DAM Wiki

Phraseanet Features

Alchemy · Paris, France · Founded 1996 · independent (privately held French SARL)Verified 2026-10-29 · 79 sources
  • SaaS
  • On-premise
  • SMB to enterprise (companies, public sector, photographers)
  • REST API
  • OpenAPI spec
  • Webhooks
  • SAML · OIDC SSO
Complete · 7 of 7 pages
79sources
3API specs
10-29verified 2026
Official website ↗Phraseanet alternatives →

Each section covers Phrasea (the current product, Databox / Expose / Uploader, release line 4.x) first, then Phraseanet 4.1 (the legacy product, still maintained). Sources: README files and technical docs from the vendor's GitHub repositories, product pages, and the Phraseanet 4.1 user and admin guides. Where the help center and the marketing pages differ, the technical docs win.

Ingestion & storage

Phrasea

  • Uploader app: file selector, drag and drop, clipboard or URL. Large files go up in multipart uploads S22. Interrupted transfers can resume S8.
  • Upload targets are set per user group. Each has a metadata form described in JSON Schema. A batch can be delivered to Databox, to Phraseanet (push or pull mode) or to a third-party endpoint S22 S32. The Uploader can sit outside the corporate network S8.
  • Databox: bulk import by drag and drop or folder browsing; pre-filled indexing through import templates S8 S22. An indexer (Node.js) creates assets from files already on a filesystem or S3 bucket, or from a Phraseanet base S22.
  • Referenced files: assets can point to external sources instead of storing the file. Since 4.5.1 an "Import files" task copies URL-referenced files to the main storage S23 S8.
  • Versions: file versions per asset (add-as-version, file-version history) S22 S39 S79.
  • Duplicates: file analyzers (checksum, filename, colour space, dimensions) and duplicate detection at ingest S22 S79.
  • Storage: S3-compatible object storage (MinIO in the bundled stack). Optional CloudFront in front of it S27 S34.
  • Formats and size limits: no published list of supported formats or maximum file size (Unknown). Renditions cover images, documents (via LibreOffice and PDF) and audio/video (via FFmpeg) S22.

Phraseanet 4.1

  • Upload in the web app, through the API (records/add) or with the Phrasea Uploader. Incoming files can be held in a quarantine (lazaret) by checkers such as SHA-256, UUID, colour space, dimensions, extension, filename and media type S56 S61 S73.
  • Sub-definitions (renditions) are generated by worker processes S19 S60.

Metadata & taxonomy

Phrasea

  • Attributes: configurable fields per workspace, multilingual, single or batch editing S22 S8. Field types include text, number, date, geo point and entity (values taken from managed entity lists, e.g. a person list) S30 S31.
  • Entity lists support pending, approved and rejected values, synonyms, translations, emojis and colours, plus merging of values (since 4.0.0) S23.
  • Templates: asset-data templates fill attributes at import, and a low-code templating engine computes fields from technical data or other attributes S8 S39.
  • Embedded metadata: read from source files on ingest S22. The vendor says it reads and writes IPTC, XMP, Exif, MP3/ID3, PDF, DICOM and Office metadata S8.
  • Tags apply cross-cutting access rights S8.

Phraseanet 4.1

  • Metadata management with Dublin Core mapping and a thesaurus (its own interface, candidate terms, thesaurus-aware search) S19 S61.
  • Status bits on records (used for rights and workflow), and batch editing of "documentary notes" S61 S50.
  • Metadata is written back into files by background tasks S60.

Search & discovery

Phrasea

  • Elasticsearch search: full text, facets, sorting, suggestions, saved searches S22. Results can be grouped into sections S8.
  • AQL (Asset Query Language): conditions such as IS, BETWEEN, HAS ALL OF, CONTAINS, MATCHES, WITHIN CIRCLE. One syntax serves the API, saved searches, filter rules and the condition builder S31.
  • Map view of assets with geo-point attributes S22.
  • Visual similarity: CLIP embeddings with Elasticsearch kNN ("Similar assets", "Find similar"), filtered by permissions, from the self-hosted similarity-embedder service S30.
  • Users can pin, hide and reorder facets ("display profiles", 4.0.0) S23.
  • Natural-language search: not documented (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1

  • Elasticsearch engine S19 S56. Full-text queries with operators (e.g. dogs OR cats), date fields, thesaurus terms; search across records or stories S50 S61.

AI capabilities

Phrasea: AI runs as integrations inside workflows or as user actions S30.

CapabilityHowWhere it runs
Image labels, text detection, faces (detection)AWS Rekognition integrationAWS (third party) S30
TranscriptionAWS Transcribe; Happyscribe (transcription and subtitles)Third party S30
TranslationAWS TranslateAWS S30
Background removalremove.bgThird party S30
Visual similarity searchCLIP embeddings (similarity-embedder)Self-hosted S30
Face recognition (detect and name people, propagate names)InsightFace buffalo_l (face-recognition service)Self-hosted, "no data leaves the platform" S30
Keyword suggestion, OCR, colour analysisMarketing claims; Clarifai is named as an integration S8 S9Unverified Clarifai does not appear in the "exhaustive" integration list of the technical docs S30
  • Governance / opt-out: each AI feature is an integration that an admin enables per workspace. Third-party services need their own API keys (secrets are stored per workspace) S30. No AI usage policy was found (Unknown).
  • Generative AI: none documented (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1: no built-in AI in the 4.1 docs (Unknown). AI tagging is a Phrasea selling point S8.

Organization

Phrasea: workspaces → nested collections → assets. Also stories (assets grouping other assets), baskets (personal selections that can be shared or published), saved searches S22. Pages (CMS-style pages in Databox) S39. Parade adds a branded portal with home pages, selections and news S14.

Phraseanet 4.1: databases ("databoxes") → collections → records. Stories, baskets and RSS-style feeds/publications S61 S46.

Workflow & collaboration

Phrasea

  • Workflow engine: jobs run on ingest or on demand. It handles dependencies, parallel jobs, failure handling and restarts, and shows a live status view; workflows can be cancelled and jobs rerun S22 S39 S8. A moderation step is available as an integration S30.
  • Saved-search automations run actions (webhooks among them) on assets matching a saved search S79.
  • Collaboration: visual annotations, discussion threads with mentions, notifications, follow/unfollow of assets and collections S22 S39.
  • Image editing: Toast UI Photo Editor integration saves edits as a new file version S30.
  • Creative-tool plugins (Adobe, Figma…): none found for Phrasea (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1: Push (send media to users) and Feedback (approval/validation) with the Lightbox review interface, comments and side-by-side comparison; order management S61 S19 S73.

Rights & governance

Phrasea

  • Access control on workspaces, collections and assets, for users and groups. Owners choose private, organisation-wide or public visibility S22 S8.
  • Asset, attribute and rendition policies and attribute filter rules S39. "Extra permissions" were added in 4.0.0 S23.
  • Terms & conditions per workspace, with signature tracking (4.5.0) S23 S39.
  • Watermark integration S30.
  • Moderation step and a quarantine bypass for assets S30 S79.
  • Usage-rights expiry, embargo, retention: not documented (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1: per-collection rights and status-bit-based restrictions ("Advanced Rights Management"); terms of use per database; download orders S19 S46 S61.

Distribution & delivery

Phrasea

  • Share links, permanent or time-limited, for one asset or several (multi-asset sharing in 4.5.0). Public share pages are rendered server-side S22 S23.
  • Expose: web publications with download, gallery and lightbox layouts. Access can be public, password-protected or authenticated, with terms of use, slugs, direct URLs and a publication tree. Publications sync from Databox baskets. Custom CSS, iframe embedding, single or batch downloads S22 S8.
  • Renditions are defined per workspace and can depend on other renditions S30. CDN delivery through CloudFront is optional S34.
  • Dynamic URL transformations (DAM-as-a-CDN): not documented (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1: permalinks, publication feeds, export and print, embed codes for third-party sites S61 S42. Legacy bridges publish to YouTube, Dailymotion and Flickr S58.

Video & rich media

Phrasea: FFmpeg-based renditions (MP4, WebM, MKV, QuickTime, MPEG, OGV, audio formats, animated GIF/WebP/PNG, video summaries); subtitles through Happyscribe; video embed through Expose S22 S30 S8. Streaming protocols (HLS/DASH) and 3D: not documented (Unknown).

Phraseanet 4.1: "video tools" and sub-definitions for video; H.264 pseudo-streaming support in the code S19.

Analytics & reporting

Phrasea: optional Matomo tracking of page views, asset views, video playback and interactions. The API returns per-asset metrics (GET/assets/{id}/metrics) S33. A separate Report service collects events from the other services S22 S27.

Phraseanet 4.1: Report module for usage statistics S19 S61 S73.

Administration

Phrasea

  • Identity: users, groups and roles in Keycloak. SSO with external IdPs (OIDC, SAML, Active Directory), MFA S28. SCIM provisioning: not documented (Unknown).
  • Configuration: a configurator service generates the per-tenant configuration. Admin back offices are built with EasyAdmin S22 S36.
  • Multi-instance: several Expose instances can run side by side with distinct APP_IDs S22.
  • Real-time updates: Sockudo WebSocket server S22.
  • Operations: backup/restore and operating-task docs; the bundled containers are described as dev/test-grade and need hardening for production S27.

Phraseanet 4.1: Admin interface (databases, collections, users), task manager and worker manager, console commands, plugins S60 S61.

Search the wiki