PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Piwigo, FotoWare, Akeneo, Razuna

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

FotoWare

No

Akeneo

Yes

Razuna

Yes

Everything else

Piwigo
FotoWare
Akeneo
Razuna
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.
A modular, metadata-heavy DAM aimed at large organisations with IT capacity to manage taxonomy, sold through quote-based pricing with on-prem and private-cloud options.
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 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.
Price published
Yes
No
No
Yes
Billed on
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
A modular model — you pay for the modules you take
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.
Flat price per account by volume; the vendor states there are no per-user fees
Deployment
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
Yes
No
No
Yes
Free trial
Yes
No
No
Yes
Transparency index
100%
10%
Not checked
90%
Most common complaint
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
The pricing page works as a lead form rather than a price list
Not checked
On-premise is available only in the enterprise tier, whose price is not published

“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.
FotoWare The pricing page works as a lead form rather than a price list — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Razuna On-premise is available only in the enterprise tier, whose price is not published — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.