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Phraseanet, Piwigo, NetX, Adobe Experience Manager Assets

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 · Publishes a price

One of these tells you the order of magnitude before you speak to anyone, and the others do not. That difference sets how long your evaluation takes, whatever the software does.

Phraseanet

Yes

Piwigo

Yes

NetX

No

Adobe Experience Manager Assets

No

Everything else

Phraseanet
Piwigo
NetX
Adobe Experience Manager Assets
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 digital asset management platform for enterprises, agencies, museums, and nonprofits, paired with in-house consulting and data-migration services.
An enterprise DAM module within Adobe Experience Manager, for large organizations managing thousands to millions of brand assets across marketing channels.
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
Not disclosed publicly. Plans are differentiated by number of admin users, storage (TB), and number of portals (e.g. Essential: 5 admin users/1TB; Signature: 20 admin users/2TB/3 portals; Premium: 50 admin users/5TB/5 portals); exact per-unit or per-tier prices are not published, visitors must request a consult.
No public price list; sales quote required for both packages (Prime and Ultimate). Adobe's own on-premise product description sheet lists separate license metrics per component — AEM Assets itself is licensed 'Per Instance', 'Users' are licensed 'Per User', Brand Portal is licensed 'Per Brand Portal User', and Dynamic Media/Personalized Media are licensed by 'Page Views per month' — so billing is multi-metric and only available via custom quote, not a single flat per-user or per-GB rate.
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise, Hybrid
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
Yes
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
Yes
No
No
Transparency index
90%
100%
Not checked
Not checked
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
Not checked

“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.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.