PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Phraseanet, Islandora, ACDSee, ImageKit

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

Islandora

Yes

ACDSee

Yes

ImageKit

No

Everything else

Phraseanet
Islandora
ACDSee
ImageKit
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.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
A disk-native photo cataloguer and batch editor sold as a one-off perpetual licence, for photographers with large libraries who don't need Lightroom/Capture One-level RAW editing.
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.
Price published
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Billed on
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
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 perpetual licence; a cloud subscription is sold separately
Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
On-premise
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
No
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
Yes
Yes
Transparency index
90%
Not checked
90%
70%
Most common complaint
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
Not checked
The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double
Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats

“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.
ACDSee The published prices are promotional and dated; list price is roughly double — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
ImageKit Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.