Canto Reviews

It’s easy to use and fairly intuitive. The filter system is very powerful. Love the portals.

The choice of ‘views’ you get is limited. Some of our products are pens and rulers and the ‘list view’ thumbnails are too small to see what the product looks like. The other views show only cropped images of the product if it is beyond a certain size, making it impossible to see what the product actually is. It also has numerous bugs, such as not being able to display a greyscale image if it is saved as a .psd. Also, another wonderful fact of Canto is its portals, and we have a need to set up a great deal for our distributors. However, each one has to be created manually even though 95% of them are all the same. There should be a template facility to copy.

Easily upload images directly or lock down to contributors so that any uploads need to be approved. Being able to sort projects by files and create specific jobs within those makes organization easy.

This needs an app - this is difficult to use from a mobile device and an app would put it over the edge.

I like that Canto is on top of their game, always improving the software and releasing updates. When a feature isn't particularly user-friendly, you can put in a ticket for a suggested improvement and they will consider it in a future release.

It's a little hard to use for the general user, those who aren't power users. I had to draft up instructions on our to use the software for our general employee base.

As a project manager, what I like most about Canto is the ability to search through metadata and quickly and easily find an asset I was looking for. I also like the ability to easily share assets, through email, dropbox, links, etc.

I wish the level of access we are paying for would allow more "power users" and more storage. But, we can always purchase more as the need arises.

Thanks for the review, Elizabeth! We love that our customers are able to customize Canto to fit their specific needs!

I really enjoy having the shareable links that can direct outside parties to folders that have their content in them. This way I don't have to use another third-party tool like Google Drive or Dropbox to share documents with clients. Downloading content is easy as well. The My Collections function is great in that it allows me select save files to the My Collections folder. This can help make it easier to find images and documents that I use most often. I also like being able to filter by keywords and tags. It is important that your team utilize these correctly and have unified definitions in place before using this, though. However, this can make it much easier to find what you're looking for.

The search function does leave something to be desired. I have found it hard to find past documents, images, graphics, etc. But honestly part of that could be just how our team names those folders and files. While the My Collections function is great, the Following and My Selections functions seem redundant. Another downside is that the shareable links that we use to share the content with outside clients does expire. I know this is for security, but if the client does not access the content in a timely fashion, which happens often, then we have to resend it.

Thanks for the review, Benjamin. You can share links without expiration dates as well! In the share window, instead of adding an expiration date, simply click "Never".

I can now share images to individuals or groups of people without being tethered to VPN, or large files on transfer sites outside of the organization.

There have been a few features that could be improved, but Canto listens to feedback and often implements the suggestions quickly, or has great solutions.

Thanks for this review, Meg! We know that sharing assets is important, so we're glad to know that Canto's features are helping your organization.

It is easy to set up and to set users running with - highly intuitive. It means we don't have to upload, download and upload again because we can issue links to photographers and designers and work far more collaboratively. We can create showcases to show off our work and we have style guides to issue to partners. It's great for media - just send of a link with a few key files or allow them to browse

Would like the links to be easier to personalise so there is a list of which links have been sent to which people. Also having some problems with the Wordpress connectivity at the moment

Thanks for the review, Donna. We appreciate the feedback on the link updates you'd like to see!

Canto was extremely easy to implement into our business. Previously, we stored all of our photos/videos/files on the shared drive, external hard drives and servers. Canto has allowed us to ensure all employees who require access to digital assets have access to them, regardless if they are at the office or not. We really like the convenient options for sharing files with external stakeholders, especially the sharing link. It eliminates the need to upload files to dropbox and worry about storage issues.

No cons. Each time I have had a technical issue, the Canto support staff has helped me very quickly and ensured my problem was fixed.

Thank you for your review, Breanne! We're very happy to know that Canto is so easy and effective for your team.

Ease of use, previous to Canto we had network shares holding all our photos for our organisation - this made searching, sharing and keeping track of GDPR policies on the photos very hard. Thanks to Canto we now share, find and add photos with the upmost ease.

The ADFS link to our domain - some features you can't use due to us wanting it to link to our active directory - there is no office 365 synchronization.

Canto has many great product, but this one is perfect for those who are struggling with photo storage and management. We use Canto to store, tag, organize and search for our photos. As a company with many events it's perfect for tagging and finding our participants. Their facial recognition has proven to be an excellent asset to us.

The system is great, however it can get bogged down with resizing photos to thumbnail, slowing the scrolling speed when manually looking/ searching for photos.

Hi Sarah, thank you for the review! We're happy to hear that you've been satisfied with both the product and the customer service!

Several features have really simplified my photo management role. Metadata is customizable to your needs - and while it takes careful thought initially, when set up is easy to apply. 'Upload links' allow outside people to add photography directly to the system in a controlled manner - this has significantly helped with timeliness and ease of receiving photography. I love the branding portal, and the versioning capabilities. I also love the Facial Recognition feature - no more tagging the same people over and over. The company consistently improves the software and innovates - releasing frequent feature updates.

While it is fairly intuitive, there are aspects (of the portals for example) that need to be explained to a new user - this can be time consuming. I have been frustrated that new features are sometimes expensive paid add-ons, even when they were discussed as 'coming' during the research process (features I thought would be included with upcoming releases). As much as possible, try to envision future features you will need and consider that in your contract discussions.

The three major items that drove us to choose Canto as our DAM were the friendly and effective customer service, their ease of setup and customization, and their constant drive to update and make their software better. Both our account manager and the Canto IT team are quick to respond and always willing to do what is needed to help us achieve what we need.

We had some issues early on in the setup/implementation phase as we didn't feel like we were provided with adiquate information as to what was needed for our trainings. However, once we got into the process things became more clear and everything went smoothly.

We appreciate the review, Anthony. We're glad to hear your experience with customer support has been positive!

The software has a bit of everything, and it just works. The most complicated element is setting up your own metadata structure, and that's really an internal conversation about organisational culture, how we think, what we need. We love the portal functionality. There are tonnes of ways to upload, and lots of nice, very different ways to add metadata to your files.

The aesthetic is slightly dated, but that's honestly a minor quibble. Sometimes keeping it simple is what helps it work so well.

Thanks for reviewing Canto, Katrina! I'm glad to hear that you're using and enjoying our Mailchimp, Google Drive and WordPress integrations!

Keyword tagging and album features are great and make organization so much more manageable for very large media libraries. The features offered are extensive and very comprehensive. Search filters also help users find specific files faster.

– The number of features presented all at once can be overwhelming. The home screen displays too much information, icons, and files all at once. – Multiple iterations of a design or photo file get repetitive when scrolling—A feature to identify those very similar files, then group + collapse them together would be an improvement. – Features can be easy to miss/forget with such an extensive system. - Shortcut options aren't available for the most performed actions for individual users (or organizations) - Downloads could be easier, without the extra popup screen—an option for one-click downloads.

Where traditional file explorers used natively in Windows and Mac fall short is when you have files that aren’t linear—they are best found by searching for them through multiple different routes. File explorers do not allow for that, and instead rely on user memory to find the correct folder and drill down into the correct location. Finding photo’s or videos when you have a large library, especially when many of the assets are ones you didn’t take, becomes almost impossible without a tool of some kind. Canto swoops in and allows users to ditch the folder method of organization and instead rely on keywords, tags, and other metadata to quickly search and find what you need.

Canto's different method of organization and searching means that you have to diligently fill in every tag or missing piece of information for every asset you upload into the system; if you’re looking into getting Canto, that likely means you have thousands or more files that you now need to individually update. On top of that, certain fields and UI choices feel a bit clunky, which hurts the most when it bogs down the uploading process.

Quinn, thank you for reviewing! We're glad to know that your asset searchability has increased with Canto.

Canto has saved us countless hours of wasted time searching across departments, servers, and computers for assets that are needed daily. The use of customized portfolios has helped us allow our end users to peruse and search galleries customized to their needs, all while protecting assets that are internal-use only from being seen.

Would love to see the option to copy metadata/tagging onto new assets in an album from those already in the album. This would be a time saver especially with multiple custom tag options!

I really enjoy Flight's user interface the best. It has been extremely easy for all employees in our company to quickly learn the ins and outs in a short period of time. I have received many compliments from employees spread across various departments about how much they enjoy Flight and how easy it is to use. This has greatly increased productivity of our marketing department by allowing other employees easy access to our assets. I also love the tagging feature! Tagging our location photography with our product numbers has been a game changer!

Every once in awhile they will implement new features that don't work great for my organization. For example, Canto gives you the ability to upload different versions of a file. However they add an extremely long extension at the end of the file. Say you upload a file called 'image.jpg' and you eventually want to add a new version. So you upload the new version, but the new file name becomes something like 'image.jpg.3823273827389273"

Tagging images is our favorite feature, we love how easy it is to search and find images. The overall folder structure and visual representation of your images makes usage simple for our employees around the world. We also love that we are able to add as many consumers to the platform as we want without having to pay for more users, that sets Canto apart from a lot of DAM systems.

We primarily use canto for images, however when we do upload documents it would be great it they were displayed more visually.

The integration of our existing system was very fast. We had everything housed on Google Drive and then migrated it over to Canto. It was really fast and easy. The search-ability is amazing and has a really simple tagging system.

The upload time is really slow which definitely could be improved. The file organization is a little confusing since there are folders then folders within the folders then albums.

- High quality visual display - Easy to share assets with clients - Search functionality is awesome

- One off asset links continuously break or don't work. - Support team doesn't do much. Does a lot of blaming issues on internet. - Program logs you out constantly. - Clients are unable to mark assets as approved or not approved. - You can't filter assets by comments, only if you are tagged. - The extras are pricey - admins, contributors, portals, etc.

It is very user-friendly. It's visual and easy to navigate. It has great search and filter features. You can send people directly to an asset without giving them access to everything.

You can upload a separate cover image; you have to use one that is already in your library; it has to be an actual asset. This is difficult if your fold of assets only contains font or color libraries, the thumbnails have no visual.

Thanks for the feedback! We are glad Canto provides a simpler way for teams to collaborate!

Canto allows our team to store, share, and access digital assets and photography efficiently enough. Ability to create albums, tag photos, large storage capacity – all of these are appreciated and well-received.

The Canto interface seems a bit clunky and glitchy much of the time. The left sidebar to navigate through albums isn't very intuitive or responsive. Often, when clicking on an album name to open its drop-down menu, there will be no response. So the use has to continue clicking and clicking on it. Scrolling down through each album's photos, the loading of preview images usually lags. And the longer you scroll through the pics, the more it lags. To bypass this, often you need to refresh your browser … which takes you all the way back to the top of the album … and you have to begin scrooooollling dooown through all the photos again. (I've tested several browsers – same issue with each one)

We moved our image library over to Canto about 2 years ago and I have found it to be a reliable and easily navigable platform. It's very easy to use and out of the three DAMs I've worked with, professionally, it's the easiest and most straight-forward interface.

I have very few complaints. I would love it if we could customize the branding of the platform a little more and it would be nice if there was an option to make the lightbox preview files were a little larger. (There is an option to make them larger, but the difference between the smallest view and the largest view is negligible.) There is also an issue trying to rename files once they have been uploaded. That still doesn't work. If you need to rename a file, you'll have to rename outside of Canto and re-upload.

No pros were added to this review

There are some really odd quirks about it on the web end of serving things up and having to restart Tomcat service and do some really frustrating hoops in setup is a thing, but if you have good support it's all good stuff and the thing is rock solid afterwards. Initial setup of DAMs is frustrating if you don't live in it, but as said in the pros area of my review it is far better than your other options out there (Extensis Portfolio and Esko's MediaBeacon would be the other two you would look at when going for DAM solutions). Gonna note that the reason I tossed the three stars out there on customer support is that it's a product supported by third party resellers, which is totally understandable

After getting the old system upgraded, my client was able to offload some of the work the creative team previously did, to an account services team. That team was able to fulfill client requests for images without getting the creative group involved. It helped speed the responses to clients and vendors as well as balance the workload.

So far we have not had any internal issues or complaints!