digiKam, Brandworkz, NetX, Bunny.net

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

Brandworkz

NetX

Yes

Bunny.net

Everything else

digiKam

Brandworkz

NetX

Bunny.net

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 brand-guidelines and asset portal for mid-market marketing teams, with a genuine free tier that covers a branded guidelines page but not the full asset library or workflow tools.

A digital asset management platform for enterprises, agencies, museums, and nonprofits, paired with in-house consulting and data-migration services.

A CDN and edge-computing platform bundling storage, video streaming, DNS and image optimization, aimed at developers and cost-conscious teams as an alternative to larger CDN providers.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Free software, no licence fee

Number of users and the tier selected

Not disclosed publicly. Plans are differentiated by number of admin users, storage (TB), and number of portals (e.g. Essential: 5 admin users/1TB; Signature: 20 admin users/2TB/3 portals; Premium: 50 admin users/5TB/5 portals); exact per-unit or per-tier prices are not published, visitors must request a consult.

Primarily pay-as-you-go per GB of bandwidth/storage (CDN from $0.01/GB standard, volume network from $0.005/GB down to $0.002/GB; Storage from $0.01/GB standard tier, $0.02/GB edge SSD tier; Stream storage from $0.01/GB and CDN from $0.005/GB), with a $1/month account minimum. Bunny Optimizer is a flat $9.50/month per website (unlimited optimizations). No per-request fees. Enterprise-scale volume (above 2PB) requires contacting sales.

Deployment

On-premise

Cloud

Cloud, On-premise, Hybrid

Cloud

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Transparency index

100%

40%

Not checked

Most common complaint

It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design

The free tier is named while the cost of the next step is not

Not checked

“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.

Brandworkz The free tier is named while the cost of the next step is not — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.