PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Phraseanet, Piwigo, Akeneo, Air

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

Piwigo

Yes

Akeneo

Yes

Air

No

Everything else

Phraseanet
Piwigo
Akeneo
Air
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 self-hosted, permission-based photo/video catalog with album hierarchies, tagging and a large plugin ecosystem, for archives and small orgs willing to maintain their own server as the library grows.
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 visually organized, board-based DAM for photo/image-heavy creative and marketing teams, with a genuinely usable free tier and a history of shifting, steep paid-tier pricing.
Price published
Yes
Yes
No
No
Billed on
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
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.
Credits; users are not billed
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
Yes
No
Yes
Transparency index
90%
100%
Not checked
60%
Most common complaint
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Not checked
The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only

“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.
Piwigo A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Air The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.