The best alternatives to Adobe experience Manager assets
(2025 review, pricing & open demos)
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Assets is incredibly powerful. It’s one of the most customizable, deeply integrated DAM systems out there, with features built for organizations running complex, multi-brand, multi-region operations. One drawback, though, is that it's only suiable for very large teams. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve tried AEM and ran into a wall. Maybe it was the cost. Maybe it took months to set up and still didn’t fit your workflows. Maybe your team just never adopted it.
If AEM is no longer working for you, or you never really got it off the ground, here are some DAM alternatives worth exploring:
✓ Tagbox
✓ Canto
✓ Bynder
✓ Air.inc
✓ Brandfolder
In this article, I’ll cover where AEM excels, where it tends to fall short, and how some of these alternatives stack up - especially for teams that value ease of use, strong AI, and faster setup.
AEM Assets - overview & pricing
Before diving into alternatives, let’s talk briefly about AEM. Adobe Experience Manager Assets is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud. It’s designed to handle DAM at enterprise scale - millions of assets, hundreds of users, integrations with Adobe Commerce, and more. If you already run your entire marketing stack on Adobe, it might make sense.
But for most teams, the issues start with access: there’s no public demo or self-service signup. You’ll need to go through Adobe or a partner. Setup can take months, and pricing is opaque. Based on customer reviews and industry sources, pricing usually starts at six figures annually. That’s not including implementation costs or consultants.
Why You Need An AEM Alternative
❌ Complexity and setup time
The most common complaint we hear is that AEM is complex. From configuring user permissions to building workflows and setting up taxonomies - it’s a beast. Even large teams often struggle to get everything up and running. For smaller teams, it’s often overkill.
❌ Limited self-service
Most teams can’t test AEM before buying. There’s no sandbox, no trial. Everything goes through Adobe’s sales process. And even once you’ve purchased, you’ll probably need a partner or technical team to get the basics in place.
❌ High cost
There’s the license cost (often well over $100k/year), but also the hidden costs - consultants, IT time, internal training, and the opportunity cost of delayed value. For teams who want something running next week - not next quarter - it’s a big tradeoff.
Tagbox.io - AI-powered DAM, without the baggage
Tagbox.io is built for modern teams who want a DAM that just works. It’s fast to set up, easy to use, and focused on powerful AI that helps teams stay organized without the overhead.
Custom AI tagging
Most DAMs offer auto-tagging with generic terms like "person" or "car." AEM can go further using its Smart Content Service and Adobe Sensei, which allows for training custom taxonomies to recognize your specific content. But it requires a large volume of training data, more setup, and often help from an implementation partner. Tagbox.io offers a simpler path to the same outcome. You can train the system to recognize your own products and concepts—like specific shoe models in a retail catalog, or different types of event furniture—without complex setup. It works out of the box and starts delivering relevant tags immediately.
Face recognition
Tagbox.io can identify and group photos of specific individuals automatically. Unlike AEM, which might recognize a "person" in an image, Tagbox.io helps you actually find "John from marketing" across thousands of photos - without manually tagging him each time.
See Tagbox's search in action:
AI Image search
You can search like you would in Google Images - by describing the scene, even if those words aren't in the file name or tags. You can also search by text within the image itself, like product names or signs. AEM supports text-in-image detection and some semantic search, but it’s less intuitive and often requires more setup to work smoothly.
Pricing
Tagbox’s pricing is transparent and available on its website. It has 4 different plans:
Solo Plan (free): 1,000 items and 3 users.
Studio Plan ($150/month): 5,000 items and 3 users.
Company Plan ($250/month): from 10,000 items with unlimited users, with expansion options.
Enterprise Plan: (custom pricing) API, custom AI tagging, unlimited integrations, and more.
Feature comparison
up and running in a week
Setting up a Digital Asset Management platformcan take months.
At Tagbox, we understand that a productivity tool is supposed to, well, help productivity, which is why our data migration team would love to help get organized within just one week of signing up.
.png)
AEM Assets vs. canto
Canto is one of the oldest players in the DAM market and is known for its reliability and ease of use, especially among nonprofits, universities, and smaller marketing teams.
Compared to AEM, Canto is far more accessible - both in terms of usability and pricing. But its AI capabilities are minimal.
While AEM offers custom AI models and taxonomy training through Adobe Sensei, Canto’s automation is mostly limited. They do offer face recognition, but there’s no semantic search, and no custom model support.
Setup time is shorter than AEM but still substantial. Canto typically falls in the $1,500 to $4,000/month range, depending on the plan and storage needs.
AEM assets vs. Air.inc
Air.inc is a newer player and has positioned itself as a more modern, collaborative alternative to traditional DAMs. Its interface is friendly and designed for visual workflows.
However, under the hood it lacks many of the advanced AI features that make platforms like AEM and Tagbox.io stand out.
There’s no face recognition or semantic image search, and organizing content at scale often means more manual work.
While it may be cheaper than AEM, teams looking for automation and fast asset discovery may find it limiting.
AEM assets vs. Bynder
Bynder is often considered a lighter, more user-friendly alternative to Adobe Experience Manager Assets.
It provides a polished interface and good support for brand management, including custom workflows, approval flows, and asset portals.
Unlike AEM, it’s easier to get started with and doesn’t require enterprise IT resources to maintain. However, the tradeoff is in the AI. Bynder’s auto-tagging is basic, and there’s no support for advanced semantic search, text-in-image, or AI customization like AEM’s Smart Content Service provides (albeit with complex setup).
Pricing typically starts around $1,500/month, scaling significantly based on usage.
AEM vs. Brandfolder
Brandfolder targets mid-to-large retail and consumer goods companies and includes support for brand guidelines (like colors and fonts) alongside traditional DAM features.
It’s well-designed, but similar to the others, Brandfolder’s AI is mostly limited to generic auto-tagging. There’s no custom AI training or visual understanding beyond surface-level attributes.
Setup often requires support from Brandfolder’s team, and while pricing isn’t public, expect enterprise rates in the $3,000–$10,000/month range depending on your scope.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Who should use AEM Assets?
AEM is best suited for large enterprises running complex digital ecosystems. If you’re already using Adobe products across your marketing and commerce stack, and have a dedicated IT team to manage setup and maintenance, AEM could be a fit. It’s especially relevant for multi-brand, multi-region organizations.
How much does AEM Assets cost?
Adobe doesn’t publicly share pricing for AEM Assets, but based on industry benchmarks and customer reviews, pricing generally starts around $100,000 per year. Onboarding, training, and integration can add significantly to that cost.
What are the top alternatives to AEM Assets?
The top alternatives include Tagbox.io, Bynder, Canto, Air.inc, and Brandfolder. These platforms offer simpler onboarding, more affordable pricing, and - at least in the case of Tagbox.io -much more powerful AI capabilities out of the box.
Get your assets organized
Try Tagbox for free