PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Bynder, Phraseanet, HyperCMS, Piwigo

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.

Bynder

No

Phraseanet

Yes

HyperCMS

Yes

Piwigo

Yes

Everything else

Bynder
Phraseanet
HyperCMS
Piwigo
Verdict
An enterprise brand-asset DAM built for controlled distribution to many consumers of assets, that needs a permanently staffed administrator and slows down on large files.
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-source DAM, CMS, and PIM platform combining asset, content, and product management for mid-to-large enterprises in banking, insurance, and retail.
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.
Price published
No
Yes
No
Yes
Billed on
Modular packages, quoted per customer
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Cloud service: billed by storage capacity (GB) plus which optional modules you select; user accounts are unlimited/uncapped. No public price list — pricing is obtained via a configurator/calculator or by requesting a quote. On-premise/hosted deployments use Free, Standard, and Enterprise license editions (feature-gated), also quote-only. A non-commercial Free Edition exists with no disclosed price.
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
Yes
Transparency index
0%
90%
Not checked
100%
Most common complaint
No figure anywhere on the pricing page, so the order of magnitude is unknowable before a call
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
Not checked
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026

“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.

Bynder No figure anywhere on the pricing page, so the order of magnitude is unknowable before a call — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — 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.