PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Air, Portfolio, imgix, Frontify

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.

Air

No

Portfolio

Yes

imgix

No

Frontify

No

Everything else

Air
Portfolio
imgix
Frontify
Verdict
A visually organized, board-based DAM for photo/image-heavy creative and marketing teams, with a genuinely usable free tier and a history of shifting, steep paid-tier pricing.
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.
An image and video API for real-time resizing, compression, and format conversion via URL parameters, built for developers at ecommerce, media, and agency teams.
A brand-management platform built around a single, always-current source of truth for guidelines, logos and templates, aimed at brand teams working with internal staff and external agencies.
Price published
No
No
Yes
No
Billed on
Credits; users are not billed
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
Consumption-based credits, sold in monthly tiers ($25–$500/mo self-serve, custom above that). Credits are spent on Management (2 credits/GB/month for stored assets), Delivery (1 credit/GB bandwidth), and Transformation (variable by operation). Per-credit rate drops as plan tier rises ($0.25 down to $0.12, monthly billing; slightly cheaper on annual commitment). Each plan also states an implied storage/bandwidth cap in GB.
Monthly active users
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
Yes
No
No
No
Transparency index
60%
25%
Not checked
30%
Most common complaint
The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product
Not checked
The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with

“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.

Air The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Portfolio It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Frontify The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.