Comparison of furry art sites
A furry art website is any major community archive of graphic artwork, literature and/or audio files which is either entirely focused on furry content or contains a section(s) for indexed furry/anthropomorphic submissions. This is an evaluation of the major art sites that furries use today. It compares them to a list of common and ideal features.
This is not done as a way to glorify or insult any site in particular. It is created to answer two potential questions:
- "If I had to choose just one site to use, which one has the features that are important to me?" And
- "How can this one site be improved to better compete - or share success with - the other sites?"
This chart omits certain features common to all sites (private messages, watchlists, etc.) and certain esoteric features (SoFurry's random avatar feature and cum counter, DeviantArt's "collections", etc.)
[edit] Comparison of user-to-user interaction and other features
| Site | Comment management | Customizable profile | Social networking | Comment threads | Blocking | Integrated ads | User groups | Site skins | Complex watching system | Commission support | Advanced content filtering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ArtPiles | Partial (can set comments friends-only) | No | Partial (Profile links) |
Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes (by tag, user, maturity) |
| DeviantArt | Yes | Yes | Medium (Share links) |
Yes | Partial (Comment and Note Blocking) |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| FurAffinity | Yes | No | Medium (Profile links) |
Partial (not Userpages) |
Partial (Comment and Note Blocking) |
Yes | No | Yes (2) | No | No* | No |
| Furocity | Yes | No | Partial (Profile links) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (4) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Inkbunny | Yes | No | Full (Profile links, Twitter Integration, Share Links) |
Partial (not Userpages) |
Full, selective (Comments, Notes, and Submissions individually blockable) |
No | No | Yes (Site Backgrounds and Banner) |
No | No | Yes |
| SoFurry | Yes | Partial (custom banners) |
Full (Profile links, Twitter Integration, Share Links) |
Yes | Full, not selective | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes ("Commission Marketplace") |
Yes |
| VCL | N/A (No comment system) |
No | No | N/A (No comment system) |
Partial (Submissions, via Sieve) | No | No | No | No | No | No |
[edit] Comparison of submission management features
| Site | Mature content | Steps to upload | Submission Folders | Folder subscription | Featured submission | Integrated sales system | Music and audio uploads | Flash uploads | Scraps gallery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ArtPiles | Yes | 2 | Yes (as "piles") |
No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| DeviantART | No | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (Prints) | No | Yes | Yes |
| FurAffinity | Yes | 3 | No (only sequential links in description and a scraps folder) | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Furocity | Yes | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | ? | Yes | No[1] | Yes (as "Unfinished Work Folder") |
| Inkbunny | Yes | 5 (6 if adding to Pool) | Yes ("Pools") | No | Yes | Yes (Prints, Digital Content, Donations) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SoFurry | Yes | 2 | Yes | Yes (in 2.0) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| VCL | Yes | 2* | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
[edit] Features in detail
[edit] Submission folders
Submission folders allow for users to index content from within their own galleries (and, on certain websites, other users' galleries), be it for purposes of segregating the content based upon topic or sequential events. For certain sites, folders might be indexable in the internal search engine. Only SoFurry 2.0, however, allows for watching folders for updates (i.e., comics, story series, audio dramas).
[edit] Steps to upload
The more pages are involved to upload art, the longer it takes, and the generally less easy-to-use experience it creates. This number is derived from the number of pages it takes when navigating from the index.
DeviantArt's process has been simplified to just one page over the years, two if you submit your art as a print. Inkbunny's upload process has been lowered from 8 to 5 recently.
Uploads to VCL have a delay of up to 30 minutes.
[edit] Comment management
It's debatable whether or not users should be able to delete comments on their work or profiles, as some view it as a way to create drama or silence out critics. On the contrary, comment deletion seems necessary when trolls or spam gets involved.
[edit] Customizable profile
This applies to the ability to add, subtract, or re-arrange elements of the profile page.
[edit] Social networking
To get a "Full", a site would need to have built in (or customizable) fields that link to the user's other sites (SF, DA, LJ, etc.) AND to have "Share on Facebook/Twitter etc." on the Submission pages.
[edit] Blocking
InkBunny allows you to block a user's submissions but still receive comments from them, or visa versa.
[edit] Integrated ads
DeviantArt's AdCast does not allow ads to be bought by any website that runs ads or otherwise takes in income - such sites are thus forced to use the more expensive AdPro service.
[edit] Complex watching system
All art sites allow you to follow artists, but only DA allows you to follow their art but ignore their journals, or follow/ignore their scraps.
[edit] Native commission support
FurAffinity previously had the "Commission Information" page, but it has been disabled due to security bugs. It is planned to be fixed with FurAffinity's new design.
SoFurry has a Commission Marketplace which collects the posted information of all artists available for hire.
[edit] References
- ↑ fluf November 18, 2009. Flash uploaing [sic]. Furocity.