PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

HyperCMS, Salsify, Piwigo, IMatch

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

Salsify

No

Piwigo

Yes

IMatch

Yes

Everything else

HyperCMS
Salsify
Piwigo
IMatch
Verdict
Not checked
Not checked
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 Windows-only photo cataloging tool for large image libraries (50,000+ files), built by a single developer, sold as a one-time perpetual licence instead of a subscription.
Price published
No
No
Yes
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.
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
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Perpetual licence, no subscription
Deployment
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise
Free plan
No
No
Yes
No
Free trial
No
No
Yes
Yes
Transparency index
Not checked
Not checked
100%
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
Not checked
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Windows only, so it is out of the question for a team on Macs

“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.

Piwigo A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
IMatch Windows only, so it is out of the question for a team on Macs — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.