Islandora, Pics.io, IntelligenceBank, CELUM

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

Pics.io

IntelligenceBank

CELUM

Everything else

Islandora

Pics.io

IntelligenceBank

CELUM

Verdict

An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.

A digital asset management platform layered on Google Drive (or S3/Dropbox), for marketing, creative, and e-commerce teams organizing and sharing brand assets in place.

A compliance-focused DAM with built-in audit trails and multi-stage approval workflows, aimed at regulated industries like pharma, finance, insurance and franchise/multi-brand marketing teams.

An enterprise DAM bundled with workflow and creative-review tools, aimed at mid-to-large manufacturing and consumer brands needing deep Adobe/PIM/CMS/e-shop integration and partner-led setup.

Price published

Yes

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.

Flat monthly/annual subscription per plan tier (tiers differ by included user count and storage cap), plus per-additional-teammate add-on fee ($15-25/mo depending on plan) and optional paid feature add-ons (custom fields, watermarking, branding, API, CSV import, Okta SSO, etc.)

Package, number and type of users, storage and add-ons

Quoted per customer

Deployment

On-premise, Cloud

Cloud

Free plan

Free trial

Transparency index

Not checked

30%

Most common complaint

Not checked

Only the floor of the base package is published; everything else is quoted

The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures

“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.

IntelligenceBank Only the floor of the base package is published; everything else is quoted — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

CELUM The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.