PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Lytho, Canto, Islandora, Pics.io

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.

Lytho

No

Canto

No

Islandora

Yes

Pics.io

No

Everything else

Lytho
Canto
Islandora
Pics.io
Verdict
A combined creative-operations platform pairing brand-portal DAM with proofing and approval workflows, for in-house teams that want both under one roof rather than a DAM-only search specialist.
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 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.
Price published
No
No
No
Yes
Billed on
Team size, product mix and configuration
Team size and storage volume
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.)
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
No
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
10%
20%
Not checked
Not checked
Most common complaint
The tiers are named but cannot be compared on cost
The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost
Not checked
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.

Lytho The tiers are named but cannot be compared on cost — 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.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.