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Search Build shortlist

Papirfly, Islandora, HyperCMS, Phraseanet

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.

Papirfly

No

Islandora

Yes

HyperCMS

Yes

Phraseanet

Yes

Everything else

Papirfly
Islandora
HyperCMS
Phraseanet
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 open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
An open-source DAM, CMS, and PIM platform combining asset, content, and product management for mid-to-large enterprises in banking, insurance, and retail.
A free, self-hosted GPLv3 DAM used by French public-sector, cultural and broadcast institutions with in-house technical staff, now being sunset by its vendor in favor of a paid successor, Phrasea.
Price published
No
No
No
Yes
Billed on
The set of solutions chosen
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.
Cloud service: billed by storage capacity (GB) plus which optional modules you select; user accounts are unlimited/uncapped. No public price list — pricing is obtained via a configurator/calculator or by requesting a quote. On-premise/hosted deployments use Free, Standard, and Enterprise license editions (feature-gated), also quote-only. A non-commercial Free Edition exists with no disclosed price.
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Free plan
No
No
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
10%
Not checked
Not checked
90%
Most common complaint
A twelve-month minimum commitment at a price you cannot know in advance
Not checked
Not checked
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026

“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.

Papirfly A twelve-month minimum commitment at a price you cannot know in advance — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.