PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

MediaValet, ResourceSpace, Akeneo, digiKam

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

ResourceSpace

Yes

Akeneo

Yes

digiKam

Yes

Everything else

MediaValet
ResourceSpace
Akeneo
digiKam
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.
An open-licence, self-hosted DAM for teams with in-house server admin capability, trading a free licence for the time to run upgrades, tune dependencies and troubleshoot it themselves.
A PIM platform with a built-in DAM module, used by manufacturing and ecommerce companies to manage product data and assets; also available as a free open-source Community Edition.
Free, open-source, cross-platform photo cataloging software for large RAW libraries, with tagging, geotagging and duplicate detection, meant to pair with a separate RAW editor.
Price published
No
No
No
Yes
Billed on
Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups
Self-hosted: no licence fee. Hosted: a user ceiling per tier
No genuine dollar pricing is published. The vendor's package-comparison page lists four tiers: Community Edition (free, open-source, self-hosted), Growth (SaaS, shown only as "Starting at $0 Annually" with a free-trial CTA — no real recurring price disclosed), Advanced and Premium (both "Call for a quote"). No billing unit (per user, per SKU, per asset, per GB) is stated anywhere on the site for the paid tiers.
Free software, no licence fee
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Free plan
No
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
20%
60%
Not checked
100%
Most common complaint
The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against
The free route is genuinely free of licence fees but moves hosting, upgrades and support onto you
Not checked
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design

“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.
ResourceSpace The free route is genuinely free of licence fees but moves hosting, upgrades and support onto you — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
digiKam It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.