Piwigo, CELUM, Plytix, digiKam

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.

Piwigo

Yes

CELUM

Plytix

digiKam

Yes

Everything else

Piwigo

CELUM

Plytix

digiKam

Verdict

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.

An enterprise DAM bundled with workflow and creative-review tools, aimed at mid-to-large manufacturing and consumer brands needing deep Adobe/PIM/CMS/e-shop integration and partner-led setup.

A combined PIM and DAM platform for managing product data and media, built for SMB and mid-market ecommerce brands, manufacturers, and agencies.

Free, open-source, cross-platform photo cataloging software for large RAW libraries, with tagging, geotagging and duplicate detection, meant to pair with a separate RAW editor.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited

Quoted per customer

Tiered plans priced by SKU (product) count, not by user seat — all plans include unlimited user seats. Each tier also caps monthly AI credits, API calls/hour, and DAM file storage + CDN traffic (GB/month). Standard is free (500 SKUs, 50GB storage); Pro is $499/mo (50,000 SKUs, 750GB storage); Enterprise is custom/quote-only (unlimited SKUs, custom storage). Optional flat-fee add-ons (Product Feeds $300/mo, Brand Portals $300/mo, Product Data Sheets $200/mo) and one-time onboarding fees ($0 / $3,000 / custom).

Free software, no licence fee

Deployment

On-premise, Cloud

Cloud

On-premise

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Yes

Transparency index

100%

Not checked

100%

Most common complaint

A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026

The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures

Not checked

It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design

“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.

Piwigo A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

CELUM The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

digiKam It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.