Zenfolio vs Pixpa: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Zenfolio and Pixpa both offer specialized platforms for creatives, but they cater to slightly different needs.

• 
  Zenfolio (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)
  
  is tailored specifically for photographers and visual artists, offering elegant, mobile-friendly templates and integrated e-commerce capabilities for selling prints and digital downloads. It excels in providing tools for marketing, client proofing, and secure photo storage. However, its dashboard can be complex, and it has limitations in design flexibility. Zenfolio is ideal for photographers looking to showcase and sell their work online with a focus on professional presentation and client interaction.
• 
  Pixpa (Overall Grade: 6.7/10)
  
  stands out for its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, making it suitable for a broader range of creatives and small businesses. It offers a drag-and-drop interface, built-in online stores, blogs, and client galleries, along with comprehensive SEO, marketing, and analytics tools. Pixpa’s higher score in ease of use and design functionalities makes it a great choice for users who prioritize flexibility and ease of website management.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Zenfolio is ideal for photographers and visual artists, while Pixpa offers a more versatile ecommerce solution for small businesses and creatives.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Designed specifically for photographers, Zenfolio provides integrated ecommerce features for selling prints, digital downloads, and other products. It supports multiple currencies, discount coupons, and tax management, making it a solid choice for visual artists. However, in the Zenfolio vs Pixpa comparison, Zenfolio’s ecommerce capabilities are more niche and less versatile.
• 
  Pixpa
  
  : Pixpa stands out with its comprehensive ecommerce features, including SEO and marketing tools, secure payments, and extensive product customization options. It supports various payment gateways and does not charge commissions on sales, making it a more flexible and cost-effective solution for small businesses. In the Zenfolio vs Pixpa debate, Pixpa’s broader ecommerce functionalities give it an edge.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Pixpa takes the lead with its higher score and broader range of features tailored for diverse creative professionals. Zenfolio, while strong in photography-specific functionalities, may not offer the same level of versatility for general informational sites.

• 
  Zenfolio
  
  : Zenfolio is a robust platform designed primarily for photographers and visual artists. It offers elegant, mobile-friendly templates and integrated e-commerce capabilities, making it ideal for showcasing and selling visual work. However, its focus on photography-specific needs may limit its versatility for broader informational business websites. Zenfolio scores 6.9 in this category.
• 
  Pixpa
  
  : Pixpa excels with its all-in-one platform that caters to creatives and small businesses. It provides a highly customizable drag-and-drop interface, a variety of templates, and built-in tools for SEO, marketing, and analytics. This makes it a versatile choice for creating professional informational websites. Pixpa scores 7.9, making it the preferred option for those looking to build a comprehensive online presence without coding knowledge.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Pixpa.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Pixpa is the preferred choice.

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

Compared to Zenfolio, Pixpa offers a wide variety of templates and designs tailored to meet the diverse needs of creative professionals. With an extensive library that includes numerous options, users can easily find the perfect template that aligns with their brand identity and showcases their work in the best light. From sleek, minimalist designs to more complex and dynamic layouts, Pixpa ensures that there is something for everyone, regardless of their style or industry.

Pixpa Themes

🏆 Winner: Pixpa

. Scoring an impressive 8.4, Pixpa stands out for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design process, making it easy for creatives and professionals to establish an online presence. Zenfolio, with a score of 6.3, offers a comprehensive suite of tools for photographers, but its dashboard can initially appear complex and it has limitations in design flexibility.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Pixpa

. Pixpa offers a comprehensive suite of learning resources, including detailed tutorials, step-by-step guides, and video walkthroughs. Zenfolio, on the other hand, offers a set of tutorials and articles, but users have expressed a desire for more comprehensive learning resources.

Zenfolio and Pixpa both offer ecommerce capabilities, but they cater to different needs. 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. Pixpa, on the other hand, is an all-in-one platform for creatives and small businesses, offering a range of ecommerce features including an integrated shopping cart, inventory tracking, and the ability to sell both physical and digital products.

Zenfolio ecommerce features:

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

Pixpa ecommerce features:

• SEO and Marketing features
• Secure Payments
• Comprehensive product options

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. Pixpa offers a variety of ecommerce-specific templates designed to cater to online stores and businesses. These templates are crafted to showcase products effectively, integrate shopping carts, and provide a seamless checkout 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. Pixpa offers a range of ecommerce product page customization options to cater to various needs. Users can easily manage and display products with options for multiple images, pricing variations, and detailed product descriptions.

Payment processing

Zenfolio supports Stripe and PayPal for payment processing, integrating them seamlessly into its platform. 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. Pixpa does not charge commissions on sales, allowing creators to keep all revenue generated, minus any transaction fees from payment processors. The platform supports various payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay, PayUmoney, and offline payments, to facilitate direct payments into user accounts. However, Pixpa does not have any POS capabilities.

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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.

Pixpa’s editor, scoring 7.5, is an all-in-one platform designed for creative professionals to build their own websites without needing any coding knowledge. It offers a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to create and customize a professional-looking website, portfolio, or e-commerce store. Pixpa provides a variety of templates and design options tailored to photographers, artists, designers, and small businesses. Additionally, it includes features such as client galleries, blogging, and SEO tools to help users showcase their work effectively and grow their online presence.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio and Pixpa both offer mobile editing capabilities, but Zenfolio has a clear advantage. 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.

On the other hand, Pixpa does not have a dedicated mobile editor app. However, users can edit their website on a mobile browser, with some limitations. Given this, Zenfolio is the clear winner in terms of mobile editing capabilities.

Overall Result

:

Pixpa Wins

. Pixpa scores slightly higher than Zenfolio in product testing options, with a score of 8.5 compared to Zenfolio’s 8.4. Both platforms offer a free trial period, with Pixpa offering a slightly longer trial period of 15 days compared to Zenfolio’s 14 days. Both platforms also offer a 30-day money back guarantee. However, Pixpa allows users to test all premium features during the free trial and within the 30-day refundable period, which gives it an edge over Zenfolio.

Pixpa offers a higher price score (9.1) compared to Zenfolio (8.2), indicating better value for money.

Both platforms offer discounts for annual subscriptions, with Pixpa offering a 50% discount for an annual subscription, while Zenfolio offers discounts ranging from 30% to 50% depending on the plan. Neither platform offers an Enterprise plan.

Winner: Zenfolio

. Both Zenfolio and Pixpa offer cloud hosting services, but Zenfolio edges out with a slightly higher hosting quality score. Zenfolio offers from 15GB to unlimited storage, while Pixpa provides varying levels of storage from 200 web images to unlimited web images and up to 100 GB of download capacity. Neither platform discloses information about their uptime statistics or data center locations.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio

Both Zenfolio and Pixpa place a high priority on website performance and page speed, with Zenfolio focusing on mobile responsive design and Pixpa emphasizing code minification, CDN, HTML caching, server-side rendering, and SEO optimization. However, Zenfolio gets the edge when it comes to website speed optimization due to its higher score.

Zenfolio’s approach to enhancing site speed includes mobile responsive design. However, Zenfolio does not provide any information on their Core Web Vitals improvements. The load times and PageSpeed scores vary depending on optimization and website complexity.

Pixpa, on the other hand, places a strong emphasis on website performance and page speed. Pixpa’s approach to enhancing site speed includes code minification, CDN, HTML caching, server-side rendering, and SEO optimization. Pixpa also emphasizes on LCP, FID, CLS improvements. However, there’s no data on Page Speed Scores and load times for websites built with Pixpa.

🏆 Winner: Pixpa.

Pixpa edges out Zenfolio with a score of 6.7, thanks to its wider range of over 100 plugins, compared to Zenfolio’s more focused set. Pixpa’s plugins, or “apps”, enhance the functionality of its websites, including SEO tools, e-commerce solutions, and social media integrations. Zenfolio, with a score of 6.5, offers plugins and integrations specifically designed for photographers, including WordPress plugins for embedding photos, a Lightroom Classic plugin for direct photo uploads and management, and the ability to embed forms via services like Jotform. However, Pixpa’s broader range of plugins and higher score give it the edge in this category.

Pixpa Applications

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Overall Winner: Pixpa

. Pixpa stands out for its comprehensive SEO features, integrated email marketing, and robust analytics and reporting tools. Zenfolio, while offering similar features, falls short in terms of SEO capabilities and advanced analytics.

🏆 Winner: Pixpa

. Comparing Zenfolio vs Pixpa, Pixpa takes the lead in this category with its 24/7 customer support available via email and live chat. This round-the-clock availability ensures that users can get assistance whenever they need it, which is particularly beneficial for those working outside of standard business hours.

Zenfolio, on the other hand, offers comprehensive 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 provides a rich Support Center with self-help resources, its limited live chat and phone support hours may not be as convenient for users needing immediate assistance.

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Winner: Pixpa

. Pixpa’s security measures are slightly more comprehensive than Zenfolio’s. Pixpa uses SSL encryption across all its websites, conducts regular security audits and updates, and offers secure hosting with robust firewalls and DDoS protection. This ensures that users’ websites are both safe and reliably accessible.

Zenfolio also prioritizes security with SSL encryption for all its websites, watermarking to protect users’ work, password-protected galleries, and cloud backup for additional data protection. However, Pixpa’s commitment to regular security audits and updates gives it a slight edge in this category.

🏆 Winner: Zenfolio

. Zenfolio, with a score of 2.4, has some AI capabilities, primarily focused on enhancing the ecommerce experience for photographers. Although Zenfolio does not have an AI website builder or AI content generation features, it does offer AI-driven eCommerce features, which Pixpa lacks. Pixpa, with a score of 0.0, does not have any AI capabilities.

🏆 Winner: Pixpa

. Zenfolio and Pixpa have different approaches to user management.

• Zenfolio allows only one user to edit and manage a website. This might be limiting for larger teams or projects that require collaboration.
• Pixpa offers a Users and Permissions feature allowing multiple users on Professional plans (up to 5 users) and Advanced plans (unlimited). The site owner can grant edit access to sections like General, Store, Client Galleries, Marketing, Settings, and Administration, customizing permissions based on user roles. The site owner can manage user permissions, suspend or reactivate users, and permanently remove them, but irreversible actions should be approached with caution.

Unfortunately, neither Zenfolio nor Pixpa provided a detailed user roles and access levels table.

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.

Pixpa stands out for its exceptional customer service, easy-to-use interface, and affordable pricing. Users appreciate the variety of templates and customization options available, allowing them to create professional-looking websites tailored to their needs. The responsive and helpful customer support, coupled with the platform’s features like online forms and integrations, make Pixpa a valuable tool for individuals and businesses seeking to establish a strong online presence. Despite some minor issues like limited options for third-party integrations and mobile layout adjustments, Pixpa remains highly recommended for its versatility, professionalism, and overall value.

FAQ