The Best Air.inc Alternatives for Digital Asset management
(2024 review, pricing & open demos)
Air.inc is an end-to-end modern digital asset management platform, with a good user experience and a free version, allowing you to try before you buy.
If you're evaluating Air.inc, here are a few alternatives you might want to consider:
✓ Tagbox.io
✓ Brandfolder
✓ Bynder
✓ Filecamp
✓ Playbook
In this article, we'll talk about the pros and cons of using Air.inc; we'll offer first-hand experience comparing it to other alternatives, and share some open workspaces from each product that we found on the web, which can really help, since most of them are demo-only, and do not allow you to freely explore on your own.
air.inc - overview
Before we discuss alternatives, let’s examine a few reasons why you might be looking for an alternative to Air.inc. Air.inc (by Air Labs) was founded in 2017, has raised $28M, and has about 100 employees as of 2024.
Air.inc is are among the first DAMs to offer a free version on a self-service basis, and have a clear and transparent pricing on their site. Their UI is clean, and users can get started in no time.
Air.inc is a all-in-one platform, with a wide range of features ranging from storage, search, project management, with a variety of integrations. But how do they measure up, feature for feature?
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Why You Need A air.inc Alternative
❌ Organizing assets
Adding and organizing content is definitely the main drawback of using Air.inc. During upload, you will need to manually tag each asset individually. While Air.inc technically uses auto-tagging, it creates a multitude of largely irrelevant machine generated tags, and does not connect to the organization's taxonomy. Working in teams, you might find one person tagging images as "car", while others use "cars", "vehicles", or "Automobile".
❌ Advanced search
Users can easily search in Air.inc by the name of the file, or added tags, or content of the image. However, their search lacks flexibility. Searching for "dogs" won't yield any results; you'll have to search for "dog", singular. Also, they lack the ability to search for text in image, which is crucial for brand photos where there is a lot of important textual data in the product label.
❌ People identification
Unlike personal-use tools such as Google or Apple Photos, most digital asset solutions do not offer face recognition support, and Air.inc is no different. This is unfortunate, as many business use-cases require quick identification and retrieval of specific individuals: finding models across photoshoots or people who attended events, to name a few. I look forward to seeing if they'll add this in the future.
Tagbox.io - a DAM with a touch of magic
Like Air.inc, Tagbox.io is a modern DAM, with a simple interface and a free version you can sign up for. Tagbox.io is a newer solution, launching just a few months ago in January 2023. Despite being on the market only a short period, Tagbox.io prides itself on using AI to automate many of the tedious tasks that are required to maintain a DAM, saving DAM administrators hours of work, and making it easier for teams to stay consistent.
Search and filters
While tagging is important for staying organized, you can’t always predict how people will be looking for assets. This is where a powerful search comes into play.
Air.inc offers good general search, which works well if you know exactly what you're looking for. But, as shown in the video above, if you're looking for something that wasn't specifically mentioned in the file name, or if you make a small typo or simply spell a word differently, you might find no results for your search. This is especially important if you work with outsourced contractors and agencies, who might not be familiar with your internal terminology
Tagbox, on the other hand, actively searches within your content, so that you can find assets whether they’re tagged or not. Tagbox is also one of the only companies that offers text-in-image search, allowing, for example, to quickly find images of brands by their label.
Workflows
Workflows and approval processes is where Air.inc really shines. With a Kanban view and custom fields, it allows teams to sync well and streamline assets from the photographer to the creative director and designer. Tagbox, on the other hand, while offering flexible workflow capabilities via tagging, does not have a built-in workflow feature.
Tagging
As mentioned above, tagging in Air.inc can be a bit manual and time-consuming. Tagbox.io, on the other hand, have auto-tagging that connects to your team's taxonomy and terminology, and advanced tools that help you manage tags to make sure things stay consistent as your content grows.
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) includes platform customizations, dedicated integrations, and more.
Feature by 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.
air.inc vs. Brandfolder
Air.inc and Brandfolder are both end-to-end DAMs, with a variety of features and integrations. They’re both designed for retail and tech companies. Unlike Air.inc, Brandfolder includes a brand guidelines feature, organizing brand fonts and colors.
Unlike Air.inc, Brandfolder does not offer a free plan, and is more expensive for most use-cases, with starting commonly in the $1000s/mo, according to online sources.
Air.inc as a friendlier user experience and is easier to get started with. Brandfolder, like most old-school DAMs, usually require a longer onboarding and setup period than Air.inc.
Brandfolder Demo
air.inc vs. bynder
Bynder is another one of the veteran players in the DAM market, offering all the core functionality, as well as many integrations.
Bynder is considered to be the more expensive of the group, and thus mostly suitable for very large organizations with high customization needs. Unlike Air.inc, it does not offer a free version or self-service trial.
Bynder and Air.inc both include very basic AI assistance, with auto-tagging that is rarely used, and no advanced search options such as text-in-image search.
We’ve also noticed that Bynder’s platform tends to be a lot slower, while Air.inc usually offer a smooth experience, as expected from a modern DAM.
Bynder Demo
air.inc vs. filecamp
Filecamp is a low-cost DAM, going at a flat pricing of $59 for their 50GB plan.
However, while they advertise the cover most expected DAM functionality, we’ve found that it is rarely the case.
The good news is that, since it is one of the only self-service platforms out there, you can try and be disappointed yourself. In fact, even though it presents itself as a DAM, its main organization structure uses folders, so in our view, it’s more comparable to a low-cost Dropbox or Google Drive.
With less-than-basic search and tagging, we would not recommend it, especially compared to other reasonably priced options such as Tagbox and Playbook.
Filecamp demo
air.inc vs. playbook
Playbook is one of the newest players in the DAM market, and might be worth exploring if you’re a designer looking for a low-cost DAM with good basic functionality.
Similar to Air.inc, Playbook's interface is fun and more design-oriented.
However, Playbook lacks advanced features such as tag management and even basic filters, and they mostly rely on search for asset discovery. Similarly, there is no approval process or workflow management in Playbook.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Who should use air.inc?
As advertised on their site, Air.inc targets e-commerce and retail companies, agencies, nonprofits and academic institutes.
How much does air.inc cost?
Air.inc is priced in two packages, Plus and Pro, costing $250/month and $500/month respectively. The Plus is designed for small teams and includes 5 users, while the Pro comes with unlimited users. Air has increased pricing significantly during 2024, signaling it's shying away from small businesses and eyeing the enterprise market.
What are the top alternatives to air.inc?
The top alternatives to Air.inc include Tagbox.io, Bynder, Brandfolder, Filecamp, and Playbook.
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