PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Frontify, Dash, Piwigo, Brandfolder

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.

Frontify

No

Dash

No

Piwigo

Yes

Brandfolder

No

Everything else

Frontify
Dash
Piwigo
Brandfolder
Verdict
A brand-management platform built around a single, always-current source of truth for guidelines, logos and templates, aimed at brand teams working with internal staff and external agencies.
A cloud asset library for small-to-mid ecommerce and DTC brands, priced as a flat monthly fee with unlimited users, tiered by storage and downloads.
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 polished, search-first brand asset DAM sold standalone under Smartsheet ownership, priced for mid-market and enterprise budgets around a $24,700/year median contract.
Price published
No
Yes
Yes
No
Billed on
Monthly active users
Flat price per account; users are unlimited, tier set by storage and downloads
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Quoted per customer
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
No
Yes
No
Free trial
No
No
Yes
No
Transparency index
30%
60%
100%
0%
Most common complaint
The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with
The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Two tiers with no figure and no trial offered on the page

“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.

Frontify The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Dash The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against — 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.
Brandfolder Two tiers with no figure and no trial offered on the page — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.