ResourceSpace is one open-source code base. Many capabilities ship as bundled plugins that an administrator enables in the Plugin Manager, so availability depends on configuration (and, for the AI tools, on a Montala hosting/support contract or the customer's own AI accounts). The release notes and roadmap name the version in which a feature appeared S21 S23. Facts below refer to version 11.0 (2026-06-29) unless stated otherwise.

Ingestion & storage

Upload paths:
- browser upload with the Uppy uploader (since 9.7) S21;
- chunked upload with "no restriction on maximum file size" S30;
- webcam upload (10.5) and bulk upload of alternative files through the CSV uploader (11.0) S21;
- CSV Upload plugin for bulk metadata import S21;
- external upload shares for third parties S21;
- API (upload_multipart, upload_file_by_url, create_resource) S4 S5 S1.
Cloud sources: Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Box through Uppy Companion, an open-source server that self-hosters must run themselves S66 S42.
Hot folders:
- StaticSync runs nightly and can either index files left in their existing folders or ingest them into the filestore S64;
- hosted packages include an SFTP drop folder for large volumes, with optional tagging from sub-folder names S27.
Formats: any file type can be stored, apart from blocked types such as .exe. Previews and transcoding rely on ImageMagick, FFmpeg, Ghostscript and ExifTool; LibreOffice previews Office files S73 S19 S30. FITS can extract technical metadata S74.
Versioning:
- alternative files per resource S1;
- batch replace;
- check-in/check-out resource locks (update_resource_lock API in 11.1) S24;
- a resource log with one-click revert of uploads and metadata edits, and batch undo per collection S46.
Duplicates: checksum-based detection, with an optional duplicate blocker S45.
Storage: a local filestore. Self-hosters can mount Amazon S3 with s3fs; there is no native object-storage driver documented S65. Hosted storage runs from 10 GB (free) to 50+ TB (Platinum) S27 S28.

Metadata & taxonomy

Resource types with their own field sets. Since 10.2 a field can belong to several resource types. "Data only" resource types hold records without files S21 S1.
Field types S71:
- single-line, multi-line and formatted (TinyMCE) text;
- check box list, drop-down and radio buttons;
- date, date-time, date range and expiry date;
- category tree and dynamic tag list;
- warning message.
Fixed-list values are stored as nodes with IDs. Options can be deprecated (10.4) S21 S1.
Controlled vocabularies: built from fixed-list field options; the vendor's guide uses Dublin Core as its example S72.
Embedded metadata: ExifTool read/write mapping (IPTC import since version 1.1). Since 10.7, metadata can be written into downloaded files S22 S6.
Required fields: required metadata must be completed before a workflow state change (10.7) S21.
Bulk editing: batch edit of selected resources; spreadsheet-style batch editing is in progress for 11.3 S23.
Geolocation: map-based geolocation (Leaflet), location fields and CSV import of coordinates (11.0) S21.
Metadata templates and lockable metadata are documented in the Knowledge Base S95.

Search & discovery

Search:
- keyword and full-text search with special search terms (exact string, field matches, wildcards);
- a simple search bar (moved into the top navigation in 11.0);
- advanced search S2 S45 S26.
Ranking: results are ordered by past usage (hit counts are copied nightly by cron) S20.
Filters and saved searches: filters, a browse bar (9.0), smart featured collections and watched searches S22 S95.
AI search: the CLIP AI Smart Search plugin (10.6) adds S56 S21:
- natural-language search on image content;
- search by uploaded image;
- visually similar results and near-duplicates (512-dimension vectors in a FAISS index).
Faces: the AI Faces plugin finds similar faces S57.
Typesense Search (11.0) is an experimental plugin for faster keyword search on large datasets. It does not yet apply resource filtering or permissions S63. CLIP vector search on Typesense and "future RAG search" are under scoping for 11.2 S23.
Image banks: search of external stock libraries such as Shutterstock and Pixabay, and since 10.3 of other ResourceSpace systems S75 S21.
Geographic search on maps S45.

AI capabilities

AI Metadata Generation (the "OpenAI GPT" plugin, renamed "AI Metadata Processing"; Ollama supported since 11.0):
- natural-language prompts per field, using the preview image or another field's text as input;
- outputs include descriptions, keywords, titles, summaries, categories and alt text;
- can be applied after the fact from the Jobs area (11.0) S58 S21 S26;
- the vendor gives examples such as alt text, translations, people counts, emotions, and a "Team" value derived from the uniforms in a photo S44.
Local AI (runs on the customer's or Montala's server, no third-party upload):
- Whisper speech-to-text and subtitles (10.7) S60;
- Tesseract OCR (10.7) S61;
- CLIP search S56;
- InsightFace face detection and recognition S57.
The default InsightFace model (buffalo_l) is licensed for non-commercial use only. Montala holds a licence that covers systems with an active Montala support or hosting contract; other commercial users must buy their own S57.
Google Vision plugin: tags, landmarks, OCR text and logo detection. 10,000 calls are included with a support contract, with a 50,000-call bolt-on S59.
Generative editing: the OpenAI Image Editing plugin edits or creates images (gpt-image-2). It is a paid bolt-on for hosted customers S62.
Governance: AI features are optional. Montala says supported customers have an agreement that rules out training on their data, and that local plugins keep data on the server S58 S60 S50.
Coming: scene-by-scene video descriptions (prototype announced on 2026-02-27) S92. An "MCP API interface" (11.1, scoping) S23; see Integrations.

Organization

Collections: private, shared, public and featured collections (curated browse areas; drag-and-drop reordering since 9.8; redesigned in 11.0). Smart featured collections are driven by metadata S21 S22 S26.
Dash: dashboard tiles for searches, collections and reports, configurable per user group S95 S21.
Featured portals: isolated, separately branded environments with their own welcome text and dashboards, for different audiences S43.
Brand hub: the Brand Guidelines plugin (10.5) holds sections and pages of brand rules S70.
Related resources: resources can be linked to each other S1 S21.

Workflow & collaboration

Base workflow: fixed archive states (pending submission, pending review, active, pending archive, archived, deleted) S68 S2.
Advanced workflow: the rse_workflow plugin adds custom states and actions with per-group permissions S68 S46.
User contributions: submission and approval queue S47.
Requests: resource and research requests S22 S95.
Collaboration:
- comments and annotations, unified in 10.7, with Annotorious-based image annotations S21 S23;
- user-to-user messages (9.6) S22;
- email summaries of outstanding actions (10.3) S21.
Creative integrations: Adobe, Office and Google Workspace through LinkrUI, plus Canva and Figma; see Integrations S42.
Formal proofing (markup with version comparison) or a task/project module: none found (Unknown).

Rights & governance

Permissions:
- user groups with permission codes (hidden from the UI since 10.0);
- per-resource access levels: open (view and download), restricted (view, download on request), confidential (admins only), plus custom per-group access S100 S67;
- metadata-based search filters and edit filters per group S21 S30 S95.
Per-group configuration overrides (10.6) S21.
Consent Manager:
- consent records with attached documents, linked to resources;
- expiry alerts and automatic archiving on expiry (10.7) S21 S43.
License Manager: several licences per resource, central licence list, status filter (Active/Expiring/Expired, 10.7) S69.
Expiry dates: per-resource expiry field, admin notifications, automatic archiving S30.
Watermarks per user group S48.
Terms: download terms via the conditional terms plugin S99.
Access requests: request-based access to restricted resources S95.
Audit:
- resource log and activity logs S1;
- track field history plugin S99;
- API request log (11.1) S1.
Governance / resource ownership is under scoping for 11.2 S23.

Distribution & delivery

Sharing:
- external share links with optional expiry and passwords; default share expiry and mandatory share passwords can be enforced (10.4) S21 S47;
- shares to Facebook, LinkedIn and X S42.
Public access: an optional public, no-login area S47 S27.
Embeds: embed plugins for documents, slideshows and video S47 S99.
Downloads:
- on-the-fly conversion to custom size, quality and format;
- configurable preview sizes;
- customisable download file names (10.3);
- "Video Splice" clips S21 S48.
Temporary file URLs: the API returns file URLs that stay valid for 24 h by default S6.
IIIF S9:
- Presentation API 3.0 (dynamic manifests) and Image API 3.0 level 0, with optional tiling and custom sizes for Mirador and Universal Viewer;
- audio/video through the Presentation 3.0 API.
Templates / web-to-print: through the partner tools BrandStencil and RightMarket S85 S86.
DAM-as-a-CDN: no global CDN or dynamic-URL transformation service is documented. Files are served from the instance (Not public / none found).

Video & rich media

Video: FFmpeg previews and automatic transcoding to other formats, resolutions and bit-rates S48 S19. Video tracks and subtitles, video bookend, timestamp links and Video Splice plugins S15 S21.
Audio/video transcription: Whisper S60.
Publishing: YouTube and Vimeo publish plugins S42.
Documents: PDF page-by-page browsing and PDF split S48 S15.
Images: deep zoom with OpenSeadragon S22.
3D / VR: a Google VR View plugin exists for 360° images S15. 3D model preview: none found (Unknown).

Analytics & reporting

Reports: standard reports on downloads, uploads, views and searches with no results. They can run on search result subsets, be exported to CSV, and be emailed periodically S22 S30 S49.
Analytics: custom reports by user group with filters, Chart.js graphs (10.3), pinnable to the dashboard S49 S21.
Google Analytics 4 plugin (10.1) S21.
API: get_daily_stat_summary, get_reports and do_report expose statistics through the API (comments and reports calls added in 11.0) S1 S21.
Usage: the resource usage plugin tracks where assets are used S99. Analytics tiles on the resource view page are under scoping for 11.2 S23.

Administration

System Configuration page: a large share of settings is in the UI (extended in 11.0). The rest is in config.php S21 S26.
Users:
- user groups, account requests and CSV user import;
- SSO (SAML), LDAP and TOTP MFA S53 S54 S42;
- SCIM provisioning: none documented (Unknown).
Multi-client use: a metadata "client" field combined with group filters keeps several clients' resources separate in one instance S67. There is no multi-tenant SaaS layer.
UI:
- more than 20 languages S30;
- themes and dark mode (10.6) and a high-contrast mode (10.3);
- WCAG-oriented redesign in 11.0 S21 S26.
Health: get_system_status API and an installation check S8 S20.
Test environments:
- a supported test instance on Enterprise packages S27;
- ResourceSpace Labs, a development-branch instance for all paid plans S25.
Self-hosting requirements (11.0) S19:
- MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.4+;
- Apache 2.4+ or IIS 7+;
- PHP 8.2-8.5 with listed extensions;
- ImageMagick, FFmpeg, Ghostscript, ExifTool, Inkscape;
- a nightly cron job.
The FAQ recommends at least a server-grade CPU and 16 GB of RAM, on recent Ubuntu S30.
An official Docker Compose setup (ResourceSpace + MariaDB) is available S18.

ResourceSpace Features