So far I'm liking Flickr better, though I've only dipped my toe in. Uploads (on the site, see [0]) are fast, organizing is fast (though the batch organize is weird IMO), everything can be made private by default easily, and ONE TERABYTE OF STORAGE. It's also much better for browsing than Picasa Web Albums, which are functional but don't really do it well. Flickr makes browsing quite pretty (in a good way, mostly) and generally better for showing your photos to someone.
Picasa the website is fine, and does just about everything right, though generally not in the most ideal way. Privacy controls are rich and you can still link directly to a photo to bypass (and revoke existing links). Albums are functional, face tags are functional (though now they use G+ accounts if you link to contacts... not happy, but I guess it works), comments are a bit hidden but work. I have several gigabytes in it (and bought more), no problems, no complaints. Main downside is it has definitely not been updated along with the rest of Google's properties, and it integrates very poorly for the most part (notifications, accounts, weird partial G+ linkage...).
Picasa the application is... different, but decent. It's surprisingly good in a number of ways, and I'd recommend it over iPhoto if only because iPhoto has routinely lost my data during updates, and slows to a crawl after several thousand photos. Picasa stays fast, searches quickly, organizes oddly but effectively. It leaves your photos in folders that (basically) match the UI, which may or may not be a good thing for you.
Picasa the application when synced to your Google account is slick 95% of the time (it all works as you'd expect), and a total hell-hole of duplication, sync failing, and filename mangling the remaining 5% (though most of that only rears its head when you hook it up for the first time). The 'Sync to web' on/off switch for each album is handy when it works, but hasn't generally handled turning on dozens at once.
I would honestly recommend against the syncing aspect of it, though sadly it's a major selling point. If you can hook it up once and leave it that way you probably won't have much trouble, but I did a lot of reconnecting, and it definitely got confused sometimes.
Picasa the website is fine, and does just about everything right, though generally not in the most ideal way. Privacy controls are rich and you can still link directly to a photo to bypass (and revoke existing links). Albums are functional, face tags are functional (though now they use G+ accounts if you link to contacts... not happy, but I guess it works), comments are a bit hidden but work. I have several gigabytes in it (and bought more), no problems, no complaints. Main downside is it has definitely not been updated along with the rest of Google's properties, and it integrates very poorly for the most part (notifications, accounts, weird partial G+ linkage...).
Picasa the application is... different, but decent. It's surprisingly good in a number of ways, and I'd recommend it over iPhoto if only because iPhoto has routinely lost my data during updates, and slows to a crawl after several thousand photos. Picasa stays fast, searches quickly, organizes oddly but effectively. It leaves your photos in folders that (basically) match the UI, which may or may not be a good thing for you.
Picasa the application when synced to your Google account is slick 95% of the time (it all works as you'd expect), and a total hell-hole of duplication, sync failing, and filename mangling the remaining 5% (though most of that only rears its head when you hook it up for the first time). The 'Sync to web' on/off switch for each album is handy when it works, but hasn't generally handled turning on dozens at once.
I would honestly recommend against the syncing aspect of it, though sadly it's a major selling point. If you can hook it up once and leave it that way you probably won't have much trouble, but I did a lot of reconnecting, and it definitely got confused sometimes.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5758033