PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Canto, ImageKit, 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.

Canto

No

ImageKit

No

Piwigo

Yes

Everything else

Canto
ImageKit
Piwigo
Verdict
A DAM built around search and tagging for mid-market teams, with unlimited free view-only accounts but per-seat pricing for editors that only appears after a sales quote.
An image and video CDN with an API-first asset library, built for fast developer integration, billed on flat monthly tiers with per-GB overage once bandwidth or storage limits are exceeded.
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
Yes
Billed on
Team size and storage volume
Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Yes
Yes
Transparency index
20%
70%
100%
Most common complaint
The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost
Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats
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.

Canto The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
ImageKit Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — 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.