Zenfolio vs Network Solutions: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Zenfolio and Network Solutions both offer unique features tailored to different user needs, but they cater to distinct audiences.

• 
  Zenfolio (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)
  
  is a specialized platform designed for photographers and visual artists. It excels in providing elegant, customizable templates and integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints and digital downloads. Zenfolio’s focus on security, with features like SSL encryption and password-protected galleries, makes it a reliable choice for professionals looking to showcase and protect their work. However, its design flexibility and learning resources are somewhat limited, which might be a drawback for users seeking more versatility.
• 
  Network Solutions (Overall Grade: 5.4/10)
  
  is a comprehensive website builder and hosting service aimed at small businesses and individuals. It offers a wide variety of templates and tools for creating professional websites without coding knowledge. Network Solutions stands out for its ease of use, extensive learning resources, and robust customer support. However, it faces criticism for outdated features and confusing pricing structures. While it provides essential ecommerce capabilities, it may not match the specialized needs of photographers as effectively as Zenfolio.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Zenfolio and Network Solutions both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different audiences. Zenfolio is tailored for photographers and visual artists, while Network Solutions is more suited for small to medium-sized businesses.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Zenfolio is designed specifically for photographers and visual artists, offering integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints, digital downloads, and other products. It provides customizable website templates with essential online selling tools such as secure payment options, product management, and marketing integrations. However, when comparing Zenfolio vs Network Solutions, Zenfolio’s ecommerce features are more niche and may not cater to a broader business audience.
  
  Score: 6.3
  
• 
  Network Solutions
  
  : Network Solutions offers a variety of ecommerce templates designed to cater to businesses of different sizes and industries. The platform provides essential ecommerce features, including a built-in shopping cart and support for a wide range of payment options. It is known for its customer support and comprehensive services, making it a suitable choice for small to medium-sized businesses.
  
  Score: 6.3
  

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When comparing Zenfolio vs Network Solutions, Network Solutions emerges as the better option for informational and business websites due to its broader range of templates, ease of use, and comprehensive hosting options.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Zenfolio is tailored 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 general business functionalities are somewhat limited, making it less ideal for broader informational website needs. Zenfolio scores 6.9 in this category.
• 
  Network Solutions
  
  : Network Solutions provides a versatile website builder and hosting platform suitable for small businesses and individuals. It offers a wide variety of templates, customization options, and comprehensive hosting services, making it a robust choice for creating professional-looking informational and business websites. Network Solutions scores 7.4 in this category.

Detailed comparison

🏆

Winner: Network Solutions.

Network Solutions offers a wider variety of templates and designs, more customization flexibility, and advanced creative design possibilities compared to Zenfolio.

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, Network Solutions offers a wide variety of templates and designs tailored to meet the diverse needs of its users. Whether you’re setting up a website for a small business, a personal blog, or a large e-commerce platform, you’ll find an extensive selection of options to choose from. With hundreds of professionally designed templates, users can easily find a style that perfectly matches their vision and brand identity. Moreover, these templates are customizable, allowing for a high degree of personalization in terms of layout, color schemes, and functionality, ensuring that each website can be unique and fully optimized for its intended purpose. However, Network Solutions does not provide a link to the themes page or screenshots of the template page and template example.

🏆 Winner: Network Solutions

. With a score of 6.8, Network Solutions edges out Zenfolio, which scored 6.3. Network Solutions is designed with simplicity in mind, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise. Zenfolio, while offering a comprehensive suite of tools for photographers, has limitations in design flexibility and might be overwhelming for those new to web design.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Network Solutions

. Network Solutions offers a variety of high-quality learning resources, including tutorials, FAQs, and customer support. Zenfolio, on the other hand, has somewhat limited resources and users have expressed a desire for more comprehensive learning materials.

Zenfolio and Network Solutions both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different audiences. Zenfolio is designed specifically for photographers and visual artists, offering integrated ecommerce capabilities for selling prints, digital downloads, and other products. Network Solutions, on the other hand, provides ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses.

Zenfolio ecommerce features:

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

Network Solutions ecommerce features:

• Marketing Tools
• Personalized Email
• Product Listings

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.

Network Solutions offers a variety of ecommerce templates designed to cater to businesses of different sizes and industries. Their templates are crafted to be responsive, ensuring a seamless shopping experience across various devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

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.

Network Solutions offers a range of ecommerce product page customization options to enhance the online shopping experience. Users can personalize product descriptions, images, and videos to showcase their items effectively. Additionally, the platform allows for the customization of product options such as size, color, and material, enabling a more interactive and tailored shopping experience for customers.

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.

Network Solutions’ website builder is designed for online stores, small businesses, and personal websites, offering essential e-commerce features including a built-in shopping cart and support for a wide range of payment options such as PayPal, PayFlow, USA ePay, CyberSource, PlugNPay, making it convenient for businesses to process transactions. Network Solutions does not mention that they charge commissions on transactions, commissions are charged by the gateways themselves.

🏆

Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio, with a score of 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.

Network Solutions’ editor, scoring 6.3, offers a comprehensive suite of tools for website creation and management, catering to businesses and individuals alike. It provides an intuitive website editor that allows users to design, edit, and publish their websites without needing advanced technical skills. With a wide array of templates and customization options, users can create professional-looking websites that are responsive and optimized for search engines. Additionally, Network Solutions offers domain registration, web hosting, and security services to support and protect online presences.

Mobile editor/app

🏆

Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio provides a mobile editor 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, Network Solutions does not have a dedicated mobile editor app, making Zenfolio the clear winner in this category.

Overall Result

:

Zenfolio Wins

. Zenfolio scores 8.4 in product testing options, significantly higher than Network Solutions’ 0.5. Zenfolio offers a 14-day free trial during which users can test all premium features. Network Solutions, on the other hand, does not offer a free trial and users can only access features after purchasing a plan. Both platforms offer a 30-day money back guarantee, but Network Solutions’ refund process may be difficult in some cases.

Zenfolio offers better value for money with a higher price score and discounts for annual billing, while Network Solutions does not offer any discounts.

Winner: Network Solutions

. Network Solutions offers a variety of hosting options including shared, VPS, and WordPress hosting, with features like unlimited data transfer and scalable cloud-based environments. Their hosting plans come with significant storage options and free on-demand cloud backups. However, they face criticism for outdated features, confusing pricing structures. On the other hand, Zenfolio offers cloud hosting with storage ranging from 15GB to unlimited, with the possibility to manually backup website content. However, Zenfolio does not disclose any information about its uptime statistics or the locations of its data centers.

🏆 Winner: Network Solutions

Both Zenfolio and Network Solutions prioritize website performance and page speed, but Network Solutions has a more comprehensive approach to speed optimization and a focus on Core Web Vital improvements, giving it the edge in this category.

Network Solutions uses a variety of strategies for speed optimization, including CDN, web caching, image optimization, and SEO optimization. It also focuses on improving Core Web Vitals, specifically LCP, FID, and CLS. However, the load times and PageSpeed scores can vary widely depending on the optimization, hosting type, and website complexity.

Zenfolio, on the other hand, focuses on mobile responsive design for speed optimization. However, it does not provide any information on their Core Web Vitals improvements. The load times and PageSpeed scores can also vary depending on optimization and website complexity.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio.

Zenfolio scores 6.5, offering a focused set of plugins and integrations specifically designed for photographers. These features enhance the functionality of Zenfolio websites by facilitating content integration from external sources, streamlining photo management workflows, and allowing for customized user interactions. Network Solutions, with a score of 4.8, offers a variety of plugins/extensions to enhance the functionality of websites built through their platform. However, Zenfolio’s specialized offerings for photographers give it the edge in this category.

🏆

Overall Winner: Network Solutions

. Network Solutions has a higher score in marketing features, indicating a more comprehensive set of tools for SEO, email marketing, blogging, social media integration, analytics and reporting, and ads and promotions. Zenfolio, while offering similar features, has a lower score, suggesting that its marketing tools may not be as robust or comprehensive.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio

. Comparing Zenfolio vs Network Solutions, Zenfolio edges out with a slightly higher customer support score of 6.7. Zenfolio offers comprehensive customer support through email 365 days a year, LiveChat from Monday to Thursday, and phone support for Advanced plan subscribers. Additionally, Zenfolio provides a rich Support Center with self-help resources, including articles and video tutorials, ensuring users have access to the information they need.

Network Solutions, while providing 24/7 live chat support, falls just short with a customer support score of 6.6. Despite the round-the-clock availability, the lack of additional support channels and resources compared to Zenfolio makes it less versatile in addressing user needs. However, Network Solutions is still known for its reliable customer support and a wide range of services that cater to small businesses and individuals.

🏆

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.

Network Solutions also takes security seriously, with features such as SSL certificates for secure connections, malware scanning and removal, and possibly DDoS protection. However, Zenfolio’s specialized security features for its target audience give it the edge in this comparison.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio, with a score of 2.4, offers AI-driven eCommerce features aimed at enhancing the online selling experience for photographers. One of the key AI tools mentioned is PhotoRefine.ai, which streamlines the process of sorting, grouping, and selecting photos. This tool utilizes artificial intelligence to assist photographers in quickly and efficiently managing their photo collections, making it easier to prepare and sell their work online.

Network Solutions, with a score of 1.1, does not have an AI website builder or AI powered ecommerce features, but it does provide an AI copywriting tool on higher plans. However, it lacks any other AI features, making Zenfolio the winner in this category.

🏆 Winner: Network Solutions

. Both Zenfolio and Network Solutions have limited user management capabilities.

• Zenfolio allows only one user to edit and manage a website.
• Network Solutions’ website builder offers very limited multi-user functionality and access levels compared to other platforms.

Given the limited user management capabilities of both platforms, Network Solutions slightly outperforms Zenfolio with a user management score of 3.2 against Zenfolio’s 2.8.

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.

User reviews of Network Solutions are mixed, with some praising its prompt customer support and variety of domain management options. However, there are widespread complaints about the platform’s outdated business practices, high costs, and poor customer service. Users often find the website’s layout confusing and report instances of misleading promises regarding refunds. Overall, while Network Solutions has some positive attributes, its drawbacks suggest that users may want to consider alternatives.

FAQ