Joy at a glance
Joy is primarily a wedding website and RSVP platform that happens to include a photo gallery feature. Couples build a free wedding site (registry, schedule, FAQs), and guests can also upload photos from the same domain. The free tier covers 200 photos; unlimited photos require a $9/month subscription.
Where Joy fits best
Joy is the right pick if you specifically want a single dashboard for the whole event — RSVPs, the schedule, gift registry and photos in one place — and you're happy treating photos as a bonus feature alongside the website. The mobile experience is clean and guests already on your wedding site can upload without leaving it.
Where AisleShot fits better
The trade-off is that photos are a secondary product at Joy. The upload UX is fine, but the gallery viewer, slideshow and archive features are noticeably less polished than what photo-first tools build, and the unlimited tier is a monthly subscription that keeps running until you remember to cancel.
AisleShot is photos-first. The gallery viewer, channel-split privacy (only people with the QR can see it), live slideshow, full-resolution ZIP download and HEIC handling are all built around "we are the photo product." It's also a single one-time payment per wedding — you pay once and the gallery lives without further billing.
Use both if you want
These two tools don't actually fight: you can keep Joy for the website and RSVPs, and put an AisleShot QR on your table cards and the website itself. Guests use Joy for the schedule, AisleShot for the camera. Two tools, two simple jobs, and you stop paying a monthly fee once the wedding is over.