Verdict
A DAM with built-in templated content production, for multi-market or franchise brands whose local offices need to self-serve on-brand assets without looping in central design.
An enterprise DAM module within Adobe Experience Manager, for large organizations managing thousands to millions of brand assets across marketing channels.
An on-premise DAM known for deep metadata and search, for existing Portfolio users who size and maintain their own server, now under Axle AI ownership after a March 2026 acquisition.
An open-source PHP/Symfony platform unifying PIM, DAM, CMS and MDM on one codebase, for teams with in-house developers or an integrator partner rather than a marketing team wanting to self-serve.
Price published
No
No
No
Yes
Billed on
The set of solutions chosen
No public price list; sales quote required for both packages (Prime and Ultimate). Adobe's own on-premise product description sheet lists separate license metrics per component — AEM Assets itself is licensed 'Per Instance', 'Users' are licensed 'Per User', Brand Portal is licensed 'Per Brand Portal User', and Dynamic Media/Personalized Media are licensed by 'Page Views per month' — so billing is multi-metric and only available via custom quote, not a single flat per-user or per-GB rate.
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
Annual licence per edition, not per user
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Free plan
No
No
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
10%
Not checked
25%
100%
Most common complaint
A twelve-month minimum commitment at a price you cannot know in advance
Not checked
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product
It is a broader platform than a DAM — some capability has to be built rather than switched on