PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

MediaValet, Kontainer, Islandora, Dash

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.

MediaValet

No

Kontainer

No

Islandora

Yes

Dash

No

Everything else

MediaValet
Kontainer
Islandora
Dash
Verdict
A cloud DAM billed by storage and configuration rather than seat count, aimed at agencies and distributed marketing teams with large or growing user bases where per-seat pricing would balloon.
A Nordic/European DAM, with optional PIM, aimed at mid-market brand, retail and ecommerce teams wanting fast onboarding without heavy IT involvement, backed by a 30-day no-commitment trial.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
A cloud asset library for small-to-mid ecommerce and DTC brands, priced as a flat monthly fee with unlimited users, tiered by storage and downloads.
Price published
No
No
No
Yes
Billed on
Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups
Depends on configuration; several features are priced separately
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 price per account; users are unlimited, tier set by storage and downloads
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
No
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
20%
20%
Not checked
60%
Most common complaint
The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against
Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote
Not checked
The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against

“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.

MediaValet The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Kontainer Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Dash The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.