PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Phraseanet, MediaValet, Akeneo, Pixelboxx

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

MediaValet

No

Akeneo

Yes

Pixelboxx

Yes

Everything else

Phraseanet
MediaValet
Akeneo
Pixelboxx
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 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.
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.
An on-prem, cloud or hybrid DAM aimed at likely DACH-region enterprise manufacturers who need to keep data in-house, with a public review record too thin to lean on without running your own trial.
Price published
Yes
No
No
No
Billed on
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Not per user — the vendor states unlimited users and permission groups
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.
Quoted per customer
Deployment
On-premise
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
90%
20%
Not checked
20%
Most common complaint
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
The promise not to charge per user is prominent, but there is no figure to compare it against
Not checked
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise

“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.
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.
Pixelboxx No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.