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Uploadcare, CELUM, Akeneo, Portfolio

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.

Uploadcare

No

CELUM

No

Akeneo

Yes

Portfolio

Yes

Everything else

Uploadcare
CELUM
Akeneo
Portfolio
Verdict
A developer-first file upload and CDN/media-processing API for apps, pitched as a lighter, faster-to-integrate alternative to Cloudinary for teams that don't need its full DAM/video/AI stack.
An enterprise DAM bundled with workflow and creative-review tools, aimed at mid-to-large manufacturing and consumer brands needing deep Adobe/PIM/CMS/e-shop integration and partner-led setup.
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.
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.
Price published
Yes
No
No
No
Billed on
Operations, traffic and storage, with published overage rates
Quoted per customer
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.
Quoted per customer; the licensing model was preserved through the change of owner
Deployment
Cloud
Cloud
Cloud, On-premise
On-premise
Free plan
Yes
No
No
No
Free trial
No
No
No
No
Transparency index
70%
0%
Not checked
25%
Most common complaint
The free tier is stated as personal use only
The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures
Not checked
It changed hands in March 2026, so anything written before that date describes it as an Extensis product

“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.

Uploadcare The free tier is stated as personal use only — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
CELUM The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.
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.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.