mov, .3gp, .ogv, .webm. As for audio files, .mp3, .m4a, .fla, .webma, .oga are also supported. Audio and video files are either handled by your browser, or by official plugins and jPlayer. Basic support is also provided for displaying .txt, .html, .pdf and .pps files.

Zenphoto is designed for gallery focused websites, while still providing integrated news or blog sections, comments and custom pages. With its support for images, video, and audio, Zenphoto is best suited for designers, artists, photographers, filmmakers and musicians – basically all media-focused websites.

Zenphoto content storage is file system based, so you can upload files and folders via FTP or through the administration panel. Keep in mind that all content is stored on the server file system, so you will need lots of space for media, and you should backup your media regularly. Zenphoto can handle multifile uploads and scheduled publishing. You can upload .zip archives and Zenphoto will unpack the contents to the media directories.

Zenphoto also supports full-featured searches (titles, meta-data, tags), RSS updates, automatic watermarking of photos, image sorting, slideshows, automatically generated sized images, a highly customizable theme and plugin system, user management and user permission control.

Zenphoto is free to use. Zenphoto content management system was published under the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.

Zenphoto was originally developed in English, however, there are language packs (translations) available in ten languages. Translations are handled by community members, so if your language is not listed, you can consider volunteering to produce a translation. Translation tutorials are available online. Zenphoto can run multilingual sites, so you can provide your content in different languages.

Installing and using Zenphoto should be straightforward and free. Since there are no exotic hardware or software requirements, it shouldn’t cost you anything and will not add to your hosting bill. Do keep in mind that running websites with lots of media content will require lots of storage space from your hosting company.

Automated one-click installation of Zenphoto is available on some hosting packages. SimpleScripts version 3 can also execute the installation of Zenphoto. You can also manually install Zenphoto, there are detailed tutorials available online. Be sure to check for issues like specific PHP settings or version differences.

There are a few issues to consider when running Zenphoto on a shared server. If your server has Imagick enabled, you should also activate it in Zenphoto (Settings -> Image), as it uses only a small amount of memory compared to GD graphics library. This can especially influence the speed of the gallery on shared servers. Also, you should not use large image sizes – a 20 MB sized image is usually not necessary. Furthermore, Zenphoto has some plugins to optimize performance: Cache Manager, Static HTML Cache and Preload Image are recommended.

Yes, there are a few things to worry about. Before you decide to create a Zenphoto site with lots of images, audio, or video content, you need to carefully read your host’s terms of service (TOS) and service level agreement (SLA). Most “unlimited” plans are not really unlimited and your account could be disabled without warning if you proceed to upload a big image library or a few gigabytes of video on your shared server.

Zenphoto is still actively developed, so you can expect new updates and bug fixes. You can get free support from the community, and commercial support is also available through a few official team members. You have to contact and negotiate directly with these developers and eventually hire their services.

Zenphoto is a standalone CMS, so this is not an easy task. You can find tutorials on integrating Zenphoto with WordPress online. You can also use Zenphoto as a plugin and simply use Zenphoto features and content in your main web pages. It all depends on your skills and needs.