PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

PhotoShelter, Nextcloud, Mylio, Cloudinary

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.

PhotoShelter

No

Nextcloud

Yes

Mylio

Yes

Cloudinary

No

Everything else

PhotoShelter
Nextcloud
Mylio
Cloudinary
Verdict
A cloud portfolio and image-storage platform for individual photographers, with client galleries and built-in print/licensing sales.
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.
A peer-to-device photo sync and library tool for individuals and families with photos spread across computers, phones and tablets who want them synced without uploading to a public cloud.
A developer-facing image and video transformation API and CDN, billed from one pooled credit balance covering storage, transformations and bandwidth together.
Price published
No
Yes
No
Yes
Billed on
Quote-only. Priced per named "Library Seat" (2-5 seats depending on tier, custom for Enterprise) plus a storage allotment per tier (1TB-5TB, custom for Enterprise) and a cap on "Advanced Integrations" (0 to unlimited). Unlimited invited/contributor users and unlimited Social Content Publisher seats included on all/most tiers. Annual or monthly billing toggle shown on the pricing page, but no dollar amounts are published — all tiers show a "Get Pricing" CTA to a demo/sales call.
Subscription per user per year, cheaper at volume
Personal, Family and Business plans; no amounts on the page
Credits: one credit is 1,000 transformations, or 1 GB of storage, or 1 GB of video bandwidth
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
Yes
Yes
Transparency index
Not checked
80%
50%
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
It is a file platform with DAM features rather than a DAM: asset-level metadata and rights are thinner
Three plans are named and none is priced on the pricing page
Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price

“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.

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.
Mylio Three plans are named and none is priced on the pricing page — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Cloudinary Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.