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Pixelboxx, digiKam, Akeneo, Phraseanet

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 · Publishes a price

One of these tells you the order of magnitude before you speak to anyone, and the others do not. That difference sets how long your evaluation takes, whatever the software does.

Pixelboxx

No

digiKam

Yes

Akeneo

No

Phraseanet

Yes

Everything else

Pixelboxx
digiKam
Akeneo
Phraseanet
Verdict
An on-prem, cloud or hybrid DAM aimed at likely DACH-region enterprise manufacturers who need to keep data in-house, with a public review record too thin to lean on without running your own trial.
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.
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 free, self-hosted GPLv3 DAM used by French public-sector, cultural and broadcast institutions with in-house technical staff, now being sunset by its vendor in favor of a paid successor, Phrasea.
Price published
No
Yes
No
Yes
Billed on
Quoted per customer
Free software, no licence fee
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.
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
Deployment
On-premise, Cloud, Hybrid
On-premise
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Free plan
No
Yes
No
Yes
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
20%
100%
Not checked
90%
Most common complaint
No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise
It has no collaboration, permissions or approvals by design
Not checked
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026

“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.

Pixelboxx No prices, though it does name three deployment models including fully managed on-premise — 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.
Phraseanet The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026 — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.