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, DeviantArt's "collections", etc.)
Comparison of user-to-user interaction and other features[edit]
Site | Score | Google Score | Comment management | Customizable profile | Social networking | Comment threads | Blocking | Integrated ads | User groups | Site skins | Complex watching system | Commission support | Advanced content filtering | Cross-site Linking |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Furiffic | 12 | Mobile usability: 99%; Mobile speed: 83%; Desktop speed: 89% |
Yes | (Partial, Control over visible sections and description styling) | Yes (Internally, Share links) |
Yes (Single depth) |
Yes (Full) |
Yes | Yes | Yes (10) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (Lots of options) |
SoFurry | 9.5 | Mobile usability: N/A%; Mobile speed: N/A%; Desktop speed: N/A% |
Yes | Partial (custom banners) |
Full (Profile links, Twitter Integration, Share Links) |
Yes | Full, not selective | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes (Fur Affinity and Inkbunny) |
FurrTrax | 9 | Mobile usability: 58%; Mobile speed: 64%; Desktop speed: 77% |
Yes(on profiles) | Yes | Full (chatrooms, messaging, groups) |
Partial (not Gallery) |
Partial (Profile and Message Blocking) |
Yes | Yes | Yes (Mobile ready, Normal) | No | No | Yes | Yes (All) |
Inkbunny | 8 | Mobile usability: 65%; Mobile speed: 71%; Desktop speed: 89% |
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) |
Yes (Filter content types, per-user and account-wise) |
No | Yes | Yes (many, including DeviantArt, Fur Affinity, SoFurry, Weasyl) |
Weasyl | 8 | Mobile usability: 94%; Mobile speed: 55%; Desktop speed: 61% |
Yes | Partial (custom banner) | Partial (profile links) | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DeviantArt | 7 | Mobile usability: 95%; Mobile speed: 57%; Desktop speed: 48% |
Yes | Yes | Medium (Share links, Core-only Twitter widget, Core-only shoutbox widget, Core-only personal forum widget) |
Yes | Partial (Comment and note blocking) |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Fur Affinity | 7 | Mobile usability: 67%; Mobile speed: 81%; Desktop speed: 87% |
Yes | No | Medium (Profile links) |
Partial (not Userpages) |
Partial (Comment and Note Blocking) |
Yes | No | Yes (2) | No | Yes | No | Yes (DeviantArt, Inkbunny, SoFurry, VCL & Weasyl) |
WildDream Art | 6 | Mobile usability: N/A; Mobile speed: N/A; Desktop speed: N/A |
Yes | Yes | Yes (Profile links, Share Links, Messaging, @otheruser) | Yes (Single depth) | No | Yes (Nonprofit, needs application) | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes (DeviantArt, Fur Affinity, Facebook Page, Twitter, etc.) |
Transfur | 5.5 | Mobile usability: 99%; Mobile speed: 70%; Desktop speed: 82% |
Yes | No | Partial (Profile links) | Partial (not Userpages) |
No | No | No | Yes (Site Background, choice of 5) |
No | No | Yes | Yes (DeviantArt, Fur Affinity, Inkbunny, Weasyl) |
VCL | 1 | Mobile usability: 66%; Mobile speed: 93%; Desktop speed: 95% |
N/A (No comment system) |
No | No | N/A (No comment system) |
Partial (Submissions, via Sieve) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Comparison of submission management features[edit]
Site | Score | Mature content | Steps to upload | Submission Folders | Folder subscription | Featured submission | Integrated sales system | Music and audio uploads | Flash uploads | Scraps gallery | Stream Support |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DeviantArt | 5 | No | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (Prints) | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Fur Affinity | 6.5 | Yes | 3 | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial (Journals with "stream" in the title are highlighted) |
Furiffic | 8 | Yes | 1(Edit while uploading) / Optionally more control on step 2 (Scheduling/Multi edit) | Yes (Simple(User managed), Advanced(Query managed)) | Yes | Yes | Partial (Page shops for listing items that are for sale, with purchase button to quickly contact the seller) | Yes | Yes | Yes(User managed/Visibility controls) | Partial (Journals with "stream*" in the search fields are listed in dealers den) |
Inkbunny | 7.5 | Yes | 5 (6 if adding to Pool) | Yes (one image may be in many "pools") | No | Yes | Donations only (used to support Prints, Digital Content) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
SoFurry | 8 | Yes | 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VCL | 2 | Yes | 2 * | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Weasyl | 7 | Yes | 2 (3 if changing thumbnail) | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
WildDream Art | 2.5 | No | 2 | Yes | No | No | Partial (limited items) | No | No | Yes (only uploader can view their scraps) | No |
Features in detail[edit]
Submission folders[edit]
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).
Steps to upload[edit]
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.
Comment management[edit]
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.
Customizable profile[edit]
This applies to the ability to add, subtract, or re-arrange elements and the appearance of the profile page, as opposed to entering profile information and links into specific blocks.
Social networking[edit]
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.
Blocking[edit]
Inkbunny allows you to block a user's submissions but still receive comments from them, or visa versa.
Integrated ads[edit]
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.
Complex watching system[edit]
All art sites allow you to follow artists, but only some allow you to follow their art but ignore their journals, or follow/ignore their scraps.
Cross-Site linking[edit]
This allows you to link to user's profiles on other art sites with the same ease as someone on the same site. For example, simple BBCode allows an Inkbunny user to link to someone's Fur Affinity page.
Score[edit]
This is a quickly comparable score of overall features, 0 = No support, 0.5 = Partial support, 1 = Full support
Google Score[edit]
Site tested with https://testmysite.withgoogle.com for mobile and desktop usability