Verdict
An enterprise DAM module within Adobe Experience Manager, for large organizations managing thousands to millions of brand assets across marketing channels.
An on-premise DAM known for deep metadata and search, for existing Portfolio users who size and maintain their own server, now under Axle AI ownership after a March 2026 acquisition.
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.
An on-prem, cloud or hybrid DAM aimed at likely DACH-region enterprise manufacturers who need to keep data in-house, with a public review record too thin to lean on without running your own trial.
Price published
No
No
Yes
No
Billed on
No public price list; sales quote required for both packages (Prime and Ultimate). Adobe's own on-premise product description sheet lists separate license metrics per component — AEM Assets itself is licensed 'Per Instance', 'Users' are licensed 'Per User', Brand Portal is licensed 'Per Brand Portal User', and Dynamic Media/Personalized Media are licensed by 'Page Views per month' — so billing is multi-metric and only available via custom quote, not a single flat per-user or per-GB rate.
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
Quoted per customer
Deployment
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
Free plan
No
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
Yes
No
Transparency index
Not checked
25%
90%
20%
Most common complaint
Not checked
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise