Zenfolio vs Appy Pie: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Zenfolio and Appy Pie both offer unique advantages, catering to different user needs and preferences.

• 
  Zenfolio (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)
  
  is tailored specifically for photographers and visual artists, providing elegant, customizable templates and integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints and digital downloads. It excels in offering specialized tools for marketing, client proofing, and secure photo storage. However, its design flexibility and ease of use may not fully cater to users seeking extensive customization or those outside the photography niche.
• 
  Appy Pie (Overall Grade: 7.2/10)
  
  stands out for its simplicity and user-friendly interface, making it accessible for users without coding skills. It offers a wide array of customizable templates and features, including AI-driven design and content generation, making it ideal for individuals and businesses looking to establish an online presence quickly and efficiently. While it may not offer the same level of specialized features as Zenfolio, its versatility and ease of use make it a practical solution for a broader audience.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Zenfolio is tailored for photographers and visual artists, while Appy Pie offers a broader range of ecommerce features suitable for various small businesses.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Zenfolio is designed specifically for photographers and visual artists, offering integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints, digital downloads, and other products directly through their website. It includes features like multiple currency support, discount coupons, and order management. However, when comparing Zenfolio vs Appy Pie, Zenfolio’s ecommerce capabilities are more niche and may not cater to a broader audience.
• 
  Appy Pie
  
  : Appy Pie’s Website Builder is a no-code platform that provides ecommerce features for building and managing online stores. It offers extensive customization options, product and inventory management, and multiple payment gateways. Appy Pie is more versatile and suitable for a wider range of small businesses looking to establish an online presence quickly and efficiently.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: Appy Pie is the better choice for creating informational and business websites due to its ease of use, extensive learning resources, and robust customer support. Zenfolio, while excellent for photographers, may not offer the same level of versatility for general informational sites.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Zenfolio is tailored specifically for photographers and visual artists, offering elegant, mobile-friendly templates and integrated e-commerce capabilities. While it excels in showcasing and selling visual work, its design flexibility and ease of use may not fully cater to those seeking extensive customization for general informational websites. Zenfolio’s specialized features make it a strong contender for photography-focused sites but less so for broader business needs.
• 
  Appy Pie
  
  : Appy Pie stands out with its no-code development platform, making it highly accessible for users without technical skills. Its drag-and-drop interface, wide array of customizable templates, and focus on ease of use make it ideal for creating professional-looking informational and business websites quickly. Appy Pie’s extensive learning resources and 24/7 customer support further enhance its appeal, making it a practical solution for businesses looking to establish an online presence with minimal effort. When comparing Zenfolio vs Appy Pie, Appy Pie’s user-friendly approach and versatility make it the preferred choice for informational websites.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: It’s a tie.

Both Zenfolio and Appy Pie offer unique design functionalities and templates that cater to different user needs.

Zenfolio offers a variety of customizable templates and features specifically tailored for photographers, with a focus on showcasing and selling their work. While it provides several customization options, including blocks for different layouts and styles, it may not offer as much versatility outside of photography-specific needs.

Zenfolio Themes

On the other hand, Appy Pie offers a wide array of website templates with over 10,000 options, catering to various needs and budgets. Categorized across industries, these templates are mobile-friendly and customizable, allowing users to edit colors, fonts, layouts, and add features. The platform’s pre-designed themes, layouts, and user-friendly drag-and-drop builder enhance visual appeal and customization ease, making it accessible for users without coding knowledge.

Appy Pie Themes

🏆 Winner: Appy Pie

. Scoring 8.3, Appy Pie is acclaimed for its simplicity and intuitive design, making it highly accessible for users without coding skills. Zenfolio, with a score of 6.3, offers a specialized platform for photographers but has limitations in design flexibility and might not fully cater to those seeking extensive customization.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Appy Pie

. Both platforms offer learning resources, but Appy Pie provides a wider variety of materials including written guides, video tutorials, webinars, and a blog. Zenfolio’s resources are somewhat limited and users have expressed a desire for more comprehensive learning resources.

Zenfolio and Appy Pie both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different user needs. Zenfolio is designed for photographers and visual artists, offering integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints, digital downloads, and other products directly through their website. Appy Pie, on the other hand, is a no-code development platform that provides ecommerce features for building and managing online stores within your app.

Zenfolio ecommerce features:

• Multiple Currency Support
• Discount Coupons
• Order management
• Gift Certificates
• Tax management

Appy Pie ecommerce features:

• Product and Inventory Management
• Shopping Cart
• Multiple Currencies
• Promotions and Discounts
• Order Management
• Shipping Options
• Analytics
• Tax management

Ecommerce themes & templates

Zenfolio provides customizable website templates with integrated e-commerce features for photographers, designed to showcase and sell their work across various genres. These templates include essential online selling tools such as secure payment options, product management, and marketing integrations. Appy Pie offers a small selection of ecommerce website templates. These templates are designed to help users create online stores quickly and efficiently, without the need for coding skills. Appy Pie’s ecommerce templates feature mobile-first designs, customizable product galleries, and various other features aimed at enhancing the online shopping experience.

Product page customization

Zenfolio allows users to detail their product pages with descriptions, images, and options such as size or color. This allows for each product page to be adjusted to clearly display its unique attributes. Placing products in specific galleries or categories helps organize the site and improve navigation. Appy Pie’s Website Builder provides users with extensive customization options for product pages, enabling the creation of unique online stores or product showcases without requiring advanced coding skills. Users can personalize product details like descriptions, images, and pricing.

Payment processing

Zenfolio supports Stripe and PayPal for payment processing, integrating them seamlessly into its platform designed for photographers to sell their work online. The platform charges a commerce fee of 7% per order (excluding tax and shipping) and a payment processing fee for transactions through Stripe or PayPal. Appy Pie offers a user-friendly platform for integrating payment processing and POS capabilities into mobile apps and online stores, supporting multiple payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Square for secure and versatile customer transactions. While it facilitates easy payment integrations, commission management may require third-party solutions or custom setups.

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Winner: Appy Pie

. Appy Pie, with a score of 7.7, offers a user-friendly, cloud-based platform that allows individuals, professionals, and small businesses to create mobile-friendly websites without needing to code. It offers a drag-and-drop interface, customizable templates, and various features like social media integration, ecommerce capabilities, and SEO tools. This makes it an ideal solution for quickly creating a wide range of websites, from landing pages to online stores, tailored to users’ specific needs and brand identities.

Zenfolio’s editor, scoring 7.6, offers an intuitive, no-coding-required website builder tailored for photographers, featuring drag-and-drop customization, a wide array of templates, and a powerful Custom Layout block for personalized designs. Its integrated eCommerce capabilities enable selling both digital and physical photography products, supported by comprehensive security features for protecting photographers’ work. Additionally, Zenfolio provides tools for SEO, marketing, photo and video hosting, client booking, and management, backed by award-winning customer support.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Zenfolio

. Both Zenfolio and Appy Pie offer mobile editing capabilities, but Zenfolio provides a more comprehensive solution. Zenfolio has a dedicated mobile app that allows users to manage their websites and galleries directly from their mobile devices. It includes features for receiving notifications, managing galleries, handling sales-related tasks, and showcasing photos through a client presentation mode. Additionally, the app supports uploading and editing photos, as well as accessing various tools for reports, CRM, bookings, and blog management, although some features may still necessitate desktop use for full functionality.

On the other hand, Appy Pie’s website builder does not have a dedicated mobile app. However, it is possible to edit Appy Pie website using the mobile browser. Despite this, Zenfolio’s dedicated mobile app and its comprehensive features give it an edge over Appy Pie in terms of mobile editing capabilities.

In summary, Zenfolio receives a higher rating due to its dedicated mobile app and comprehensive features, while Appy Pie, despite its mobile browser editing capability, lacks a dedicated mobile app.

Overall Result

:

Appy Pie Wins

. Appy Pie scores 8.9 in product testing options, slightly higher than Zenfolio’s 8.4. While both platforms offer a free trial, Appy Pie provides a longer trial period of 30 days compared to Zenfolio’s 14 days. Additionally, Appy Pie allows testing of all premium features during the trial, whereas Zenfolio does not specify the extent of feature testing. However, Zenfolio offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, which Appy Pie does not.

Zenfolio offers a range of plans with varying features, while Appy Pie offers fewer but more comprehensive plans.

Zenfolio does not have an enterprise plan, while Appy Pie offers a custom enterprise plan for which users need to contact them directly for a quote.

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Winner: Appy Pie

Appy Pie edges out Zenfolio with a proprietary hosting service, a 99% uptime guarantee, and the robust infrastructure of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Zenfolio, while offering cloud hosting and storage options, lacks transparency about its uptime and data center locations, which could be a concern for some users.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio

Both Zenfolio and Appy Pie have similar scores when it comes to website speed optimization, but Zenfolio gets a slight edge due to its focus on mobile responsive design.

Zenfolio, a website builder designed specifically for professional photographers and visual artists, focuses on mobile responsive design as a strategy for speed optimization. However, Zenfolio does not provide specific information on load times, PageSpeed scores, or Core Web Vital improvements.

On the other hand, Appy Pie, a no-code development platform, does not directly implement specific speed optimization strategies. Instead, they offer various tools and features that can help users optimize their website’s speed. Like Zenfolio, Appy Pie does not provide specific information on load times, PageSpeed scores, or Core Web Vital improvements.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio.

Zenfolio, with a score of 6.5, edges out Appy Pie, which scored 6.4. Zenfolio offers a focused set of plugins and integrations specifically designed for photographers, enhancing the functionality of Zenfolio websites by facilitating content integration from external sources, streamlining photo management workflows, and allowing for customized user interactions through forms. On the other hand, Appy Pie provides a range of plugins and extensions for website enhancement, with the availability differing across plans. While both platforms offer a variety of plugins and extensions, Zenfolio’s specialized offerings for photographers give it a slight advantage.

Appy Pie Applications

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Overall Winner: Appy Pie

. Appy Pie stands out for its comprehensive SEO features, robust email marketing capabilities, and detailed analytics and reporting. Zenfolio, while offering a range of marketing features, falls short in terms of SEO and analytics.

🏆 Winner: Appy Pie

. In the comparison of Zenfolio vs Appy Pie, Appy Pie takes the lead with a higher customer support score of 8.2. Appy Pie offers 24/7 support through live chat, email, and phone, ensuring users can get assistance at any time. The platform also provides extensive documentation and tutorials to help users resolve issues independently.

Zenfolio, on the other hand, offers customer support through email 365 days a year, LiveChat from Monday to Thursday, and phone support for Advanced plan subscribers during specific hours. While Zenfolio has a rich Support Center with articles and video tutorials, its limited live support hours and phone support availability make it less accessible compared to Appy Pie’s round-the-clock support.

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Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio’s security measures are comprehensive, offering SSL encryption for all its websites, watermarking to protect users’ work, password-protected galleries for controlled access, and cloud backup for additional data protection. These features are particularly beneficial for photographers and visual artists who require a secure platform to display their work.

Appy Pie also prioritizes security with SSL encryption, regular security audits, secure hosting, two-factor authentication, and password protection for user accounts. However, Zenfolio’s specialized security features for visual content give it an edge in this comparison.

🏆 Winner: Appy Pie

. With a score of 7.2, Appy Pie’s AI capabilities are more comprehensive and versatile, offering a range of features from AI-driven website design to content generation and customer interaction automation. Zenfolio, with a score of 2.4, has limited AI capabilities, focusing mainly on enhancing the eCommerce experience for photographers.

🏆 Winner: Appy Pie

. The user management capabilities of Zenfolio and Appy Pie are quite different.

• Zenfolio allows only one user to edit and manage a website.
• The Appy Pie website builder offers different user access levels based on the plan chosen. For the Free Plan, one user has full editing privileges. Paid plans include the Starter Plan (3 users), Hobby Plan (5 users), Professional Plan (10 users), and Enterprise Plan (unlimited users). Each plan designates an Admin with full access and additional Editors with varying editing rights. Additionally, paid plans allow for customization of roles, enabling tasks such as content editing or design adjustments.

Additional Features

User Feedback

Users appreciate Zenfolio for its elegant and affordable site/portfolio designs, highlighting the platform’s suitability for photographers looking to showcase and sell their work online. The Starter plan is praised for its value, though some users express a desire to upgrade to the Pro plan for its enhanced client interaction features and customizable marketing tools. Criticisms include dissatisfaction with the platform’s handling of photo albums and a desire for more privacy and faster loading times. Overall, Zenfolio is valued for its ability to organize and share professional photographs and files, despite some navigational and performance issues.

Appy Pie garners positive feedback for its user-friendly interface and excellent customer support, offering low-code solutions for app and website building without requiring coding experience. Users appreciate its ease of use, extensive features, and ability to create apps and websites quickly. While some express a desire for more customization options and templates, overall, Appy Pie serves as a valuable tool for businesses and individuals seeking to create apps and websites efficiently, solving the problem of complex coding requirements and providing a platform for easy communication and engagement with users.

FAQ