Are you looking into Cloudinary? With a lot of conflicting information out there on review websites, choosing a digital asset management system can be hard.
Whether you want to deliver images and videos, leverage lazy loading technology, transform images or simply develop your composable stack into something more, Cloudinary has loads of features that can be confusing even for the most experienced pros.
So, to help you in your search, we produced this comprehensive write-up on our competitor to help you make sure you get the best solutions for your company.
This article covers everything you need to know about Cloudinary, its key features, and the top six Cloudinary alternatives, so you know what each system has to offer.
What is Cloudinary?
Cloudinary is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider for managing all web or mobile application media assets in the cloud. This is a long winded way of saying digital asset management software.
It offers an end-to-end solution for all image and video needs, including upload, storage, administration, transformation, and optimised delivery.
As a cloud storage solution, it also helps you organise assets, serve images for the web, and manage your media library.
Cloudinary’s media asset management service includes fast CDN servers for fast upload and download rates, highly available cloud storage for safe and always available assets, and high-performance media portals and processing servers for creating web assets.
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Free download nowCloudinary’s Core Features
Cloudinary has a wide range of features that make it an appealing option for many businesses. You can upload digital assets, store them, and even share them with your partners. However, there are some areas where the digital asset management solution could be improved – especially within the e-commerce industry.
Here are some of the highlights:
Automated Image and Video Lifecycles
Cloudinary uses programmable media APIs to automate many of the processes associated with managing creative assets and content lifecycles. It offers smart cropping of images, helps you manage content, analyze assets, and deliver images and videos to your front end.
The downside of this feature is that it requires a large team of developers to implement it correctly.
Digital Asset Management
To streamline the automation of content lifecycles, Cloudinary also provides a comprehensive digital asset management system. You can create, publish, and monitor content all in one single platform before sharing it with internal and external stakeholders.
However, the problem with the Cloudinary digital asset management solution is that it requires a ton of maintenance. Though you’ll be saving time on content development, you’ll also need a large team to run it.
Creative Automation
One of the key features Cloudinary offers, the creative automation function is a template and banner editor that marketers can use to scale “transformative visual experiences”.
The downside of this is of course that it needs to be quality controlled, so your team will still spend time creating digital assets.
Media Library
The Cloudinary media library helps you optimise new and existing web assets from a single location. In terms of digital asset management software products, it supports your business in creating, managing, and optimising projects while protecting your sensitive data.
Cloudinary Product Gallery
The Cloudinary product gallery provides an interactive user interface for displaying product images and videos and other rich media to people on your website. That means online shops can provide visual experiences to anyone who lands on their website.
What it doesn’t do is product content syndication, which helps you put video, 3D models, and other parts of your product media library on websites that are not yours.
Note: Check out our product content syndication for brands to learn how you can deliver stunning visual experiences including your brand’s product images and videos to the point of sale with a single click.
Cloudinary as a Platform
With its wide range of advanced features, Cloudinary has become a popular choice among developers and businesses. However, with the growing demand for better ways to deliver images, distribute assets, and manage digital content, many people are looking for an alternative.
Luckily, several of our clients used to use the Cloudinary DAM in the past, so we know why it works for some organisations but not for others.
The following sections cover the software’s pros and cons, plus seven other popular alternatives to Cloudinary, starting with DemoUp Cliplister’s digital asset management software.
Pros & Cons of Cloudinary
As with all software, Cloudinary comes with many pros and cons depending on what you need it to do. At the end of the day, you want to find the best way to manage media assets and content workflows so you can find the best fit for your company size.
What Cloudinary Does Well
The reason Cloudinary is so popular is that it allows you to perform several digital asset management functions at a scale large enough for enterprises. It works well for businesses of all sizes and, in terms of a learning curve, is more user-friendly than its competitors.
It’s also great for managing product images. The ability to transform images and videos based on end-user devices (also known as smart cropping) is what put Cloudinary on the map.
It can also help with lazy loading and the aforementioned smart cropping so you can deliver images to the front end of your website quickly and easily integrate visual experiences.
This is important when asset libraries continue expanding and must scale with today’s media-hungry consumers.
Why People Look for Alternatives to Cloudinary
On the other hand, Cloudinary comes with pre-defined workflows. This means it misses the mark in terms of flexibility. Video management is a complicated process and workflows are unique to each business.
The platform’s one-size-fits-all approach means that many businesses may find it quite constrained in comparison to Cloudinary alternatives. Furthermore, it requires technical expertise on your side, which means you may need to factor in the cost of hiring additional personnel to manage the software.
The company also doesn’t provide any content creation services, like user-generated review videos or 3D/AR model production. Which is important for many brands looking to deliver compelling product communication in today’s video-first world.
DemoUp Cliplister: The Top Cloudinary Alternative
DemoUp Cliplister is a cloud-based digital asset management platform that provides a central platform with cloud storage for managing, organising, and sharing images, videos, or any other file type.
You have access to essential features for asset management, including automated version control, automatic image optimisation (for responsive images), and flexible user permissions. The AI-search function means finding and accessing files is a breeze.
Furthermore, you can take advantage of a fully headless DAM option, which means you can customise the system and integrate it into any workflow via its powerful advanced programming interface (API) capabilities.
As far as Cloudinary alternatives go, DemoUp Cliplister has many features that make it a better fit for many businesses, especially within the e-commerce space.
While we could simply declare ourselves the best Cloudinary alternative and market ourselves to every type of business, that’s not helpful for anyone. Here are some of the features you get with DemoUp Cliplister:
AI-Powered Search
Find any asset quickly and easily with a built-in smart-search function. Find assets by file type, image composition, metadata properties, language, and more.
Advanced Metadata Tagging
The DemoUp Cliplister DAM platform simplifies digital asset management with advanced metadata tagging features like bulk editing and mismatch alerts.
Automatic Video Transcoding
DemoUp Cliplister’s DAM solution allows you to convert video files to any format to ensure compatibility with any device. This ensures you always play videos of the highest possible quality.
Dynamic Image Delivery
DemoUp Cliplister’s digital asset management software comes as a DAM and CDN, also known as a dynamic image delivery network, so the device requesting the asset always gets the most optimised version.
Headless DAM Capability
When you use the DAM system in its headless format, you can integrate the solution into any workflow. This helps you break free from predefined workflows found with many other solutions.
Live Connect API
The Live Connect API creates precisely formatted single-use assets and delivers them securely to connected online stores in a matter of milliseconds.
Simplified Version Control
Generate unlimited versions from one primary digital asset. Combined with its dynamic image CDN, you can generate custom sizes and formats automatically.
Creative Automation
To help you with content creation projects, we offer a suite of features to help you speed up production of creative assets.
You can create, manage, and store all your ad resources with our creative editor inside our cloud-based DAM system, and optimise workflows with dynamic templates, automatic format conversion and programmatic variables.
You also get effects like tilt shift, gradient fade, oil paint filters, and other functionality you can leverage to display optimised images and videos to increase engagement with your target audience.
Video Delivery & Syndication
With DemoUp Cliplister, e-commerce businesses can connect to a syndication network with over 2,000 brands and 450 retailers worldwide.
These are only some of the features available in the DemoUp Cliplister digital asset management platform. Sign up for a free trial today to see the entire system for yourself.
Cloudinary Plans & Pricing
The Cloudinary pricing structure is a freemium model that provides you limited access to some features on sign-up. However, this is inappropriate for most business settings.
Cloudinary uses a credit-based (also known as token-based in some regions) pricing system for its paid options, which historically has not gone down well with many customers.
Here is a breakdown of the Cloudinary offers and plans along with their costs:
- Cloudinary Free Tier
- 20 GB Storage
- 20,000 Monthly image transformations
- 10 GB Thumbnail storage
- 300,000 total images and videos
- Cloudinary Plus – $89 p.m.
- Expanded web capabilities
- 3 Users / 2 Accounts
- 225 Credits
- Cloudinary Advanced – $229 p.m.
- 5 Users / 3 Accounts
- Custom domain support
- Authentication options
- Cloudinary Enterprise – Price Undisclosed
- Adjustable users and accounts
- Multi-CDN delivery
- Designated Customer Success Manager
- User management and API access
As shown in the lists above, any plan below Cloudinary Enterprise is irrelevant for most business needs. Unless you are an entrepreneur or a founding-stage start-up, even small businesses will need the Enterprise Cloudinary plan, which can end up costing a fortune.
Also, it does not offer a way to easily upgrade from the free plan, as you must contact customer support before you can access the paid plans. Furthermore, it does not offer unlimited users at any tier in its plan.
DemoUp Cliplister Pricing
As DemoUp Cliplister is a B2B SaaS solution, we do not offer any free versions of our digital asset management (DAM) platform. All pricing is completely custom and flexible based on the needs of your tech stack.
DemoUp Cliplister also offers multiple CDNs, dynamic image and video delivery technology, and an API that will easily integrate into any workflow. It’s built to cater to any e-commerce brand or shop media, image and video management needs.
We customise the price of our system based on three factors:
- The number of licences you need
- The amount of storage you require in GB/TB
- How many assets you need to store
To get a quote, see our pricing structure, or learn more about how the DemoUp Cliplister DAM solution can help you maintain brand consistency, get in touch with one of our consultants using the link below.
Other Top Cloudinary Alternatives
The DAM space is a crowded market. There are several otsher options worth knowing about. Each option has its pros and cons, so we’ll break down five more competitors specialised in digital asset management.
Canto
Canto is a cloud-based DAM provider that allows you to manage, organise, review, and share web assets like images and videos. Canto provides features like customizable workflows, automatic image resizing, and advanced searches.
However, Canto is more expensive than most of the other alternatives listed here. Some of our clients’ team members struggled with the software’s user interface (UI)/user experience (UX), templates and loading times.
Coupled with a steep learning curve, and the fact there is no free plan, this DAM provider is not fit for a small business without dedicated teams.
Bynder
Bynder is a cloud-based DAM platform that acts as a central repository for storing, organising, and sharing digital assets, including images and videos.
Bynder offers features like version control, automatic image optimisation technology (called Dynamic Asset Transformation), and customizable workflows, which make it great for digital asset distribution on websites.
Bynder is also on the expensive side when it comes to DAM systems for what you get. It also lacks many integrations with third-party tools, and the interface can be difficult to learn.
The platform is known to struggle with finding assets unless you know where you store every piece of media. And many people report difficulties with reporting on and tracking asset performance.
Plus many former account holders say that customer support is hard to get unless you’re on the enterprise plan.
Aprimo
Aprimo is a cloud-based marketing operations solution that lets you manage, organise, and distribute digital assets. Aprimo offers features for brand management, campaign management, and automated workflows.
It also provides insights into your content and lets you know which partners are downloading specific assets, and can easily integrate into most composable stack solutions. However, it won’t help you deliver images and videos to the front end, as its strength lies in marketing resource management.
Because it’s a full-on marketing ops platform, Aprimo solutions are better suited for branding and marketing resource management than image optimisation and delivery. Plus, you’ll need a team of people skilled in marketing operations to make it power your company effectively.
Many customers also complain that the user interface is “not intuitive”. With so many new features the platform often lacks in performance, which is not great for businesses with expanding asset libraries or those looking to scale.
And, many former Aprimo clients say the advanced search makes it a struggle to find files and could be greatly improved.
Scaleflex
Scaleflex is a cloud-based image and video management platform for the web. It’s advertised scalable and flexible solution for managing rich media.
Scaleflex offers features like automatic image optimisation, real-time image and video processing, and advanced analytics in its DAM platform, known as Filerobot.
While this sounds great on the surface, Scaleflex is notorious for having a steep learning curve. It’s also not as comprehensive as other digital asset management solutions, as it focuses solely on videos and images.
Scaleflex also scores poorly in terms of file management. It can be hard to duplicate some files. The search function and batch modification (like metadata tags and descriptions) also need improvement.
Because it’s designed for web developers, many of our e-commerce customers report problems with editing and optimising images at scale.
Brandfolder
Brandfolder is a DAM software provider that offers a central repository for storing, organising, and sharing digital assets. Brandfolder comes with customizable workflows, automatic image optimisation, and advanced search capabilities.
However, the enterprise Brandfolder solution is quite expensive. Because it has a pre-defined front end, it’s also hard to integrate into your existing workflows and lacks integrations with many popular tools.
Each of these Cloudinary competitors offers unique features and capabilities. The best solution for your needs, though, depends on your specific requirements.
You should carefully evaluate each solution to determine which is best fit for your needs in terms of cost, scalability, storage, security, and other factors.
ImageKit Digital Asset Management
ImageKit is a cloud-based tool for media optimisation and management. It helps websites perform better by delivering fast-loading, high-quality images and videos. Key features include real-time transformations, automatic format conversion, and global CDN delivery.
While ImageKit is strong on optimisation, it lacks depth as a digital asset management (DAM) solution. Its features cater to developers, which makes it less user-friendly for non-technical teams. Many users find its interface hard to use when managing large media libraries.
File organisation and metadata tools are not advanced features as in other DAM software. The search function and batch editing feel basic. E-commerce users often struggle to scale workflows without developer help.
ImageKit is a solid choice for improving media performance but falls short as a full DAM solution compared with other Cloudinary alternatives.
How the Best Cloudinary Alternatives Compare
Here is a breakdown of how the best Cloudinary alternatives stack up:
As you can see, DemoUp Cliplister outperforms the competition in several categories.
Though we’re not the cheapest solution around, we designed our DAM to fit in the price range of most medium-to-large-sized brands and retailers while remaining scalable enough for global enterprises. We are committed to your success, so we will tell you if we don’t think we can help.
Conclusion
Cloudinary is a cloud-based solution that offers a range of digital asset management (DAM) and image and video manipulation capabilities.
It has several features including bulk image uploads and storage, content optimisation, asset transformations and manipulations, and helps you automatically create and optimise image files and other rich media.
On the other hand, there are several areas Cloudinary lacks compared to DemoUp Cliplister and other competitors. For instance, Cloudinary does not provide you with access to a network of brands and retailers, requires technical expertise, and is not easy to customise.
Therefore, it’s worth exploring alternatives to Cloudinary, so you can get the best digital asset management software for your requirements.
While it would be easy to declare ourselves the best, we invite you to see the power of the DemoUp Cliplister digital asset management platform for yourself.
Other Resources
If you’re interested in learning more about digital asset management, product content syndication, or content creation, check out the rest of the blog.
Otherwise, visit the homepage for a full overview of our products and services.
Cloudinary is a cloud-based media management platform used for storing, optimising, and delivering images and videos, facilitating seamless integration into web and mobile applications for efficient media handling.
Cloudinary offers a free plan with limited resources, including storage and bandwidth. However, any business application will require a paid plan, which can be quite expensive.
Cloudinary claims to be a leader in image and video optimisation, dynamic media transformation, and user-friendly integration. Its claims to have a robust API, comprehensive documentation, and developer-friendly tools, though some reviews say it’s hard to use.
Cloudinary features a broad range of companies in various industries like Bleacher Report, Hilton, minted, and Atlassian. This means it lacks features like content syndication required by many e-commerce companies.
DemoUp Cliplister and Cloudinary serve different purposes. Cloudinary is a comprehensive cloud-based platform for image and video management, offering optimisation and delivery services. DemoUp Cliplister focuses specifically on catering to the image and video management needs of e-commerce brands and shops, providing multiple CDNs, dynamic delivery technology, and an integrative API.
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