PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

PhotoShelter Brands, ImageKit, Islandora, Excire

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

ImageKit

No

Islandora

Yes

Excire

Yes

Everything else

PhotoShelter Brands
ImageKit
Islandora
Excire
Verdict
A DAM platform for brand and marketing teams, built for real-time camera-to-cloud photo and video distribution during live events.
An image and video CDN with an API-first asset library, built for fast developer integration, billed on flat monthly tiers with per-GB overage once bandwidth or storage limits are exceeded.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
AI-assisted photo search and culling software for photographers with large local archives, sold as a one-time purchase that runs without uploading files to the cloud.
Price published
No
Yes
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.
Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits
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.
One-off purchase, no subscription
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
Yes
Transparency index
Not checked
70%
Not checked
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats
Not checked
The amount is not on the product page — it lives on the reseller’s storefront

“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.

ImageKit Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Excire The amount is not on the product page — it lives on the reseller’s storefront — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.