PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Phraseanet, Dash, HyperCMS, 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.

Phraseanet

Yes

Dash

No

HyperCMS

Yes

MediaValet

No

Everything else

Phraseanet
Dash
HyperCMS
MediaValet
Verdict
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.
A cloud asset library for small-to-mid ecommerce and DTC brands, priced as a flat monthly fee with unlimited users, tiered by storage and downloads.
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 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
Yes
Yes
No
No
Billed on
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Flat price per account; users are unlimited, tier set by storage and downloads
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.
Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups
Deployment
On-premise
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
90%
60%
Not checked
20%
Most common complaint
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against
Not checked
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.

Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Dash The tier is capped by download count as well as volume, which is a less familiar unit to budget against — 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.