OpenAsset, Air, Akeneo, Nextcloud

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.

OpenAsset

Air

Akeneo

Yes

Nextcloud

Yes

Everything else

OpenAsset

Air

Akeneo

Nextcloud

Verdict

A project-based DAM for AEC design and architecture firms that syncs with Deltek Vision/Vantagepoint and places tagged project photos directly into InDesign proposals and RFPs.

A visually organized, board-based DAM for photo/image-heavy creative and marketing teams, with a genuinely usable free tier and a history of shifting, steep paid-tier pricing.

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.

A self-hosted file-sync and collaboration platform some organisations stretch into asset-library duty; tagging, batch metadata editing and dynamic tag-based collections are still limited or missing.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Quoted per customer

Credits; users are not billed

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.

Subscription per user per year, cheaper at volume

Deployment

Cloud

Cloud, On-premise

On-premise, Cloud

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Yes

Transparency index

60%

Not checked

80%

Most common complaint

A page titled pricing that contains a benefit calculator instead of prices

The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only

Not checked

It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner

“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.

OpenAsset A page titled pricing that contains a benefit calculator instead of prices — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

Air The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

Nextcloud It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.