Google Photos vs. Amazon Photos

When it comes to numbers and popularity, Google Photos is peerless, mostly owing to the fact that it comes as default for Android, but also because Google itself is one of the most popular brands in the world. However, alternatives do exist, and if you’re looking to switch from Google Photos for whatever reason, Amazon Photos is an excellent alternative. This is a showdown between the two.

Platforms

Picasa was an image organizer and viewer that’s been, unfortunately, discontinued. The Google Photos desktop app followed, making the world’s most popular photo viewer and organizer available on Android, iOS, and the web, but not on desktop.

Alternatively, Amazon Photos does come with a desktop app, which makes it a great choice for dedicated Picasa fans and users. Amazon’s photo app also offers an Android and iOS app, plus it is integrated into all Amazon Fire TV devices and Fire tablets. Seeing as how these devices are growing in popularity, having a photo viewing app on them is more than useful, and Google Photos is not available on Amazon devices.

Cost

In addition to the limited availability (USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Japan), Amazon Photos is a paid service. To make things even more complicated, Amazon Photos is a sub-feature of Amazon Drive, meaning that the only way to get access to this service is to subscribe to Amazon Prime or Amazon Drive. On the plus side, there are many Amazon Prime subscribers in the US, which comes with Amazon Photos among other benefits.

Google Photos, on the other hand, is free and available anywhere as long as there’s an internet connection. But Amazon Photos may make more sense Amazon Prime/Drive subscribers.

Features

Both Amazon Photos and Google Photos are packed with great features, but which one is a better choice? Let’s find out.

Storage Limits

Most Amazon Photos users are Amazon Prime subscribers so they can upload an unlimited number of full-res photos to the app. This may not sound that important, but Google Photos offers free storage for photos that have 16 megapixels or less. Everything larger counts against your storage limit.

For Amazon Drive subscribers and non-Amazon Prime members, photos uploaded to Amazon Photos count against storage limits. Google Photos lets you upload any number of video files as long as they are 1080p or less, which is pretty great. Amazon Photos offers 5GB of storage for videos and other non-image files that.

RAW Files

Google Photos automatically converts RAW files to JPEG if they exceed 16MP. Amazon Photos excels here, as it lets you upload RAW files of any size and regardless of your subscription. You will still have to pay for going over your subscription limit, of course, but it is always nice to be able to store high-res RAW images (such as for graphic designers and photographers).

Recognition

Google Photos is famous for having a fantastic recognition feature that lets you find similar faces, animals, objects, and such online. Amazon Photos’ recognition tool is equally powerful. It even has an option that allows you to arrange your photos by the environment (beach, city, sunset, etc.).

Prints vs. Photo Books

Both Amazon Photos and Google Photos allow you to turn your stored photos into hard copies. However, Amazon Prints is much more impressive than Google Photo Books. Google Photos offers two options: an 18cm x 18cm soft-cover book for $10 or a 23cm x 23cm hardcover for $20. There are additional costs for extra pages.

Amazon Prints offers more than 10 choices. The ability to print your photo on books, mouse mats, mugs, aluminum prints, calendars, and many other items makes Prints much more prolific than Photo Books.

Family Vault

Family Vault is a great feature in Amazon Photos. As you might guess, this option allows you to create a shared environment (photo archive) for up to 6 people, each with his or her own Amazon Photos account with unlimited storage. This can be a fantastic option for making family albums.

There’s a similar Google Photos feature that allows you to share your entire library but only with one person. Although the Family Groups feature allows you to add more family members to a shared environment, it also gives everybody shared access to apps and entertainment purchases, which you may or may not care for.

Photo Sharing

What would be the point of having a storage environment for your photos if you weren’t able to share them with other people? Both services in question offer this option with slight differences. With Amazon, you can share 25 images at a time through email, shared links, Twitter, or Facebook. Google Photos is the same but you’d type the recipient user’s phone number, name, or email address.

Editing

When it comes to photo editing, both of these two services offer similar options. Essentially, you can add filters and play around with basic editing options, such as rotation, cropping, and color adjustment. Both Google Photos and Amazon Photos allow you to change time and date stamps.

Final Verdict

Amazon Photos definitely offers a better set of features than Google Photos. Higher storage and customizability make Amazon Photos a better contender in almost every aspect. However, that’s probably to be expected since it isn’t free for all. The moral of the story is that Amazon Photos is an excellent option for any Amazon Prime and Amazon Drive subscribers.

Which photo viewing service do you use? Which do you prefer and why? Discuss!