PicaJet
Search Build shortlist

Piwigo, Kontainer, Cloudinary, Contentstack

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

Kontainer

No

Cloudinary

No

Contentstack

No

Everything else

Piwigo
Kontainer
Cloudinary
Contentstack
Verdict
Not checked
Not checked
Not checked
Not checked
Price published
Yes
No
Yes
No
Billed on
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Depends on configuration; several features are priced separately
Credits: one credit is 1,000 transformations, or 1 GB of storage, or 1 GB of video bandwidth
Quoted per customer
Deployment
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Transparency index
100%
20%
60%
30%
Most common complaint
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote
Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price
A free start exists, but the terms for moving to a paid tier are not on the page

“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.
Kontainer Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Cloudinary Prices are published for the API but not for the DAM, so the product being compared with a DAM still has no price — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
Contentstack A free start exists, but the terms for moving to a paid tier are not on the page — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.