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 flat-fee-per-account DAM and MAM with a free 500GB/5-user tier and unlimited paid users, for teams willing to pilot without much recent independent review evidence.
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 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 volume; the vendor states there are no per-user fees
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.
Credits; users are not billed
Deployment
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
Yes
No
Yes
Transparency index
90%
90%
Not checked
60%
Most common complaint
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
On-premise is available only in the enterprise tier, whose price is not published
Not checked
The free tier is described in detail while the paid tiers are named only