MediaValet, Piwigo, imgix, IntelligenceBank

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

Piwigo

Yes

imgix

IntelligenceBank

Everything else

MediaValet

Piwigo

imgix

IntelligenceBank

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 self-hosted, permission-based photo/video catalog with album hierarchies, tagging and a large plugin ecosystem, for archives and small orgs willing to maintain their own server as the library grows.

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 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.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups

Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited

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.

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

Deployment

Cloud

On-premise, Cloud

Cloud

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Yes

Transparency index

20%

100%

Not checked

30%

Most common complaint

The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against

A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026

Not checked

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

“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.

Piwigo A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

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

No email required — the page prints as it stands.