Artfol: AI-Free Art Community

This app is genuinely great for artists. There is such a good community and i almost never see anything negative. Everyone is very encouraging and supportive to each other. Love that there isn’t a size limit on the art you can post. There is no algorithm, which gives everyone’s art a chance to be seen, and likes are mostly hidden. There is a dedicated section to asking for critiques, and a place where people can create challenges, which can be awesome for art block. There are also content warning filters you can use on your own art or to censor any art you might be uncomfortable with, which you can remove if you want to see the art. There are bugs somewhat often and the app isn’t the fastest, but the devs are very open and responsive to communication about any bugs or problems in the app. The app is fairly new-ish so I’m assuming there’s more to come, but even so it’s awesome so far. If you’re an artist i definitely recommend checking out this app, the community is so supportive and it’s nice to be able to post art without feeling the frustration of having to try to appeal to an algorithm. It takes away the competition and makes it more of a community. Really awesome, highly recommend!

I really wanted to like ArtFol, but I just never find myself wanting to use it. Without an algorithm I feel like my art reaches even fewer people, because the only people who ever see it are the ones actively scrolling the new posts the second I post anything (which is very brief, uploads quickly leave the new posts page). Which I know their argument is I have to engage with others to see engagement on my own stuff, but the next problem makes engaging with others a pain. The load times for everything on the app is extremely slow. It takes forever for pages to load and makes using the app a pain. I’ll often find myself scrolling on similar apps, such as Instagram, but given how long it takes everything to load on ArtFol I never find myself interested enough to stay on the app. That being said, I really love the gallery not being limited to set size images. Being able to upload images in their original shape and the app auto sizing everything to make your gallery appealing is amazing. I also really appreciate the efforts they make to ensure the picture quality isn’t downgraded. All things considered, this app is mediocre. It struggles to do the one thing it promised to (encourage better engagement for artists) and it has loading times that make using it a nuisance. It may still have good features, but not enough to warrant a better review. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great either.

This is an awesome app! I really enjoy the possibilities that it opens with networking, inspiration, and just getting traction. That being said, there are a few critical areas that I’d highly suggest fixing up: First, PLEASE make this available in landscape format for iPadOS!! As one who primarily uses a keyboard to type and navigate, it can be very difficult—I have to take my device out of my case just to use it properly. This isn’t necessarily an issue that applies to everyone, but it’s what is bugging me the most. Second, I would really appreciate a more advanced stats view for my art. Something such as a graph that shows how many likes, comments, reposts, etc. on my artwork (only available for me to view) would be very handy in helping me figure out how I’m doing with my community. Notifications are great, but can be an absolute pain to navigate through and organize. Lastly, I would also think that allowing one to post multiple images at once (as a sort of collage, or scroll-through thing) would be handy!! And also, allowing one to make “albums” of artwork to keep it organized. This would definitely clean up people’s channels a bit more. Otherwise, this app has been great so far!! I look forward to working with it in the future :)