In this article, we introduce the main open source DAM solutions that are currently available (15 at the latest count). Most products mentioned here are primarily web based. In some cases desktop clients may also be provided as an alternative mode of interaction also. Based on feedback received, we have recently changed the order of the products so that pure web DAM systems are shown first, followed by ECM suites and then preservation oriented solutions.
In determining which products are suitable to have the description Open Source applied, we have assessed each vendor to identify if they use a licence that is OSI approved as the main criteria for inclusion. Readers should note that this does not mean they are necessarily free of cost (either to purchase or for customisation and on-going support) and each vendor should be consulted to get a better idea of the actual total cost of ownership.
We intend to keep this page up to date with new entrants to the market and adjust reviews based on deeper investigation of each product and any information that might come to light.
Any vendors who are not listed and believe they should be included may contact us using our contact form and request a listing. Please indicate the licence you use if you wish to be listed and supply details of your website. Please refrain from sending details of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) software unless you specifically provide a Digital Asset Management (DAM) facility within that.
If you are already listed and want a logo entry, please add you details to the DAM vendor directory on the Digital Asset Management News site.
Pure Web DAM
Activae is developed by Cenatic, an agency of the Spanish government and is a Python based DAM (like Cyn.in, Notre DAM and some proprietary DAM solutions such as AssetBank). Activae uses the Cherokee Web Server and includes an advanced API so is well suited for integration (but XML/RPC rather than the more conventional REST or CMIS gateways). It includes a separate transcoding server detached from the web application which permits it to scale quite easily. This is more common in enterprise DAM systems but less so in open source products, only Daydream’s FocusOPEN includes something similar with their dedicated Asset Processing Server (“APS”) and the open source variation of their solution doesn’t offer the same range of capabilities as Activae. Being from a public sector heritage, Activae is strong on DMCI (Dublin Core) and includes advanced workflow capabilities. Activae has a BSD licence (in common with ResourceSpace).
The key drawback is the lack of English language documentation, the whole Activae site is in Spanish only and for this platform to gain traction, it needs to reach out to a wider market. Cenatic are keen for their user community to assist with this process but in our view, they need to possibly make some investment into reaching out to a wider user community. Their product is clearly very strong technically and could gain far greater traction and potential revenue to re-invest back into R&D if they had a wider base of users.
Summary: very fast and scalable alternative to some less sophisticated proprietary DAMs. Very flexible licence and great for anyone comfortable with Python but only for those with Spanish language skills at present.
Licence: BSD
Technology: Cherokee, Python
Website: http://activae.cenatic.es/
FocusOPEN Digital Asset Manager
FocusOPEN is developed by Daydream, who have a heritage in the DAM system market that dates back to 1995. The latest incarnation of their product is an ASP.NET based. Daydream recently updated their product range and now offer three variations: a free AGPL edition with a public download, a Commercial version and their original Enterprise solution. The free edition has an AGPL3 open source licence, the Enterprise and Commercial editions include a clause to enable the attribution to be removed and the option to avoid making the source code modifications public (but still include the source code according to Daydream).
FocusOPEN Enterprise is aimed at corporate use and Daydream’s target market is blue chip organisations who might typically look to closed source enterprise vendors like OpenText, ADAM, North Plains etc. As well as many of the typical features of a DAM system like support for all types of media, embedded metadata extraction and asset manipulation, also included is a range of ‘open studio’ plug-ins with support for enhanced manipulation of print, video, merchandise and email marketing. A full REST API and triggers based integration is provided as well as LDAP and Active Directory support that makes it highly suitable for enterprise use. The public open source edition provides a lot of the same facilities but does not include any of the studio plug-ins. However, the “multi-brand” feature is included in the public version and does seem well suited to agencies.
Summary: Aimed squarely at the business DAM market, this is ideal for Enterprises looking for an open source .net based DAM or agencies with multiple clients to service.
Licence: AGPL 3.0 and Commercial
Download link: http://www.digitalassetmanager.com
Technology: ASP.NET, SQL Server 2005/2008
Website: http://www.daydream.co.uk
Formerly OpenEdit DAM, EnterMedia is an open source Digital Asset Management system developed using the OpenEdit content management framework. EnterMedia includes full support for the typical range of facilities that modern DAM systems should include as standard, including extraction of embedded metadata, bulk uploading, transformation of image based assets etc. By default, EnterMedia uses XML files rather than a database, however, database connectors are available for those who are not keen on this approach. The OpenEdit framework is well established and EnterMedia’s use of it is as well as Java marks it as suitable for enterprise use.
Summary: Good generalist DAM solution with plenty of options to extend for enterprise users.
Licence: GPL (version not known)
Download link: http://entermediasoftware.com/download.html
Technology: Java, XML
Website: http://entermediasoftware.com
Menalto’s Gallery is described as a ‘Photo Album Organizer’ rather than a Digital Asset Management system, however, it does offer a number of features and benefits that allow it to operate like a DAM solution. One of two PHP based asset management solutions featured here, Gallery, is mainly oriented towards the needs of photographs and images, however, it does have support for video. Gallery is designed to integrate with other PHP applications and includes support for image manipulation, searching and many of the core functions of other DAM solutions.
Summary: Ideal for hobbyists or providing an image gallery function to an existing PHP based site.
Licence: GPL (version not known)
Download link: http://codex.gallery2.org/Downloads
Technology: PHP, MySQL
Website: http://gallery.menalto.com/
Notre DAM was developed by CRS4 (Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia) and although it has an academic background, it is somewhat simpler than Fedora or DSpace and shares a number of characteristics with more commercially oriented open source DAM systems. Notre DAM uses Python (as does Cynapse mentioned above). By default it includes a SQLLite database (although this can be changed to MySQL or an alternative RDBMS). Notre DAM uses the MediaDART framework which provides a number of media processing features that are ideal for Digital Asset Management. Notre DAM is also tightly integrated with XMP and contains a number of options for XMP based metadata manipulation. The application itself contains the core fundamentals required for serious DAM including a web based interface, support for images, video and documents, workflows, multiple taxonomies and a variety of other functionality such as Geotagging.
Summary: Highly suitable as less complex alternative to DSpace or Fedora also well worth checking out for non-academic use. One to watch.
Licence: GPL3
Download link: http://www.notredam.org/download.html
Technology: Python/Django, SQLLite or MySQL (or any other Django compatible RDBMS)
Website: http://www.notre-dam.org/
Phraseanet by French vendor, Alchemy, was formerly a licensed product costing 7,500 Euros. However, Alchemy have changed their licensing policy recently and switched to open source. Alchemy were originally a reseller for Phrasea, but acquired the rights to it in 2000. They have a longer track record in the DAM sector than almost any other featured vendor here apart from Daydream (having been operating since 1996). Phraseanet is PHP & MySQL based (as are ResourceSpace and Gallery). The features provided are impressive and demonstrate just what a powerful challenge open source DAM now presents to proprietary alternatives. Phraseanet has support for images, video and documents (using the usual combo of ImageMagick, FFMPEG, OpenOffice etc. for processing) and includes an impressive searching capability as well as lightboxes (favourites). Other features include a thesaurus, live folders and Flash based file uploaders, an LDAP integration module is also available. Alchemy have definitely put themselves back on the map by electing to take Phraseanet open source and it’s well worth checking out if your preference is for a PHP/MySQL based product. The GPL3 Licence is more restrictive than BSD, but still perfectly usable for client projects, Alchemy themselves also provide a range of development and support services as well as a Software as a Service (SaaS) option.
Summary: Ideal for PHP developmers and a possible alternative to ResourceSpace. Built by a vendor with a long track record in DAM.
Licence: GPL3
Download link: http://www.phraseanet.com/en/download/
Technology: PHP & MySQL
Website: http://www.phraseanet.com/
Razuna are a recent entrants to the open source DAM market, having first released a product in late 2007. The Razuna product is Java/CFML based. In common with most professional DAM systems, Razuna supports most types of media, extracts IPTC and XMP metadata from assets and also includes an API. Razuna makes use of an open source variant of CFML (Cold Fusion) using OpenBD which is powered by J2EE. The use of CFML is unusual and Globusmedia’s BrandWorkz (a closed source DAM system) is the only other CFML based DAM system that we are aware of. Razuna offer a WordPress plugin as well as a desktop client as an alternative to pure web based delivery.
Summary: A mid-market DAM solution built using Java and CFML (Cold Fusion), especially suited to those looking for a Resourcespace alternative in Java rather than PHP.
Licence: AGPL v3 and Commercial
Download link: http://www.razuna.org/download
Technology: Java, CFML and JDBC with PHP integration
Website: http://www.razuna.org
ResourceSpace was originally commissioned by UK charity Oxfam who released the product with a BSD licence in 2006 and was developed Dan Huby and Neale Hall. In contrast with Menalto’s Gallery, ResourceSpace is a fully featured PHP/MySQL DAM system and its BSD licence is the most permissive in terms of what third parties can do with it. ResourceSpace provides a wide range of facilities and uses purely open source based tools such as FFMPEG, ImageMagick and OpenOffice. A range of plugins add further functionality to ResourceSpace, including LDAP integration and other features to enable enterprise or large-scale use. The service, hosting and support options are reasonably priced and it has good community support. Since ResourceSpace is LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) based, it is well suited to web developers who want to leverage their existing PHP expertise and given the heritage of the original product, it is a good choice for charities.
Summary: Ideal for SMEs, not-for-profit organisations and libraries that are looking for a lot of features without high cost. Also a good choice for website developers who may prefer a PHP based system rather than complexities of Java or ASP.NET. Could also be useful for larger organisations who have the flexibility to support a LAMP based solution.
Licence: BSD
Download link: http://www.resourcespace.org/download.php
Technology: PHP and MySQL
Website: http://www.resourcespace.org
ECM Suites With DAM Modules
A number of people have commented and/or contacted us to ask why Alfresco have not been included in our list of open source DAM systems. The reason is that as described in the definition at the top of the article, Alfresco don’t have a specific DAM product per sé – unlike some of the other open source ECM platforms who do. However, since there has been a high volume of enquiries about this subject, below are some links for anyone who is interested in adapting Alfresco for DAM. It should be pointed out though that if you are searching for a dedicated DAM solution rather than an ECM that can do DAM with plugins and configuration, Alfresco may not necessarily be the most straightforward option. If you’re sold on the Alfresco ECM platform for other reasons and want to leverage your investment then it represents a good choice.
Embedded Metadata
http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/iptc-exif/
http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/xmp/
Proxy Processing
http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/thumbnails/
The above were kindly bought to our attention by Ray Gauss II, CTO of RightsAssist, LLC who also developed the components.
In addition Integrated Semantics produce an AIR based RIA client for Alfresco which also integrates some DAM functionality such as proxy generation. More details are available on the Alfresco forum.
Cynapse’s Digital Asset Management solution is a module of their Cyn.in ECM offering which enables it to leverage a number of inherent features already provided as part of the wider platform. The Nuxeo product discussed below is also part of an ECM solution. What appears to be missing from a brief investigation of their promotional literature is support for embedded metadata, however, workflow and transcoding facilities are available as too are desktop clients. Cyn.in is written in Python, Zope and uses the Plone open source framework (Notre DAM discussed below is also Python based).
Summary: Ideal for those looking at DAM as part of an ECM framework and/or for a Python based solution.
Licence: GPL v3
Download link: http://www.cynapse.com/downloads/cynin-community-edition
Technology: Java, CFML and JDBC with PHP integration
Website: http://www.cynapse.com/solutions/technology-solutions/digital-asset-management
In common with Daydream, Nuxeo are targeting the enterprise end of the Digital Asset Management market. Nuxeo’s open source DAM offering has only been available since January 2010 (and is beta at the time of writing), so is currently the most recent entrant to the open source DAM sector. Nuxeo already have expertise acquired in the open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) market and boast impressive enterprise credentials. Their DAM solution supports embedded metadata extraction, interoperability with their ECM system and LDAP integration. Unlike FocusOPEN, the majority of dependent technologies are also open source, for example the use of Lucence as the text search engine. Nuxeo permit free download of their product (albeit with registration).
Summary: An enterprise DAM solution built in Java using an established ECM framework.
Licence: LGPL
Download link: http://www.nuxeo.com/en/downloads/download-dam-form
Technology: Java and JDBC
Website: http://www.nuxeo.com
Preservation
Concerto is a preservation/collections oriented open source DAM, but it does have some features which potentially make it suitable for general use too. It was built by Middlebury College’s Curricular Technology Development Lab. The preservation background is made fairly clear by the product terminology, “Collections” and “Exhibitions”. Collections are combinations of assets that are accessed by a search and browse interface. Exhibitions are presentations or ‘slide shows’ that allow users to demonstrate their asset collections and include notes with them. Concerto uses an editor/viewer configuration. Viewers can be delivered via a low-profile JavaScript application which accesses the Concerto data. Concerto has other less specialised features including: zoom image previews, custom metadata schemas, automated proxy generation (thumbnails and previews), batch importing and embedded metadata reading, LDAP integration and what they call ‘hierarchical authorizations’ which sounds like workflow. All of these are what you might expect to find in the pure web DAM systems described above (in addition to its capabilities for preservation).
The use of PHP and MySQL makes Concerto fairly usable for deployment to commodity hosting environments but the LDAP integration also offers some plus points for using it in a corporate setting. Given the background of Concerto, however, it does sound like a college or university would be the ideal use-case scenario for a product of this nature, however, if you have access to developers from a similar background there is no reason it could not be adapted for other scenarios . Concerto is built on top of the Harmoni Application Framework (also developed by Middlebury College). This seems to be a generic architecture for the development of many types of information management solutions so potentially offers the potential to extend the product further by leveraging the framework. The GPL2 licence presents few issues for third party developers (although integration with other solutions is subject to the usual restrictions with any GPL code).
Summary: Aimed at a university/higher education usage scenario, Concerto is preservation oriented but has enough general DAM capabilities to make it potentially a good all round solution
Licence: GPL2
Download link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=88266&package_id=164762
Technology: PHP, MySQL or Postgres
Website: http://concerto.sourceforge.net/
DSpace is a framework for developing Digital Asset Management solutions. Developed by HP and MIT Libraries, it is used extensively by academic and research organisations which makes it well suited for preservation usage scenarios. DSpace implementations are organised into Communities which have responsibility for Collections which are in turn composed of assets. DSpace is highly configurable and includes a flexible workflow for applying metadata to assets that will suit complex metadata. Those seeking a more straightforward Digital Asset Management solution may find this software too complex and academically oriented for their needs, however, there can be no denying the power and flexibility of the underlying software.
Summary: Highly research/academically oriented, however, very powerful and suitable for complex preservation requirements.
Licence: BSD
Download link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dspace/
Technology: Java, Oracle or Postgres
Website: http://www.dspace.org
Fedora stands for “Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture” and should not be confused with the Fedora Linux operating system distribution. With the exception of DSpace, Fedora Commons differs from more conventional DAMs because it does not impose a particular metadata framework (which they nearly all do in one way or another) and has a very flexible series of object models based around its own FOXML (Fedora Object XML) schema. This flexibility comes at the expense of a steep learning curve and a fairly complex set up (see the note below). If your interest in DAM is providing a relatively conventional system for business/marketing purposes Fedora Commons is likely to be too complex and time consuming when compared with other alternatives, however, if you interested lies towards preservation, curatorial/museum oriented projects then Fedora Commons has to be on your short list.
Summary: Along similar lines to DSpace, Fedora Commons is an open source framework for DAM rather than a packaged DAM product with an open source licence. Fedora Commons’ key benefits are flexibility and interoperability, however, these come at the price of a relatively complex implementation and deployment process when compared with other alternatives.
Licence: Apache 2.0
Download link: http://www.fedora-commons.org/software
Technology: Java
Website: http://www.fedora-commons.org
Notes: For those struggling with installation, this Fedora Commons howto is highly recommended (for Debian at least).
Greenstone is developed by The New Zealand Digital Library Project (which is part of the University of Waikato in New Zealand). This is more an application to help generated digital libraries than a regular DAM. For example, while most of the systems listed here provide a web based UI and either a database or XML representation, Greenstone uses a desktop client which will produce an HTML library using Perl which you can use via a web browser (it does include a client also though, the “GLI Client” which enables remote management of a collection on a remote server). This approach provides some benefits and drawbacks. The benefit is that repositories can be transferred to media like CD-ROMs and the system can be built without a database or other back-end. The drawback is that libraries are created for others to use, rather than a collaborative, interactive web based system. Greenstone uses a powerful macro language and contains hooks that can be integrated with C++ and other modules. There is undeniably a great deal of power and sophistication in this product but it’s appears more ‘read only’ in terms of its orientation (at least that is the impression given).
A short overview like this can’t really summarise a product like this because of the range of capabilities offered and the mode of delivery isn’t conventional for what many have come to expect for a DAM system. Therefore, we would advise librarians especially to closely inspect the comprehensive information on the Greenstone website to decide if it meets their needs better than some of the alternatives discussed here. We welcome clarification comments from any of the Greenstone managers or developers to correct our misinterpretations.
Summary: Aimed at librarians especially but not designed or implemented in a way that is conventional for modern generalist DAM systems (especially those for corporate/marketing use). This could be both an advantage or disadvantage depending on your needs.
Technology: Perl, C++, HTML
Licence: GPL
Download link: http://www.greenstone.org/download
Website: http://www.greenstone.org
Conclusion
As should be clear to readers, there are now a wide range of choices available in the open source DAM market and options to suit the majority of different needs. Over the forthcoming months, we intend to revisit this list and provide further detail on each of the products presented as well as new entrants to the market.
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