PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

ACDSee, Phraseanet, HyperCMS, Lytho

Side by side on what we have verified on each vendor’s own pages. Where a fact was not checked, the table says so rather than leaving a blank that reads as “no”.

What decides it · Runs on your own servers

If the files genuinely cannot leave your infrastructure, this is not a close race — the platforms marked No below should not be on the call at all.

ACDSee

Yes

Phraseanet

Yes

HyperCMS

Yes

Lytho

No

Everything else

ACDSee
Phraseanet
HyperCMS
Lytho
Verdict
A disk-native photo cataloguer and batch editor sold as a one-off perpetual licence, for photographers with large libraries who don't need Lightroom/Capture One-level RAW editing.
A free, self-hosted GPLv3 DAM used by French public-sector, cultural and broadcast institutions with in-house technical staff, now being sunset by its vendor in favor of a paid successor, Phrasea.
An open-source DAM, CMS, and PIM platform combining asset, content, and product management for mid-to-large enterprises in banking, insurance, and retail.
A combined creative-operations platform pairing brand-portal DAM with proofing and approval workflows, for in-house teams that want both under one roof rather than a DAM-only search specialist.
Price published
Yes
Yes
No
No
Billed on
One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Cloud service: billed by storage capacity (GB) plus which optional modules you select; user accounts are unlimited/uncapped. No public price list — pricing is obtained via a configurator/calculator or by requesting a quote. On-premise/hosted deployments use Free, Standard, and Enterprise license editions (feature-gated), also quote-only. A non-commercial Free Edition exists with no disclosed price.
Team size, product mix and configuration
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
Yes
No
No
No
Transparency index
90%
90%
Not checked
10%
Most common complaint
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
Not checked
The tiers are named but cannot be compared on cost

“Not checked” means exactly that: we have not verified it, not that the platform lacks it. Every other value was read off the vendor’s own pages on the date shown on each platform page.

What to ask on the demo

One question per platform, drawn from what actually goes wrong with it — not a generic checklist. Vendors run the demo; this hands the agenda back to you.

ACDSee The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Lytho The tiers are named but cannot be compared on cost — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.