PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

FotoWare, Piwigo, Akeneo, Censhare

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

Piwigo

Yes

Akeneo

Yes

Censhare

Yes

Everything else

FotoWare
Piwigo
Akeneo
Censhare
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.
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.
A PIM platform with a built-in DAM module, used by manufacturing and ecommerce companies to manage product data and assets; also available as a free open-source Community Edition.
An enterprise PIM, DAM and content management platform, for multi-brand retailers, manufacturers and publishers with multilingual product content.
Price published
No
Yes
No
No
Billed on
A modular model — you pay for the modules you take
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
No genuine dollar pricing is published. The vendor's package-comparison page lists four tiers: Community Edition (free, open-source, self-hosted), Growth (SaaS, shown only as "Starting at $0 Annually" with a free-trial CTA — no real recurring price disclosed), Advanced and Premium (both "Call for a quote"). No billing unit (per user, per SKU, per asset, per GB) is stated anywhere on the site for the paid tiers.
Not published — quote-only (custom enterprise pricing via demo request; no plans, per-user, or per-GB figures disclosed on site)
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
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
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
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.
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.