Want to jump straight to the answer? The best digital asset management software for most people is CoSchedule Asset Organizer or Wedia.
Digital asset management (DAM) software is a tool to organize, share, track, and distribute a company’s digital assets. This includes documents, images, videos, audio files, animations, or any other piece of media content saved in electronic format.
DAM software allows you to assign metadata to each asset with a unique description, making it easier to search and filter files at scale.
The Top 11 Best Digital Asset Management Software
- CoSchedule Asset Organizer – Best for marketing teams
- Wedia – Best for managing licenses and copyrights
- Filerobot by Scaleflex – Best all-in-one DAM software
- Canto – Best for large organizations
- Brandfolder – Best easy-to-use asset management
- Adobe Experience Manager Assets – Best for advanced users
- IntelligenceBank – Best DAM software for creative collaboration
- Cloudinary – Best free digital asset management software
- Extensis Portfolio – Best DAM software for content creators
- Widen – Best DAM software for midsize organizations
- MediaValet – Best for organizing gigantic asset libraries
There are eleven digital asset management tools that I can confidently recommend. Use this guide to find more information about the features, benefits, prices, use cases, and potential drawbacks of each one.
CoSchedule Asset Organizer — Best For Marketing Teams
- Comes with marketing suite
- Secure file sharing
- Custom taxonomies
- 14 day free trial
CoSchedule Asset Organizer is one of five products in the CoSchedule Marketing Suite. In addition to DAM software, you’ll also get tools for organizing content, managing your marketing calendar, and more.
The platform makes it easy for marketing teams to store, index, and share digital content.
Highlights of this software include:
- File storage with custom taxonomies
- Cross-department file sharing
- Built-in version controls
- Tools to avoid duplicate content
- Secure file sharing
Unfortunately, the CoSchedule Asset Organizer can’t be purchased on its own—you’ll need to get the entire CoSchedule Marketing Suite. The upside of this is that you’ll have lots of other tools at your disposal. The drawback is that you might be paying extra for tools you don’t need.
So I’d only recommend this software to marketing teams. You can try it free for 14 days before you get started.
Wedia — Best For Managing Licenses and Copyrights
- Watermarking capabilities
- Attach copyright info to assets
- Simplified asset sharing
- Manage user permissions
Wedia is an enterprise-grade digital asset management tool built for larger organizations. It’s versatile enough to support the needs of both sales and marketing across a wide range of different industries.
The platform helps streamline everything from ideation to production, control, and delivery of all rich media assets. This includes all brand photos, videos, 3D files, banners, and more. It even helps brands manage marketing assets for advertisements, flyers, and POS materials.
Compliance and brand control are two areas where Wedia really separates itself from other DAM tools on the market. The software gives brands complete control and total visibility over all media assets. This allows brands to manage issues related to regulatory compliance and third-party licensing.
With one link, you can share a single asset or a collection of assets with internal collaborators or external agencies. Then you can manage permissions based on role to control who has access to certain assets and who can view, edit, or download files.
Wedia lets you attach copyright and licensing information to each individual asset in your library. This prevents the use of unauthorized assets from being distributed online. You can even add watermarks to your pictures and videos.
Everyone who accesses an asset will have detailed information about its usage restrictions, including where it can be disturbed and when it expires. This granular level of control helps organizations deliver a consistent and unified brand message and experience when managing hundreds or thousands of brand assets across multiple channels.
Book a demo to find out how Wedia can help your organization simplify digital asset management at scale.
Filerobot by Scaleflex — Best All-in-One DAM Software
- Single source of truth for assets
- Edit directly in Filerobot
- Works with any app or OS
- Collaborative marketing tools
Filerobot by Scaleflex cuts down on the other tools you need to oversee digital assets across dozens of platforms. Optimize media performance and streamline operations in the same sleek DAM system.
If you work with a wide range of media assets, you can see how this would save so much time. Don’t worry about having to jump into a separate design tool to optimize, tag, or resize images–you can handle that directly in the platform.
Companies with asset-heavy content can recognize the benefits right away. It’s far easier to stay organized, no matter where your media assets live. Deploy new content with confidence–roll back changes with ease.
I definitely recommend Filerobot by Scaleflex for real estate, ecommerce, finance, automotive and other industries where fast-loading images and videos have a high impact on customer experience.
Show that 360-degree view of the new apartment or truck–know that it’s going to look great for potential buyers, every time.
Some of the standout features include:
- Automated workflows
- Asset rights management
- Approvals and expirations
- Customizable user views
- Secure sharing with external users
- AI-powered asset tagging
- Inline image editor
- Worldwide CDN acceleration
You can purchase Scaleflex’s media performance tool, Cloudimage, as a standalone solution without their DAM.
It’s a handy tool, but most readers of this post will be interested in Filerobot, their world class DAM software. It comes in two versions.
For developers, Scaleflex offers Filerobot as a Headless DAM, which can serve media assets to virtually any device, channel, or application. It’s API-first, which allows for custom integrations to be built for any scenario.
If you want non-developers to take advantage of Filerobot by Scaleflex, you’ll want their Collaborative DAM. Think of this as a user-friendly platform for your marketing team, but built on the same tech as their Headless DAM.
The welcoming Asset Hub allows users to work from anywhere in an intuitive, modern interface. They can comment on assets, view the change log, archive unused content for later, and more. It’s all clicks and very streamlined.
Once you see how it works, you’ll understand why it’s a total game changer. Request a demo of Filerobot by Scaleflex today.
Canto — Best for Large Organizations
- Automatically organize by file type
- Advanced search and filter
- Custom sharing capabilities
- Digital rights management
Canto is my top pick for DAM software for large organizations. Founded 25+ years ago, Canto is a pioneer in the digital asset management industry. Over the years, they’ve quickly adapted to the times and changing needs of their customers.
They have deep integrations with a stunning variety of software, which means it can work across a large org where different departments are using different tools.
It’s no surprise then that Canto is used by 2,500+ businesses, including Ralph Lauren, NASA, American Red Cross, Harvard University, United Airlines, and more.
Add digital assets to folders, albums, or smart albums that automatically organize files by asset type, such as image, video, document, presentation, and other types of file formats.
Some of the top features and benefits of Canto include:
- Simple default search
- Advanced search tools
- Filters
- Facial recognition
- Custom shared libraries
- Sharing links
- Expiring share links (for time-sensitive content)
- Advanced download options
- Visual previews
- Branding tools
- User permissions
- Collaboration tools
- Security features
- Reporting
The list goes on and on. Overall, Canto has everything you could possibly need in software for digital asset management.
Canto integrates with a wide range of tools and platforms that you’re already using, like Slack LinkedIn, WordPress, Google Drive, MailChimp, and more.
This DAM software is highly secure. It runs on AWS, one of the fastest and most flexible cloud systems on the market today. You can set custom permissions and easily apply digital rights management to protect your assets.
Pricing is not available online. Request a custom quote and start your free trial.
Brandfolder — Best Easy-to-Use Digital Asset Management
- Asset performance insights
- Industry and role-based solutions
- Privacy controls
- Branding tools
Brandfolder is another top-rated DAM software. It’s used by startups, Fortune 500s, and everything in between.
For such a feature-rich software, Brandfolder stands out from the crowd due to its simplicity. You don’t need to be tech-savvy to navigate this enterprise-grade tool.
The software has a feature called Brand Intelligence, which uses AI and machine learning to identify your top-performing content, tell you who is using your assets, and how they’re being used.
With Brandfolder, you can easily distribute assets, collections of assets, and even an entire folder of assets using privacy controls, CDN embed links, and user-specific permissions.
I like Brandfolder because the software offers specific solutions for various use-cases. They offer DAM software for different industries, such as:
- Agencies
- Food and beverage
- Retail
- Manufacturing
- Franchises
- Sports
- Technology
You can also get a role-based version of Brandfolder, for categories like marketers, CMOs, creatives, brand managers, and creative operations.
If you’re using Brandfolder, rest assured knowing your files are safe and secure in this cloud-based central source of truth for your digital assets.
Request a custom quote and schedule a demo to get started.
Adobe Experience Manager Assets — Best For Advanced Users
- Robust and feature-rich
- Advanced automations
- Supports VR and AR files
- Supports 3D and panoramic files
Any time you’re getting software from Adobe, you know that you’re in good hands. Adobe Experience Manager assets is no exception; the software is robust and feature-rich.
This cloud-native DAM software helps organizations manage thousands of digital assets at scale.
The asset automation here is second to none. You’ll benefit AI that automatically tags files, crops images, distributes assets, and more. Adobe’s automated tools for asset management perform tasks in minutes that would normally take hours.
Top features of Adobe Experience Manager Assets include:
- Asset check-out
- Asset collections
- Asset insights
- Brand portal tools
- Advanced file type support, including 3D, panoramic, VR, and AR
- File version history
- Multilingual asset management
Adobe Experience Manager Assets is not for beginners. Some of the advanced features require some technical knowledge to use and understand. So if you’re just looking for basic file storage and sharing capabilities, you’ll probably find this software confusing.
With that said, Adobe Experience Manager Assets is a tech lover’s dream. You’ll be able to manage the complete lifecycle of your assets and benefit from advanced insights on asset performance.
Request a quote to learn more and get started.
IntelligenceBank — Best DAM Software For Creative Collaboration
- Built for content marketers
- Collaborate with internal and external teams
- Seamless integrations
- Branding and marketing tools
IntelligenceBank is a digital asset management solution for content marketing. The software helps businesses create, manage, share, and distribute digital assets.
In addition to providing creative professionals with a central location for digital files, you’ll also benefit from metadata tagging with AI technology from the same platform.
Log in with SSO and access the platform directly from platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Adobe Creative Cloud, and hundreds more. Leverage pre-configured workflow integrations with technology like Slack, Asana, Facebook, Dropbox, Shopify, and anything else you’re using.
With IntelligenceBank, you can upload any type of file from any source. The software makes it easy to manage the usage and talent rights of your assets. It supports bulk uploads, comments, version controls, multiple image views, previews, alerts, watermarks, and much more.
Top features of IntelligenceBank include:
- Public link tracking and analytics
- Image conversion
- Creative collaboration tools with internal and external teams
- Auto keyword tagging
- Advanced search and global filters
- Video transformation
- Custom branding
- Secure hosting and daily backups
- Custom storage configuration
In addition to DAM software, IntelligenceBank has plans and packages for branding and marketing operations. You’ll need to request a quote from the sales team to learn more.
It’s worth noting that all features don’t come standard out of the box. IntelligenceBank has optional services and add-ons for things like SSO, two-factor authentication, creative templates, and more.
Cloudinary — Best Free Digital Asset Management Software
- Free for basic use
- Paid plans start at $89
- Suitable for individual users
- Built to scale
Cloudinary is trusted by 6,000+ businesses and 600,000+ developers. Petco, Whole Foods, Peloton, Under Armor, Lyft, and Sony are just a handful of well-known brands that use this software.
While most DAM software is built for enterprises out of the box, Cloudinary has plans for individual users, developers, small businesses, and small teams.
Cloudinary comes standard with basic DAM features like file storage, image manipulation, image optimization, video APIs, collaboration tools, integrations, and more.
Here’s a quick look at the Cloudinary plans and pricing:
- Free — $0
- Plus — $89 per month
- Advanced — $224 per month
- Custom — Request a quote
The Free and Plus plans both have a single user limit. So it’s not ideal for managing assets at scale. The Advanced plan supports up to five users. For larger teams, you’ll need a custom solution.
Cloudinary’s plans are a bit confusing. Depending on your tier, you’ll get a certain number of monthly credits, which go towards things like file transformations, storage, or net viewing bandwidth. So there will be some limitations, but the trade-off is cheap pricing.
Extensis Portfolio — Best DAM Software For Content Creators
- Supports multiple file types
- Easy to share media assets
- Automated workflows
- Plans for all team sizes
Extensis Portfolio is a single tool for digital asset management and brand asset management. It’s a central source for your images, videos, audio files, documents, and more.
The software is perfect for managing content across multiple brands, projects, or clients, which is why it’s such a popular choice for content creators. Ultimately, Extensis Portfolio will help you save time and make your life easier in terms of organizing and sharing media assets at scale.
Some of the top features and benefits of Extensis Portfolio include:
- Automatic keyword tagging
- Fast and easy uploads
- Robust search tools
- Automated workflows
- Drag and drop files
- Share assets with web builder
- Flexible deployment
- Supports multiple files including large satellite and aerial images
Extensis Portfolio has solutions that fit the needs of individuals, small teams, businesses, and enterprises.
Widen — Best DAM Software For Midsize Organizations
- Enterprise-grade security
- Auto file tagging
- File conversions
- Asset rights management
Widen DAM is a cloud-based software for SMEs. The solution is ideal for managing assets at scale.
For an enterprise-grade solution, the software is actually fairly easy to use. Widen has been around for 70+ years. But you wouldn’t know it by using this solution. The interface has a clean and modern dashboard that allows you to manage the complete lifecycle for all assets.
Some of the top features and benefits of the Widen DAM include:
- Enterprise-grade security
- Asset rights management
- File conversions
- Embed codes and sharing links
- Asset analytics
- Full previews
- Automatic tagging
- Version controls
- Full previews
- Faceted search
- User roles and permissions
- Global CDN
- Custom notifications
In addition to DAM software, Widen offers solutions for brand management, market resource management, and product information management.
For larger organizations with hundreds or thousands of complex digital assets, Widen DAM will be a top choice to consider.
To get started, you’ll have to request a demo. A Widen representative will take the time to understand your business needs during a 30-minute call before providing you with a custom demo for your team.
MediaValet — Best for Organizing Gigantic Asset Libraries
- AI-powered tagging
- Incredibly advanced search functions
- Branded portal for external requests
- Unlimited users and libraries
If your organization has been around for a while, you’ve likely built up a library of media assets. Between sales collateral, marketing material, company branding, and internal-use files, finding what you need in the moment can be a headache.
No more trudging through folder after folder of old assets—with MediaValet you get incredible capability to store, organize, search through, and distribute your documents, images, videos, and more.
The software uses a cloud-based, centralized interface. Uploading and downloading are simple, even if with terabytes worth of assets. MediaValet allows unlimited users, so no matter how large or spread out your team is, they’ll be able to add newly created assets to your library or access them for sales presentations, marketing projects, or anything else in a snap.
Plus, MediaValet helps you intelligently tag your new assets. The smart AI built into the software can auto-tag images and videos by recognizing details like color, objects shown, people (including their age, gender, and even facial expression), text, and more. Smart transcription helps with videos and can even be translated into other languages.
This bolsters the search functionality in MediaValet. Old assets without detailed tags can be meticulously filtered. You can combine filters through Boolean operators and filter by status to create complex searches.
Searches can be saved for routine needs and shared with other users.
So, with all this power, you’ll never again have to worry about spending half an hour to find one asset out of thousands.
MediaValet isn’t just for organizing your internal library, though. Easily send items of any size to clients, partners, or anyone else outside your organization. You can also create a branded portal for requesting assets. That allows visitors to choose their preferred format, size, and even color scheme. And the software will automatically add watermarks if you need it to.
That’s the tip of the iceberg. MediaValet is made for serious operations that both need to keep their assets well-sorted and to update, edit, share, publish, track, and analyze everything you’re creating and putting out into the world.
This is powerful digital asset management software that can elevate every aspect of your team’s operations. Appropriately, pricing is customized to each MediaValet client, but you can start with a free demo today.
How to Find the Best Digital Asset Management Software For You
Finding the best digital asset management software for your business can be difficult if you don’t know what to look for. Everyone has unique needs when it comes to managing digital assets.
To make things easier, I’ve identified the top factors that need to be taken into consideration while you’re shopping around. This is the methodology that I used to choose the top DAM software on the market today.
DAM Category
What exactly are you planning to do with the assets you’re looking to manage? There are different types of asset management software that accommodate varying needs and use cases. Here are some DAM categories:
- Asset management for marketing and sales material (logos, product images, etc.)
- Store and retrieve large quantities of media assets that don’t change
- Store and organize assets that are changing frequently
- Distribute digital assets to clients, third-parties, or digital retailers
Within each category, there are certain features that you’d need. For example, if you just want a place to store your files, a feature for content rights management isn’t really necessary for you. But this will be a top feature for businesses distributing digital assets to third-parties.
If you’re going to change assets and collaborate with team members, look for DAM software that allows you to edit, convert, and change what you need within the platform.
Asset Types
Not every DAM software supports every single file type.
For the most part, image files, video files, audio files, and basic documents are easy to accommodate on every platform. But some businesses have complex files, such as augmented reality files, virtual reality files, 3D files, panoramic files, and more.
Make sure the solution you choose can support the assets you currently have as well as the assets you plan to create moving forward.
User Type
Certain digital asset management software is designed for use-case specific solutions.
For example, there is DAM software for marketing teams. There are other DAM solutions for content creators and others for creative collaboration. There are solutions for individual users, developers, small business owners, and more.
It’s always in your best interest to find digital asset management software that appeals to the ultimate end-user. While many solutions on our list can be customized to fit your needs, it should be fairly obvious who the target market for each platform is. If you’re unsure, just refer to the reviews in this guide.
Team Size
A small team of content creators or a solo developer won’t have the same needs as a mid-sized enterprise.
Most DAM software is considered to be enterprise-grade. However, there are many solutions for smaller teams, and you can even find free DAM software for single users.
Best Digital Asset Management Software: Your Top Questions Answered
The Top Digital Asset Management Software in Summary
DAM software streamlines access to your digital assets, keeps them secure, and allows you to manage the complete lifecycle of your digital assets—from creation to archiving.
Without digital asset management software, organizations must use multiple platforms to manage their digital assets. This approach might be fine for a few dozen assets. But when your digital asset collection reaches the hundreds and thousands, this way of managing them quickly becomes inefficient.
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