PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

digiKam, Plytix, ACDSee, ResourceSpace

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

Plytix

No

ACDSee

Yes

ResourceSpace

Yes

Everything else

digiKam
Plytix
ACDSee
ResourceSpace
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 combined PIM and DAM platform for managing product data and media, built for SMB and mid-market ecommerce brands, manufacturers, and agencies.
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.
An open-licence, self-hosted DAM for teams with in-house server admin capability, trading a free licence for the time to run upgrades, tune dependencies and troubleshoot it themselves.
Price published
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Billed on
Free software, no licence fee
Tiered plans priced by SKU (product) count, not by user seat — all plans include unlimited user seats. Each tier also caps monthly AI credits, API calls/hour, and DAM file storage + CDN traffic (GB/month). Standard is free (500 SKUs, 50GB storage); Pro is $499/mo (50,000 SKUs, 750GB storage); Enterprise is custom/quote-only (unlimited SKUs, custom storage). Optional flat-fee add-ons (Product Feeds $300/mo, Brand Portals $300/mo, Product Data Sheets $200/mo) and one-time onboarding fees ($0 / $3,000 / custom).
One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
Self-hosted: no licence fee. Hosted: a user ceiling per tier
Deployment
On-premise
Cloud
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
Yes
No
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
Yes
No
Transparency index
100%
Not checked
90%
60%
Most common complaint
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design
Not checked
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
The free route is genuinely free of licence fees but moves hosting, upgrades and support onto you

“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.
ResourceSpace The free route is genuinely free of licence fees but moves hosting, upgrades and support onto you — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.