PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Bunny.net, PhotoPrism, Nextcloud, IMatch

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.

Bunny.net

No

PhotoPrism

Yes

Nextcloud

Yes

IMatch

Yes

Everything else

Bunny.net
PhotoPrism
Nextcloud
IMatch
Verdict
A CDN and edge-computing platform bundling storage, video streaming, DNS and image optimization, aimed at developers and cost-conscious teams as an alternative to larger CDN providers.
A self-hosted, single-container photo indexer under AGPL/commercial licensing, for people who want a private on-hardware archive without Google-Photos-level AI tagging or mobile app polish.
A self-hosted file-sync and collaboration platform some organisations stretch into asset-library duty; tagging, batch metadata editing and dynamic tag-based collections are still limited or missing.
A Windows-only photo cataloging tool for large image libraries (50,000+ files), built by a single developer, sold as a one-time perpetual licence instead of a subscription.
Price published
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Billed on
Primarily pay-as-you-go per GB of bandwidth/storage (CDN from $0.01/GB standard, volume network from $0.005/GB down to $0.002/GB; Storage from $0.01/GB standard tier, $0.02/GB edge SSD tier; Stream storage from $0.01/GB and CDN from $0.005/GB), with a $1/month account minimum. Bunny Optimizer is a flat $9.50/month per website (unlimited optimizations). No per-request fees. Enterprise-scale volume (above 2PB) requires contacting sales.
Subscription per edition, billed annually
Subscription per user per year, cheaper at volume
Perpetual licence, no subscription
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise
Free plan
No
Yes
Yes
No
Free trial
No
No
No
Yes
Transparency index
Not checked
100%
80%
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
The gap between the free edition and the first paid one is wide: €200 a month
It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner
Windows only, so it is out of the question for a team on Macs

“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.

PhotoPrism The gap between the free edition and the first paid one is wide: €200 a month — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Nextcloud It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
IMatch Windows only, so it is out of the question for a team on Macs — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.