PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

FotoWare, digiKam, Plytix, Salsify

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.

FotoWare

No

digiKam

Yes

Plytix

No

Salsify

No

Everything else

FotoWare
digiKam
Plytix
Salsify
Verdict
A modular, metadata-heavy DAM aimed at large organisations with IT capacity to manage taxonomy, sold through quote-based pricing with on-prem and private-cloud options.
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 product experience management (PXM) platform for brands and manufacturers that centralizes and syndicates product data to retail and ecommerce channels.
Price published
No
Yes
Yes
No
Billed on
A modular model — you pay for the modules you take
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).
Not disclosed publicly — pricing page routes to Request Demo / Contact Sales only, no tiers, per-SKU/per-user/per-asset pricing, or plan names shown
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
10%
100%
Not checked
Not checked
Most common complaint
The pricing page works as a lead form rather than a price list
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design
Not checked
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.

FotoWare The pricing page works as a lead form rather than a price list — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
digiKam It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.