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Islandora, Air, imgix, Optimizely

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.

Islandora

Yes

Air

No

imgix

No

Optimizely

No

Everything else

Islandora
Air
imgix
Optimizely
Verdict
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
A visually organized, board-based DAM for photo/image-heavy creative and marketing teams, with a genuinely usable free tier and a history of shifting, steep paid-tier pricing.
An image and video API for real-time resizing, compression, and format conversion via URL parameters, built for developers at ecommerce, media, and agency teams.
A DAM module bundled inside the Optimizely CMS/Content Marketing Platform/DXP, for teams already on Optimizely who don't need best-of-breed asset management, bulk operations, or metadata governance.
Price published
No
No
Yes
No
Billed on
No published price on islandora.ca — the core software is free open source ("free to use and always will be"). Paid options are hosting/installation/migration/support/training contracts sold by independent third-party service providers listed on islandora.ca/service-providers (e.g. Born-Digital, discoverygarden); islandora.ca itself does not publish their rates or billing units.
Credits; users are not billed
Consumption-based credits, sold in monthly tiers ($25–$500/mo self-serve, custom above that). Credits are spent on Management (2 credits/GB/month for stored assets), Delivery (1 credit/GB bandwidth), and Transformation (variable by operation). Per-credit rate drops as plan tier rises ($0.25 down to $0.12, monthly billing; slightly cheaper on annual commitment). Each plan also states an implied storage/bandwidth cap in GB.
Quoted per customer
Deployment
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
Not checked
60%
Not checked
0%
Most common complaint
Not checked
The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only
Not checked
Not one tier and not one figure on the pricing 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.

Air The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Optimizely Not one tier and not one figure on the pricing page — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.