PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Cloudinary, Pixelboxx, Nextcloud, Phraseanet

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.

Cloudinary

No

Pixelboxx

Yes

Nextcloud

Yes

Phraseanet

Yes

Everything else

Cloudinary
Pixelboxx
Nextcloud
Phraseanet
Verdict
A developer-facing image and video transformation API and CDN, billed from one pooled credit balance covering storage, transformations and bandwidth together.
An on-prem, cloud or hybrid DAM aimed at likely DACH-region enterprise manufacturers who need to keep data in-house, with a public review record too thin to lean on without running your own trial.
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 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.
Price published
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Billed on
Credits: one credit is 1,000 transformations, or 1 GB of storage, or 1 GB of video bandwidth
Quoted per customer
Subscription per user per year, cheaper at volume
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise
Free plan
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
No
No
No
Transparency index
60%
20%
80%
90%
Most common complaint
Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise
It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 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.

Cloudinary Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Pixelboxx No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise — 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.
Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.