Verdict
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 DAM offered as both cloud and on-premise, aimed at small-to-mid teams that want fast metadata-driven search over large asset libraries and want files to stay on their own infrastructure.
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-licence, self-hosted DAM for teams with in-house server admin capability, trading a free licence for the time to run upgrades, tune dependencies and troubleshoot it themselves.
Price published
No
No
Yes
No
Billed on
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.
Annual subscription covering all features, integrations, updates and support
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Self-hosted: no licence fee. Hosted: a user ceiling per tier
Deployment
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
No
No
Yes
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
Not checked
30%
90%
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
Like the platforms it competes with, it asks for a form submission before naming a price
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
The free route is genuinely free of licence fees but moves hosting, upgrades and support onto you