PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

ACDSee, Piwigo, Akeneo, NetX

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 · Publishes a price

One of these tells you the order of magnitude before you speak to anyone, and the others do not. That difference sets how long your evaluation takes, whatever the software does.

ACDSee

Yes

Piwigo

Yes

Akeneo

No

NetX

No

Everything else

ACDSee
Piwigo
Akeneo
NetX
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 self-hosted, permission-based photo/video catalog with album hierarchies, tagging and a large plugin ecosystem, for archives and small orgs willing to maintain their own server as the library grows.
A PIM platform with a built-in DAM module, used by manufacturing and ecommerce companies to manage product data and assets; also available as a free open-source Community Edition.
A digital asset management platform for enterprises, agencies, museums, and nonprofits, paired with in-house consulting and data-migration services.
Price published
Yes
Yes
No
No
Billed on
One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
No genuine dollar pricing is published. The vendor's package-comparison page lists four tiers: Community Edition (free, open-source, self-hosted), Growth (SaaS, shown only as "Starting at $0 Annually" with a free-trial CTA — no real recurring price disclosed), Advanced and Premium (both "Call for a quote"). No billing unit (per user, per SKU, per asset, per GB) is stated anywhere on the site for the paid tiers.
Not disclosed publicly. Plans are differentiated by number of admin users, storage (TB), and number of portals (e.g. Essential: 5 admin users/1TB; Signature: 20 admin users/2TB/3 portals; Premium: 50 admin users/5TB/5 portals); exact per-unit or per-tier prices are not published, visitors must request a consult.
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise, Hybrid
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
Yes
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
90%
100%
Not checked
Not checked
Most common complaint
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Not checked
Not checked

“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.
Piwigo A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.