PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

PhotoShelter Brands, Akeneo, Canto, MediaValet

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 Brands

No

Akeneo

Yes

Canto

No

MediaValet

No

Everything else

PhotoShelter Brands
Akeneo
Canto
MediaValet
Verdict
A DAM platform for brand and marketing teams, built for real-time camera-to-cloud photo and video distribution during live events.
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 DAM built around search and tagging for mid-market teams, with unlimited free view-only accounts but per-seat pricing for editors that only appears after a sales quote.
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.
Price published
No
No
No
No
Billed on
Plan tiers differ by number of Library (admin) seats and storage (TB); unlimited invited/contributor users on every tier. No dollar figures published — all tiers show a "Get Pricing" CTA leading to a sales/demo form.
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.
Team size and storage volume
Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
Yes
No
Transparency index
Not checked
Not checked
20%
20%
Most common complaint
Not checked
Not checked
The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost
The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against

“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.

Canto The tiers are named and described but cannot be compared on cost — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
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.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.