On the downside, the private account feature only works if everyone has an account, which means your whole band of friends and family have to sign up if you wish to keep your photos private. (Yes, we know it’s owned by Facebook, but for now, it’s a separate service-and one much more focused on photos.) The service is completely free, easy to install and setup on your mobile device, and while Instagram may have made a name for itself in terms of hashtags and public photos, it’s very easy to set your account to private (which you should do right from the start!) and use it only to share with friends-effectively creating a tiny photo-centered social network just for the people you care about.
If you’re looking for an easy to use alternative to Facebook in terms of simple photo sharing with a social media feel, Instagram is a logical alternative. With that in mind, we’ve placed special emphasis on ease of use for each of our recommendations with a primary focus on photo-centered services, including key details that are particularly important when sharing with friends and family like: whether or not the viewer needs an account to use the service, how easy it is to organize your photos, how photos are uploaded (and if they are stored at full resolution and quality), and so on.
