PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

HyperCMS, digiKam, Canto, Pixelboxx

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.

HyperCMS

Yes

digiKam

Yes

Canto

No

Pixelboxx

Yes

Everything else

HyperCMS
digiKam
Canto
Pixelboxx
Verdict
Not checked
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 DAM built around search and tagging for mid-market teams, with unlimited free view-only accounts but per-seat pricing for editors that only appears after a sales quote.
An on-prem, cloud or hybrid DAM aimed at likely DACH-region enterprise manufacturers who need to keep data in-house, with a public review record too thin to lean on without running your own trial.
Price published
No
Yes
No
No
Billed on
Cloud service: billed by storage capacity (GB) plus which optional modules you select; user accounts are unlimited/uncapped. No public price list — pricing is obtained via a configurator/calculator or by requesting a quote. On-premise/hosted deployments use Free, Standard, and Enterprise license editions (feature-gated), also quote-only. A non-commercial Free Edition exists with no disclosed price.
Free software, no licence fee
Team size and storage volume
Quoted per customer
Deployment
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
No
Yes
No
Transparency index
Not checked
100%
20%
20%
Most common complaint
Not checked
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design
The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise

“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.
Canto The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Pixelboxx No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.