SmugMug vs Blocs: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Between SmugMug and Blocs, each platform has its unique strengths tailored to different user needs.

SmugMug (Overall Grade: 6.3/10)

excels as a specialized platform for photographers and creatives, offering robust photo protection features, e-commerce capabilities tailored for selling prints and digital downloads, and a user-friendly interface for showcasing high-quality images. Its focus on photography and visual content, combined with reliable customer support and security measures, makes it an ideal choice for professionals in the visual arts seeking to manage and sell their work online.
Blocs (Overall Grade: 5.8/10)

stands out for Mac users seeking a powerful and intuitive website builder. With its user-friendly visual interface, pre-designed blocks, and a wide range of features including responsive design and integration with popular web standards, Blocs is geared towards designers, developers, and anyone looking to create professional websites with minimal effort. Its one-time payment model also offers a cost-effective solution for long-term use.

	Overall grade: 6.3	Overall grade: 5.8
Design functionalities & templates	7.1	7.5
Ease of use	7.8	8.7
Ecommerce	7.3	7.0
Website Editors	7.3	7.5
Product testing options	7.4	7.0
Price	7.8	9.0
Hosting quality	5.0	0
Website speed optimization	5.5	5.2
Plugins and integrations	6.2	6.8
Marketing features	3.8	6.9
Customer support	7.9	5.1
Security	6.0	0.0
AI capabilities	0	5.4
User Management	7.2	1.4
Overall	6.3	5.8

Best for ecommerce

7.3

7.0

Verdict

: SmugMug and Blocs are closely matched in ecommerce capabilities, but their focus differs. SmugMug is tailored for photographers and creatives selling online, while Blocs offers more general ecommerce solutions through integrations.

SmugMug

: Best for photographers and creatives looking to sell their work, SmugMug provides specialized ecommerce features like digital downloads and robust photo protection. It’s designed to cater to the unique needs of visual artists.
Blocs

: Ideal for Mac users seeking a versatile website builder, Blocs excels with its integration options for ecommerce, such as Stripe and Ecwid. It’s a strong choice for those who prioritize design flexibility and integration with existing ecommerce platforms.

Best for informational & business websites

7.5

Verdict

: With identical scores for informational business websites, both SmugMug and Blocs offer unique advantages. Your choice should align with your specific needs—whether that’s a focus on visual content or a preference for design flexibility on a Mac.

SmugMug

: Tailored for photographers and creatives, SmugMug shines when it comes to showcasing high-quality images and offering robust photo protection features. It’s ideal for informational sites that are visually driven, providing customizable templates optimized for displaying images and integrated e-commerce capabilities for selling prints and downloads.
Blocs

: Blocs stands out for Mac users seeking a powerful yet user-friendly website builder. It excels in creating modern, responsive websites with a block-based interface that requires no coding. Blocs is well-suited for designers, developers, and anyone looking to craft professional websites with minimal effort, offering a wide range of features and pre-made templates.

Detailed comparison

7.1

7.5

🏆

Winner: Blocs.

If you’re a Mac user looking for a platform that offers a wide range of design features and templates, Blocs is the preferred choice.

SmugMug offers a variety of templates and designs, catering to the diverse needs of photographers and visual artists. Users can choose from an extensive collection of customizable templates, ensuring their website or portfolio reflects their unique style and brand.

SmugMug Themes

Compared to SmugMug, Blocs website builder offers a vast selection of design templates, boasting over 36 layouts for various website types, including business, e-commerce, personal portfolios, and photography, catering to a wide range of user needs.

Blocs Themes

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7.8

8.7

🏆 Winner: Blocs

. With a score of 8.7, Blocs is highly regarded for its user-friendliness and versatility, particularly among Mac users. It offers a robust platform for both novices and professional coders. SmugMug, scoring 7.8, offers a user-friendly interface that caters to both beginners and professionals, but its focus on photography and visual content means it may not be as versatile for other types of websites.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Blocs

. Blocs offers a comprehensive suite of learning resources for web design, catering to both beginners and advanced users. SmugMug provides a variety of learning materials and features, including beginner’s guides and a wide array of tutorials on YouTube created by content creators, but Blocs’ resources are more extensive and continually updated.

Learn SmugMug

Learn Blocs

7.3

7.0

When it comes to ecommerce, both SmugMug and Blocs offer capabilities that cater to different needs. SmugMug is designed for photographers and creatives who want to sell their work online, offering features like digital downloads, product pricing, tax handling, discounts and coupons, and multiple currencies support. On the other hand, Blocs is a website builder that supports ecommerce through integration with leading service providers, offering features like Stripe integration, Snipcart shopping cart integration, Gumroad integration, and Ecwid integration.


Ecommerce themes and templates	8.0	7.8
Product page customization	6.5	6.5
Payment processing and commissions	6.0	7.0
POS capabilities	0.0	0.0
Payment gateways	5.0	7.5
Product numbers	9.0	6.0
Additional ecommerce features	6.5	7.2

SmugMug ecommerce features:

Digital Downloads
Product Pricing
Tax handling
Discounts and Coupons
Multiple Currencies support

Blocs ecommerce features:

Stripe integration
Snipcart shopping cart integration
Gumroad integration
Ecwid integration

Ecommerce themes & templates

Almost all of the templates of SmugMug are designed with ecommerce in mind, providing built-in shopping cart functionality. Blocs, on the other hand, provides a range of ecommerce-specific templates, allowing users to quickly launch optimized online stores or business platforms. These premium templates are designed to be fast, visually appealing, and SEO-friendly, ensuring websites look great on all devices and load quickly.

Product page customization

SmugMug prioritizes photography, offering a platform tailored for photographers to showcase and sell their work, despite having more limited product page customization compared to dedicated e-commerce platforms. Blocs primarily offers ecommerce features through third-party ecommerce platforms such as Ecwid, so the product page customization possibilities vary depending on which platform is integrated.

Payment processing

SmugMug has a unique approach to payment processing, payment processing for your sales is managed through your account settings, where you must complete a Tax & Payment form to set up your payment preferences. Your earnings are calculated as 85% of the markup on print prices or download sales, with SmugMug retaining 15% to cover various costs. Payments are made via ACH direct deposit for U.S. users or PayPal for international users. The Blocs website builder supports ecommerce through integrations with third-party ecommerce providers, suggesting flexibility in the use of various payment gateways without directly listing them. Blocs does not charge transaction fees or commissions, however such fees may be charged by the payment gateways or e-commerce platforms themselves. Additionally, Blocs does not offer POS capabilities.

7.3

7.5

🏆

Winner: Blocs

. Blocs, with a score of 7.5, is a user-friendly web design tool that enables the creation of modern, responsive websites without needing to code. It utilizes a block-based interface with drag-and-drop functionality, making web design accessible to designers and creatives without technical backgrounds. The app offers a variety of pre-designed blocks, integration options, and SEO tools to streamline the website creation process.

Blocsapp editor

SmugMug’s website builder editor, scoring 7.3, offers a user-friendly interface that allows for the creation of visually appealing, professional-grade photography websites without the need for coding knowledge. Users can customize their site by choosing from a variety of templates, adjusting layouts, and incorporating their own branding elements like logos and colors. The editor also supports easy uploading, organizing, and showcasing of high-quality images, with robust privacy and security settings to protect content.

Smugmug website editor

Mobile editor/app

7.5

8.5

🏆

Winner: Blocs

. Both SmugMug and Blocs offer mobile apps for managing your website, but they cater to different needs and skill levels. SmugMug’s mobile app is limited to adding new photos and editing descriptions, and it does not allow for layout changes on the website.

Blocs, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive mobile editing app specifically designed for the iPad. This app provides a touch-first interface and includes all the essential features needed to create various types of websites. Therefore, Blocs is the winner in this category due to its more robust mobile editing capabilities.

In summary, Blocs receives a higher rating due to its more robust mobile editing capabilities, while SmugMug’s mobile app is limited to adding new photos and editing descriptions, and it does not allow for layout changes on the website.

7.4

7.0

Overall Result

:

SmugMug wins

. SmugMug scores 7.4, slightly higher than Blocs’ 7.0. SmugMug offers a 14-day free trial during which all features can be tested. Blocs, on the other hand, also provides a trial version, but only some features can be tested. Additionally, Blocs offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.


Free Plan	No	No
Trial Duration	14 days	Yes
Testing Premium Features	During the free trial	Limited, within 14 day refundable period
Money Back Guarantee	No	14-day money back guarantee

7.8

9.0

Blocs offers a one-time payment plan, making it a cost-effective choice for long-term use, while SmugMug offers a range of plans with varying features and prices, making it a flexible choice for different needs.

	Offerings	Offerings
$10-$20	Power ($15.00/month): Best for the photographer who wants their entire photo catalog safe and shareable on their own terms. Unlimited storage, Seamless Lightroom integration. Value for price: 6.5	No offering at this amount.
$30-$40	Portfolio ($31.00/month): Best for the photographer who wants to start selling photos and keep their archive organized perfectly. All Power plan’s features, plus 21 premade templates, prints and digital downloads sales, Custom Watermarks, Payment integration for credit cards and PayPal, Integrated cart and checkout experience, Sales statistics. Value for price: 8.0	No offering at this amount.
$40-$50	Pro ($45.00/month): Adds to Portfolio with custom price lists and coupons, Platform access for assistant or second shooter, Full control over client downloads, Branded packaging and thank you notes for print sales, coupon creator. Value for price: 8.5	Blocs Plus (+$49.99): An add-on to the Blocs 5 plan, providing additional features such as the ability to build custom WordPress themes without writing code, extract typography, assets, and color schemes from any website, a productivity-boosting image editor, a class styles library manager, and an SEO helper. Value for price: 8.5
$90-$100	No offering at this amount.	Blocs 5 ($99.99): This plan offers a native Mac app with no subscription required. It allows building unlimited websites, works offline, includes animations & scroll FX, powerful interactions, no page limit, font manager, writer mode, auto backup, all V5 updates, and email support. A Blocs license can be used on one Mac and all future Blocs V5 updates come for free. Value for price: 8.0
$500+	Venture (Starts with $500/month): All Pro features, plus dedicated support contacts and account representative for all Smugmug needs, Design, workflow, and organization consultation and support.	No offering at this amount.

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

5.0

Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug offers hosting, although the details about their hosting features, type of hosting, uptime statistics, and data centers are not clear. Blocs, on the other hand, does not offer hosting at all. Therefore, SmugMug is the winner in this comparison by default.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes	No
Type of hosting:	Not specified	Not offered
Uptime:	Not specified	Not applicable
Uptime Guarantee:	Yes, 99.9%	Not applicable
Data Centers:	Not specified	Not applicable

5.5

5.2

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

Both SmugMug and Blocs prioritize website performance and page speed, but SmugMug has a slightly higher Website Speed Optimization score.


Key Strategies	Mobile Responsive design	WebP Generation
Load Times	Varies widely, depending on optimization and website complexity	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity
Page Speed Scores Range	Varies widely, depending on optimization and website complexity	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity
Core Web Vitals Improvement	No information available	No information available

SmugMug, a website builder designed for photographers and creatives, prioritizes mobile responsive design as a key strategy for speed optimization. However, both load times and PageSpeed scores can vary widely, depending on the optimization and complexity of the website. Unfortunately, SmugMug does not share any information on Core Web Vital improvements.

On the other hand, Blocs, a website builder designed specifically for Mac users, focuses on WebP Generation for speed optimization. Similar to SmugMug, Blocs’ load times and PageSpeed scores can vary depending on the optimization and complexity of the website. Blocs also does not disclose any information about its Core Web Vitals improvements.

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6.2

6.8

🏆 Winner: Blocs.

With a score of 6.8, Blocs edges out SmugMug (6.2) in the plugins and integrations category. Blocs offers a variety of custom-made add-ons and extensions that enhance web design capabilities, facilitate a richer web development experience, and unlock advanced functionalities beyond its core features. On the other hand, SmugMug supports integrations with several photo-hosting services, enhancing its functionality for photographers. However, Blocs’ broader range of extensions and integrations gives it the upper hand in this category.

Blocs Applications

Blocs extensions

3.8

6.9

🏆

Overall Winner: Blocs

. Blocs offers more comprehensive marketing features, including SEO tools, email marketing, blogging, social media integration, and analytics and reporting. SmugMug, while offering some of these features, lacks in email marketing, blogging, and ads and promotions.


SEO Tools	Basic SEO tools	Comprehensive SEO helper
Email Marketing		✓ (via Mailchimp integration)
Blogging
Social Media Integration
Analytics and Reporting	Google Analytics integration	Google Analytics integration
Ads and Promotions

7.9

5.1

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug takes the lead in this category with a customer support score of 7.9, compared to Blocs’ score of 5.1. SmugMug provides customer support mainly through email and chat, available 364 days a year, with rapid response times. Users can contact support by submitting a form via the “Contact Us” button on any page of their help center. Additionally, chat support offers an immediate response option through their help portal. While these support options are widely accessible, phone support is available exclusively for users with a higher-tier business subscription.

On the other hand, Blocs website builder offers customer support, but it heavily leans towards self-service, relying predominantly on articles and a community forum for user assistance. This setup may leave some users feeling unsupported, particularly when they encounter complex issues that require direct, personalized support. Blocs website builder does not offer an enterprise level support.

6.0

0.0

🏆

Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug takes privacy and security seriously, ensuring private data storage and protection through various measures. They implement strict privacy settings and controls that allow users to manage who can access their content. Additionally, they employ data protection practices to safeguard user information and content, ensuring compliance with data privacy laws and regulations.

On the other hand, Blocs does not disclose any information about their private data storage and protection measures. As Blocs is primarily an offline website builder and does not offer hosting, security measures vary widely depending on the hosting provider users choose. This lack of transparency and dependence on third-party hosting providers makes it difficult to assess the overall security of websites built with Blocs.

5.4


AI Builder
AI Ecommerce features
AI content generation		Blocs incorporates an innovative AI Assistant for content generation and editing
Additional AI features		The AI Assistant in Blocs introduces advanced AI capabilities to the design environment, enabling users to enhance their projects with intelligent features. It offers the flexibility to choose specific AI models for tasks, ensuring that users have control over the AI’s performance and output.

🏆 Winner: Blocs

. Blocs, with a score of 5.4, incorporates an AI Assistant that enhances the user experience by allowing for the generation and editing of content directly within a Blocs project. This assistant also supports dictation and voice commands, allowing for a more intuitive and hands-free interaction with the design tool.

Blocs AI assistant

SmugMug, unfortunately, does not have any AI capabilities.

7.2

1.4

🏆 Winner: SmugMug

. SmugMug and Blocs have different approaches to user management.

SmugMug allows the primary account holder full control over the account, with the ability to add additional users through “Shared Account Management” for Portfolio and Pro level accounts. These additional users can be given various roles with different permissions, enabling them to manage or edit the website without full access to billing or account settings. The number of users and the extent of their permissions depend on SmugMug’s current offerings.
Blocs, on the other hand, allows only one user to build and edit a website.

SmugMug User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Owner	The primary account holder who has full control over the site.	Complete access to all features, settings, content management, and billing.
Admin	Users granted almost the same level of access as the owner, minus some critical billing or account settings.	Manage content, order prints, access to stats, and settings except for account and billing changes.
Contributor	Users who can upload and manage content in specific galleries.	Upload content to assigned galleries, edit captions, and keywords. Limited access to settings.

Blocs does not provide information about user roles and access levels.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate
Custom Domain
Free Custom Domain Included
International Domains
Mobile Responsive
Page Speed
Website Builder Mobile App
Convert a Website To An App
Website Analytics
Multilingual Sites
Multiple Users

User Feedback

SmugMug

33 reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars

Blocs

15 reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars

Users appreciate SmugMug for its reliability, ease of use, and the platform’s ability to securely host and share high-resolution photographs and videos. Highlights include seamless mobile device syncing, excellent gallery features for showcasing assets, and robust customization options minus JavaScript support. However, some users desire improvements in facial recognition technology for automatic album creation, expanded asset management capabilities beyond primarily photos, and more advanced search functionalities. Concerns about rising costs and the platform’s intuitiveness were also mentioned. Overall, SmugMug is valued for its central storage solution, privacy features for client photos, and its ability to simplify file sharing and photo sales.

Blocs website builder is praised for its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, making it accessible to users with varying levels of web development expertise. Its extensive library of templates and customization options, including the ability to add custom CSS and JavaScript, facilitates the rapid creation of diverse and visually appealing websites. However, users report encountering bugs and express a desire for more sophisticated customization features, indicating room for improvement. Overall, Blocs is valued for significantly streamlining the web design process, supported by a strong community and educational resources, despite its learning curve and occasional technical glitches.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

Which platform is better for photographers, SmugMug or Blocs?

SmugMug is specifically designed for photographers and creatives, offering robust photo protection features, e-commerce capabilities tailored for selling prints and digital downloads, and customizable templates optimized for displaying high-quality images. Blocs, while powerful and user-friendly, is more generalist and caters to a broader audience, including designers and developers.

Can I use Blocs on a Windows PC?

Blocs is designed specifically for Mac users, offering a powerful and intuitive website builder experience on macOS. It does not have a Windows version, so Windows PC users would need to look for alternative website building platforms.

How do SmugMug and Blocs compare in terms of e-commerce capabilities?

Both platforms offer e-commerce capabilities, but their focus differs. SmugMug provides specialized e-commerce features for photographers and creatives, such as digital downloads and robust photo protection. Blocs offers more general e-commerce solutions through integrations with platforms like Stripe and Ecwid, making it versatile for various types of online stores.

Which platform offers better customer support, SmugMug or Blocs?

SmugMug is known for its excellent customer support, offering rapid response times through email and chat support 364 days a year. Blocs, while offering support, leans more towards self-service with a focus on articles and community forums for user assistance.

Are there any AI capabilities in SmugMug or Blocs?

Blocs incorporates an AI Assistant that enhances the user experience by allowing for content generation and editing within the platform, introducing advanced AI capabilities to the design environment. SmugMug does not have any AI capabilities.

Which platform is more cost-effective in the long run?

Blocs offers a one-time payment model, which can be more cost-effective for long-term use, especially for users who prefer a single upfront cost without ongoing subscription fees. SmugMug offers a range of subscription plans, which may provide more flexibility but could result in higher costs over time depending on the chosen plan.

Can I build a website with Blocs without coding knowledge?

Yes, Blocs is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to users with varying levels of web development expertise, including those without coding knowledge. Its intuitive visual interface and pre-designed blocks enable users to create professional websites with minimal effort.

Is SmugMug suitable for non-photographers?

While SmugMug is specifically tailored for photographers and visual artists, it can also be used by non-photographers who wish to create a visually driven website. However, its specialized features and tools are best utilized by those looking to showcase and sell high-quality images online.