Verdict
A digital asset management platform layered on Google Drive (or S3/Dropbox), for marketing, creative, and e-commerce teams organizing and sharing brand assets in place.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
A DAM, PIM-adjacent and brand-portal platform for large multi-brand enterprises (Michelin, Decathlon, Bayer-scale customers), quote-priced and built around a dedicated admin who configures it.
A Windows-only photo cataloging tool for large image libraries (50,000+ files), built by a single developer, sold as a one-time perpetual licence instead of a subscription.
Price published
Yes
No
No
No
Billed on
Flat monthly/annual subscription per plan tier (tiers differ by included user count and storage cap), plus per-additional-teammate add-on fee ($15-25/mo depending on plan) and optional paid feature add-ons (custom fields, watermarking, branding, API, CSV import, Okta SSO, etc.)
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.
Quoted per customer
Perpetual licence, no subscription
Deployment
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
On-premise
Free plan
No
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
Yes
Transparency index
Not checked
Not checked
0%
60%
Most common complaint
Not checked
Not checked
Neither tiers nor ranges — only a form and a demo
Windows only, so it is out of the question for a team on Macs