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Portfolio, Phraseanet, Islandora, Salsify

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.

Portfolio

Yes

Phraseanet

Yes

Islandora

Yes

Salsify

No

Everything else

Portfolio
Phraseanet
Islandora
Salsify
Verdict
An on-premise DAM known for deep metadata and search, for existing Portfolio users who size and maintain their own server, now under Axle AI ownership after a March 2026 acquisition.
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.
An open-source, community-governed digital repository platform on Drupal, for libraries, archives, and museums to manage digital collections.
A product experience management (PXM) platform for brands and manufacturers that centralizes and syndicates product data to retail and ecommerce channels.
Price published
No
Yes
No
No
Billed on
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
No licence fee; implementation and support services may be paid
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.
Not disclosed publicly — pricing page routes to Request Demo / Contact Sales only, no tiers, per-SKU/per-user/per-asset pricing, or plan names shown
Deployment
On-premise
On-premise
On-premise, Cloud
Cloud
Free plan
No
Yes
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
25%
90%
Not checked
Not checked
Most common complaint
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product
The product is mid-generation: Phrasea is announced to replace Phraseanet in 2026
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.

Portfolio It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product — 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.