Share your photos without being tracked with these Instagram alternatives

Let's start with the closest alternative to Instagram: PixelFed is a decentralized and federated image sharing software under development. Its user interface is very close to Instagram's, but there is no mobile application available for it yet. In addition to taking over the functionalities of Instagram, the main "selling points" of PixelFed include:

• Decentralized: Each instance can track one or more other PixelFed instances to allow their respective members to interact. A first public body pixelfed.social limited to 10,000 members has already been created.
• Federated: Via the ActivityPub protocol, PixelFed can interact with other software that are part of the Fediverse, such as Mastodon or PeerTube for example.

VSCO is a photography app for iOS and Android that allows you to capture photos in the app and edit them using preset filters and editing tools. But that's not all. Like Instagram, VSCO is built around the idea of community and lets you post your photos with captions and hashtags, search other users' photos and journals (sets of photos), discover photos suggested by Ava (VSCO's AI software), and send messages to other photographers. VSCO supports JPEG and, notably, RAW images so you can use the full potential of your smartphone's camera.

Ello caused a sensation when it was launched in 2014. Devoid of any advertising, the platform also said it wanted to focus on privacy in response to Facebook's abuses. Today it is dedicated to the artistic spheres and has become an extremely effective curation tool for art lovers. Ello also offers companies and individual creators the opportunity to sell their work directly on the platform and there are also some interviews with artists and photographers.

Flickr is a photo and video online storage and sharing service provided by Yahoo. The service offers a free storage space of 1000GB, more than enough to save your personal photo library. Photos are automatically downloaded from mobile or computer applications. Like Google Photos, Flickr has an intelligent search tool based on image recognition which allows you to quickly find pictures of beaches, animals, or specific places. Finally, Flickr has features for sharing photos either publicly or with friends.

Used by professionals and photography enthusiasts, the 500px platform has established itself as a true competitor to Flickr. Its functionalities are relatively standard and allow users to follow creators, organize their own gallery, and discover other photographers according to their current aspirations. When you register, the feed of your main page is empty. You will need to like the content you enjoy to personalize it and create your universe.

EyeEm is a mobile photo sharing application available on iOS and Android which allows users to take pictures and edit them with filters and frames before sharing them on the EyeEm application and website or on other social networks. The service offers many great features like an ingenious tag system, contests to stimulate the community, the ability to zoom into pictures, and much more. EyeEm's business model is not based on advertising but on "missions", i.e. events sponsored by brands that pay for users to photograph their events, as well as a partnership with Getty Images.