PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Contentstack, Portfolio, PhotoShelter, 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.

Contentstack

No

Portfolio

Yes

PhotoShelter

No

Piwigo

Yes

Everything else

Contentstack
Portfolio
PhotoShelter
Piwigo
Verdict
An enterprise headless CMS and composable DXP for developer-led teams needing multi-channel content delivery, with a native asset-management module that's newer and thinly reviewed.
An on-premise DAM known for deep metadata and search, for existing Portfolio users who size and maintain their own server, now under Axle AI ownership after a March 2026 acquisition.
A cloud portfolio and image-storage platform for individual photographers, with client galleries and built-in print/licensing sales.
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
No
No
Yes
Billed on
Quoted per customer
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
Quote-only. Priced per named "Library Seat" (2-5 seats depending on tier, custom for Enterprise) plus a storage allotment per tier (1TB-5TB, custom for Enterprise) and a cap on "Advanced Integrations" (0 to unlimited). Unlimited invited/contributor users and unlimited Social Content Publisher seats included on all/most tiers. Annual or monthly billing toggle shown on the pricing page, but no dollar amounts are published — all tiers show a "Get Pricing" CTA to a demo/sales call.
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Free plan
Yes
No
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
Yes
Transparency index
30%
25%
Not checked
100%
Most common complaint
A free start exists, but the terms for moving to a paid tier are not on the page
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product
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.

Contentstack A free start exists, but the terms for moving to a paid tier are not on the page — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Portfolio It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product — 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.