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Piwigo, Scaleflex, Islandora, HyperCMS

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

Scaleflex

No

Islandora

Yes

HyperCMS

Yes

Everything else

Piwigo
Scaleflex
Islandora
HyperCMS
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 image/video optimization and delivery API with a lightweight DAM layered on top, aimed at EU-based teams that want GDPR/France-hosted processing and hands-on vendor support.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
An open-source DAM, CMS, and PIM platform combining asset, content, and product management for mid-to-large enterprises in banking, insurance, and retail.
Price published
Yes
No
No
No
Billed on
Flat price per account by storage; users are unlimited
Quoted per customer
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.
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.
Deployment
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
Yes
No
No
No
Transparency index
100%
10%
Not checked
Not checked
Most common complaint
A ten per cent price rise is announced for 1 September 2026
Three tiers described by features, none of them priced
Not checked
Not checked

“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.
Scaleflex Three tiers described by features, none of them priced — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.