ImageKit, ACDSee, Filestack, Transloadit

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.

ImageKit

ACDSee

Yes

Filestack

Transloadit

Everything else

ImageKit

ACDSee

Filestack

Transloadit

Verdict

An image and video CDN with an API-first asset library, built for fast developer integration, billed on flat monthly tiers with per-GB overage once bandwidth or storage limits are exceeded.

A disk-native photo cataloguer and batch editor sold as a one-off perpetual licence, for photographers with large libraries who don't need Lightroom/Capture One-level RAW editing.

A file upload, transformation, and delivery API with a drop-in picker for 20+ sources, for developers adding file handling to web and mobile apps.

A file-processing API that handles uploading, transforming, and delivering video, audio, images, and documents, for developers who'd otherwise build that infrastructure in-house.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits

One-off perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately

Monthly subscription tiers with bundled resource allowances (bandwidth in GB, uploads counted per file, transformations per file/image operation, storage in GB, number of team members), plus per-unit overage fees once a tier's allowance is exceeded (e.g. Start plan overage is $0.2/GB bandwidth).

GB of data processed per month (combined input + output file size); paid tiers also gate priority processing slots, collaborator seats, and max file size. Overage on the paid Startup tier billed at $1.80/GB. Enterprise tier is custom/quote-based tiered pricing with whitelabeling.

Deployment

Cloud

On-premise

Cloud

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Yes

Transparency index

70%

90%

Not checked

Most common complaint

Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats

The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double

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.

ImageKit Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

ACDSee The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.