Canto

Score8 out of 10

291 Reviews and Ratings

What is Canto?

Canto delivers digital asset management capabilities while offering an intuitive experience for teams. Canto's AI Visual Search enables users to search their brand libraries using natural language.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of the Canto AI Visual Search to discover digital assets faster.

Screenshot of asset discovery with AI Visual Search, using natural language to instantly find the most relevant images and videos in Canto.

Screenshot of Canto's integrations, including Adobe Creative Suite, Hootsuite, Canva, and monday.com.

Screenshot of the organized, searchable content hub, where everyone can always find what they need, when they need it.

1 / 5

Screenshot of the Canto AI Visual Search to discover digital assets faster.

Downloading assets
Downloads allow for role-based file conversions into multiple formats. Download settings can be configured to ensure compliance with licenses and copyrights. Assets may also be embedded into design files (like Adobe) for auto-updating other assets when versioning occurs.
Category average: 8.4
Asset storage
Centralized storage capacity and accessibility for centralized storage of marketing and brand assets. These can be anything from documents, audio files, videos, images, creative files (Adobe, etc.), etc. Outdated assets can be archived.
Category average: 8.6
Asset sharing
The ability to share and distribute assets with internal or external partners using sharing links attached to emails and messages, as well as portals. Data and assets can also be syndicated to third parties. Some DAMs enable asset publishing directly to end-user sites for more efficient distribution.
Category average: 8.5

Content analytics
Allow users to track digital asset usage and user engagement metrics across multiple channels.
Category average: 7.4
Content editing
Templates and text editors facilitate the creation and publication of branded copy as well as asset cropping and modification. Version tracking should also be available for assets with duplicate names, along with their usage history. Some DAMs offer integration with editing tools so that high-fidelity edits can be made outside the DAM and automatically synced back as a new or updated version.
Category average: 5
Workflow automations
Collaborative workflow with role-based permissions as well as tracking and monitoring of asset usage, requests, and assignments.
Category average: 6

Verified User

Professional in Marketing (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our office uses Canto as an image database. We have a hard time easily sharing and searching for specific photos, and Cantos folders and tagging features makes this super easy. On a daily basis we use the feature where you can create a share link that can be publicly shared and expire during a certain date or time. We also use Canto to organize event-specific photos so we can easily access them later on. It is sometimes I do not think our marketing office could live without!

Pros

Photo Tagging & Searching
Organizing Options like folders and albumns
easily allows us to share photos with non-canto users in the office

Cons

I do with we could search for colors or items in Canto, for example red shirt photos
We have a small team, but everyone needs different levels of access, I feel like there arent many levels of access as there could be

Return on Investment

Allows us to stay on brand with organizing social media photos
Allows us to finish projects faster by sharing images with others easier
Streamlines requests from other areas to share images with link share feature

Alternatives Considered

Google Drive

Other Software Used

Sprout Social, Canva, Asana

Angelique Bey View profile

Content Manager/Digital Librarian in Product Management at Parents as Teachers National Center (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Canto is used to organize final versions of assets for the organization. We use Canto to easily search for assets, label relationships between assets, track analytics on the viewing and downloading of assets, share assets, receive assets, etc. We also use Canto's style guide template to share information within the organization, such as branding and guides for using Canto. We also create share links to share assets in the workspaces of the PAT portal through Sitefinity.

Pros

Search Feature.
Analytics
Link Creation.
Speed of uploading and downloading.

Cons

I struggle with using Canto's style guide feature. I would love to see this feature improve.
There needs to be the addition of a search feature for the list of share links. As my organization's number of share links increases, it is becoming difficult to find share links when we need to use or edit them.

Return on Investment

Efficiency has greatly increased.
We have been able to cancel subscriptions to other services.

Alternatives Considered

Bynder, WordPress VIP, Box and Progress Sitefinity

Other Software Used

Progress Sitefinity, Wrike, Squarespace

Nicola Katz

Communications Director in Marketing at Genome Canada (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Canto as a warehouse for all our visual assets and logos. Our primary use is for communications team use, but all staff can access and use it. We find it especially useful in the creative process when looking for assets to accompany our storytelling.

Pros

Facial recognition.
Identification of objects within images.
Searching for specific images.

Cons

Too many options for grouping and tagging - super confusing.
Easier way to create a drop box for photos from staff.

Return on Investment

Saves staff time.
Supports branding consistency.
Reduces risk of NOT acknowledging photo credits.

Other Software Used

Canva, Meltwater, Microsoft Teams

Daniel Campbell View profile

Creative Director in Marketing at Minnetonka Public Schools (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My team uses Canto every day for our graphic design projects. It's a great media manager and has really helped us to streamline the process of sorting, tagging, and searching for photography assets. With the Adobe Creative Suite integration, we're able to import seamlessly into our signature print and digital work without having to download it to our devices. When my department first started looking for a DAM solution, we were on multiple platforms (Google Drive, Dropbox, Internal S: Drive) and it was difficult to find anything.

Pros

Facial recognition technology helps us tag key staff automatically.
The in-tool search and tagging features are very robust, allowing us to find the specific assets we need fast.
The AI driven auto tagging is a nice addition and helps broaden what we can look for.
The ability for outside vendors to seamlessly upload content straight into the tool saves a lot of work for us.
The ability to selectively share out specific assets or folders with other departments or principals is a great way to really capitalize on our assets without creating extra work for my team.

Cons

The price point is a bit high, so I'd like to see either more features to justify that or a price drop.
The Adobe Connector interface is functional but could be a bit more drag and drop, right now it's a little clunky, if effective.
Right now you can't share collections between users, it would be great if we could do that for major projects rather than having to create a new album or tag.

Most Important Features

Powerful search engine
Automated tagging and facial recognition systems
Integration with Adobe Creative Suite
Ability for outside users to add content
Ability to share content to outside users

Return on Investment

Improved team efficiency
Better collaboration
Increased ability to share assets, which in turn makes it easier for other users in our organization to create better content (email, social, website, print, etc).
Better quality final assets as we have everything in one place now - meaning we always see all of our options for photography.

Alternatives Considered

Google Drive and Dropbox

Other Software Used

Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe InDesign, Weglot, Finalsite Composer, Adobe Illustrator CC

Usability

Deveraux Williams View profile

IT & Client Success Manager in Information Technology at Clemson University (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Canto has been a blessing so far for our organization in terms of having digital access management that is easy to use and helpful to our users to be able to access photos and templates fairly easily. Having the ability to use the facial recognition option to tie multiple assets by name or file type is very useful. One of the main business problems we had was having a location that could be accessible to the whole university along with our external partners. With Canto, we can finally curate photos for certain areas like admissions, certain colleges, etc.

Pros

tagging
facial recogition
AI tagging

Cons

better UI enhancements
improved mobile device app
robust template tool

Return on Investment

improve brand reputation
brand consistency
better and long term ROI

Acquia DAM (Widen)

Bynder

Brandfolder

Canto

What is Canto?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Downloading assets

Asset storage

Asset sharing

Areas for Improvement

Content analytics

Content editing

Workflow automations

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Usability

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Related Products