PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

digiKam, ACDSee, Cloudflare Images, Pixelboxx

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.

digiKam

Yes

ACDSee

Yes

Cloudflare Images

No

Pixelboxx

Yes

Everything else

digiKam
ACDSee
Cloudflare Images
Pixelboxx
Verdict
Free, open-source, cross-platform photo cataloging software for large RAW libraries, with tagging, geotagging and duplicate detection, meant to pair with a separate RAW editor.
A disk-native photo cataloguer and batch editor sold as a one-off perpetual licence, for photographers with large libraries who don't need Lightroom/Capture One-level RAW editing.
A cloud service for storing, resizing, optimizing and delivering images via API and CDN, aimed at developers building web and mobile apps that handle images at scale.
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.
Price published
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Billed on
Free software, no licence fee
One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
Storage ($5 / 100,000 images stored / month), delivery ($1 / 100,000 images delivered / month), and transformations (first 5,000 unique transformations/month free, then $0.50 / 1,000 unique transformations/month). A unique transformation is billed per distinct parameter combination (e.g. same image at 100x100 and 200x200 counts as two). Storage/delivery charges apply only to images hosted in Cloudflare Images; transforming externally-hosted images is billed only under transformations.
Quoted per customer
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
100%
90%
Not checked
20%
Most common complaint
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
Not checked
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise

“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.

digiKam It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
ACDSee The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double — 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.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.