We compared Google Photos and the built-in Apple Photos app on iPhone — and the winner is clear

Apple When it comes to freeing up precious storage space on your smartphone or other devices, photos are often one of the first things to get the ax. But now, with so many affordable and easy-to-use cloud-storage solutions available, there's no need to quickly delete old pictures when you run out of memory. Owners of the Apple iPhone in particular have two standout solutions available to them: the built-in Photos app, which can back up your pictures to Apple's iCloud service, and Google Photos, powered by the search giant's formidable artificial intelligence. I put Apple Photos and Google Photos head-to-head and found that Apple's software is the clear winner for both tech-savvy photographers and the average iPhone user just looking to clear out space on their phone. Check it out:

EASE OF ACCESS Apple Photos First, let's talk about how you use each app. Apple's Photos app comes preinstalled on every iPhone, iPad, and Mac computer. On Macs, it used to be known as iPhoto. If you back up your photos to Apple's iCloud service, you can view them on any other Apple device, on Windows via an app, or from any web browser. Plus, Apple Photos is compatible with the Apple TV, if you want to view your vacation album on a bigger screen.

Meanwhile, you can get the free Google Photos mobile app on both Android and iOS devices, and you can access the fullest version of the service on any browser. For bonus points, you can display your photos on any TV equipped with a Google Chromecast. Google Photos

EDITING Apple Photos Another big difference between the two services is editing features. Apple Photos offers an extensive array of editing capabilities, allowing users to adjust color settings and levels, as well as a variety of options for automated correction.

Google Photos' editing features focus more on stylized filters and automated color correcting — if you want to make any big, specific changes, you're probably going to need specialized photo-editing tools. Google Photos

COST OF CLOUD STORAGE Apple Photos I've uploaded just a few photos to each service for this demonstration, but both offer a selection of paid tiers for those of us who have a LOT of photos to store. Apple's iCloud storage gives iPhone and iPad owners 5 GB of cloud storage for free. Paid plans begin at $0.99 a month for 50 GB, which has been more than enough for me for the past three years, speaking as a person prone to taking hundreds of photos a month. If you need more space, Apple also offers 200 GB for $2.99 a month, or 1 TB of storage for $9.99. Notably, that storage doesn't have to be used for only photos - you can store iPhone and iPad backups, or mostly whatever else you want to store in the cloud.

Google Photos offers free unlimited storage for photos and videos — if you're willing to allow the service to automatically downgrade your photo quality a little (or a lot). Google Photos Google Photos and its free storage offer come with a catch: If you don't pay up, the service will cap the quality of your photos at 16 megapixels. That is, unless you use any of Google's flagship Pixel smartphones, which gets you free, unlimited full-resolution storage through the service. Most people who primarily use Google Photos for other smartphone pictures won't really notice a difference. Although, advanced photographers shooting with a DSLR or other more serious camera will have to keep their original-size (or .raw) files on Google Drive, which costs money. The first 15 GB is free, while 100 GB costs $2.99, 1 TB $9.99, and 10 TB $99.99. As with Apple iCloud, this Google Drive storage doesn't have to be used for just photos. You can store books, music, videos - whatever files you'd like. Just know that really high-quality photos will eat up a fair share of cloud storage lickety-split. As a person who pays for both iCloud storage and Google Drive space, I find that the pricing is very comparable and feels like a great deal either way.

SHARING Apple Photos In our hyperconnected world, sending and posting our photos is nearly as important as taking them, and Apple's software has a clear advantage when it comes to sharing. Apple Photos makes it incredibly easy to post pictures on social media or send to friends and family using any device, and the recipient does not need to have an iCloud account to access the photos you send them. Plus, iCloud users can use Apple Photos to create shared folders, which allow multiple people to add photos to the same album. This is naturally more convenient for friends who all use iPhones and already have iCloud accounts, but it can be incredibly helpful for sharing large numbers of vacation photos or post-party selfies with a big group.

Google Photos, on the other hand, is rather limited in its sharing features. Kaylee Fagan/Business Insider One of my biggest pains with Google Photos is that when you send photos via email, your friend on the other end gets a link like the one pictured above, prompting them to view the photos on Google Photos rather than just including copies of the image files. That means your friend will have to open a browser window or separate app - and endure Google's hard sell on signing up - to download the image you've tried to email to them. The smartphone apps are a little less annoying on this front at least. While emailing photos is still frustrating, Google Photos on Android or iOS at least lets you put photos directly into a text message or upload them to Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. Plus, you can share a photo directly with other Google Photos users, sending them a notification that they have a new photo waiting.

SEARCH Google Photos As you may expect, searching is one area where Google clearly has Apple beat. Beyond the basics of being able to sort photos by date and location, Google Photos can automatically analyze your pictures and identify the people, places, and things in them, allowing you to search for photos based on their subjects. For example, if I wanted to quickly search through my library for pictures from my Disneyland trip, I could type "fireworks" in the search bar - as pictured above - and Google will automatically filter for the pictures with fireworks.

Apple Photos does not have this feature, which can make finding a single photo in a massive library rather tiresome. Apple Photos Apple Photos does allow users to manually tag photos with searchable keywords, but this is obviously less convenient and can be really time-consuming. Similarly, Apple can recognize faces - making it easier to pull up every photo of a significant other- and has started to get better at recognizing objects with the latest iOS update, but finding a photo of a plate of pasta is still a nonstarter.

DATA PRIVACY Google The drawback of Google's free service and helpful keyword search is that the same tech Google uses to scan your photos for fireworks is used to collect and store your personal data. It's similar to what Google does with Gmail. Google executives aren't sharing your wedding album around the office - it's more that Google's algorithms look for patterns in where and how you snap photos and feed those back into the search giant's overall picture of you and your habits. The Ringer has a good deep dive into this.

If you're really worried about privacy, Apple Photos is most likely the better option. Apple Apple has always championed user privacy in its software and device design, and it says it does not gather any personal data from your photo uploads.

ORGANIZATION Apple Photos Even without the image-analyzing tech, Apple Photos has some fantastic organizational tools - especially on Mac. One of the most helpful is Smart Albums, which automatically sort photos and videos based on customizable, hyperspecific criteria, such as in-camera settings (things like ISO and shutter speed) or file type, making it especially helpful for photographers using DSLR cameras and uploading large photo sets.

Meanwhile, Google Photos leaves a lot more to the algorithm. Google Photos If you want to make an album with Google Photos, you have to do it yourself, photo by photo. Otherwise, Google's algorithms take the wheel once more. The Google Photos service will automatically make themed photo albums for you, stitch a bunch of photos into a collage, and even generate a video slideshow for you with a soundtrack. It's neat, but the best stuff happens automatically, and to take full advantage you give up a little control.