Bynder vs. Canto

We have numerous renderings for some of our properties that are constantly being updated. It was hard to keep track of the most current rendering since it lived in multiple locations with various employees. Creating a central location where we can regularly update the renderings without having to add a new file and re-upload solved the issue of questioning whether the rendering you were looking at was correct.

Incentivized

Canto is an excellent tool for organizing assets and searching for them in one location. I also really enjoy using the mobile version of Canto on my smartphone when I am on the go. Canto is robust and fast and it has been a major advancement in the way that my organization stores and shares assets.

Incentivized

• Extracting content is where Bynder shines. My previous EverNote account reminded me of the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark -- warehouse full of stuff where clearly everything was lost once it was put in there. Bynder makes it easy to find and extract information especially because of the thumbnail views aided by the categorization tools. Since you can use these in combination everything is basically a complex Boolean search without needing to know how to write a complex Boolean Search.
• Easy I/O. Getting information into and out of Bynder is really easy -- follows the "don't make me think" rule. visual cues and clear buttons, etc. In fact, since I use multiple systems, I find it easiest to actually do file transfer TO MYSELF via Bynder rather than download or email files between my PC and Mac for example. That's how easy it is.
• Categories, tagging, last-used, most-frequent, hide/show -- there's a lot of flexibility in organizing your content. Technically, this kind of thing exists in every tool I've ever used... but it's the implementation that matters. UI design is vital to making this a valuable tool as opposed to a dreary step of "file retrieval".

Incentivized

• Ability to manage several portals and allow different users access to each.
• Ability to customize each Canto platform or portal to suit all needs.
• The platform is very easy to use, and while there are more complex components to the platform, users are able to use only the basics and remain very successful.

Incentivized

• Link Sharing: One thing I wish Bynder had was quick link sharing for images or collections of images to share outside of Bynder. Currently you have to create a collection and send it via email to the person you want to view it. Otherwise you can make it public and share a link but then that collection technically can be viewed or downloaded by anyone. Since I'm used to the functionality of Dropbox, this is one thing that I feel is lacking.
• Public Media Center: Along the lines of the last comment about link sharing; one thing that would be helpful is a public media center. If we were able to tag what photos we would want to include there, along with downloadable logos, guidelines, PR, etc. There are workarounds but the functionality doesn't quite exist.
• Automatic Translations: We opted to keep all of our metadata and tagging in English, as most of our International partners do speak some English; however, it would have been nice to have an option to automatically translate any metadata/tagging for certain languages. We did have the option of automatically translating the main menu buttons but that wasn't much help. If we wanted metadata/tagging in other languages we'd have to input it manually for thousands of assets.

Incentivized

• The brand templates add-on is very difficult to use. It sounds great on paper, but when you actually try to use it you find out it's very clunky and limited.
• Adding fonts to style guides is difficult. Would love to see some sort of integration with Adobe and Google fonts.
• Duplicate finder only finds exact duplicates, so if a file has been run through processing of any sort it doesn't find it (ie Photoshop, Lightroom). Would be great if it could have some sort of optical duplicate finder.

Incentivized

It's a fantastic product and we get a lot of mileage out of Canto. I would 100% say that we plan to renew our subscription and have not explored any other digital asset management tools. It has all the tools we need, seamlessly connects with Adobe products (out primary design tool) and continues to innovate.

Incentivized

I would say 8 out of 10 because it is mostly user friendly as far as navigating and using the taxonomy filters to find what one is searching for. However, it is a little complex as well and there are many things you can do with the assets such as send them to others and make collections which some older folks might not understand as well.

Incentivized

Canto is about as easy to use as it gets. I have personally trained a handful of employees who are unfamiliar with DAM/marketing SaaS technology on how to use the platform for their needs. These trainings only take about half an hour (given they are using a very limited set of Canto's features), and afterward, they are pretty well-equipped to use the platform.

Incentivized

Canto is usually available, though sometimes goes down for 30 min - 1 hr. Usually resolved quickly

Incentivized

I've satisfied with the performance

Incentivized

When we were getting ready to switch vendors, WebDAM wasn't very responsive to my questions or my needs. They also sent me all the files on an external drive that was formatted for Mac and didn't even think to verify whether I had a PC (which I did) so the external drive was useless and I had to wait another week to get the updated external drive that was formatted for a PC that I could then use.

Incentivized

I think Canto's onboarding process was really helpful. Our employees were able to utilize the system without excess training sessions which isn't always the case with some software. I also think that their customer support has proven to be super helpful when minor issues arise

Incentivized

Very knowledgable and accommodating trainers who listen to what you're asking and provide detailed yet simple instructions.

Incentivized

We didn't have a thorough enough plan for ownership of uploading and tagging and some of our tags were inconsistent which led to some regression in our usage. We tightened up that plan on our end and spoke with support team on Canto's end to establish some best practices and have a much better workflow now.

Incentivized

Also reviewed Optimzely and Adobe's solutions. As a leader I believe the products are somewhat commoditized inasmuch as they all perform the core features equally well. The decisions boiled down to which worked best to the satisfaction of our security, architecture, and network teams, and the look & feel preferences of our end user designers.

Incentivized

Dropbox is not as organized as Canto is. This is very impactful to help us stay consistent and to stay proper when managing our digital assets. Moreover, the ease of navigation is a lot better than Dropbox ever was, this is a big reason why our company has been using Canto for SEVERAL years.We do not want to leave Canto!

Incentivized

Canto is based on the West coast, so occasionally patches and planned outages happen during East coast working hours

Incentivized

• More polished and compelling national marketing pieces due to greater and better use of photos.
• More polished and compelling regional marketing pieces due to regional staff members ability to access assets directly and select from full bank.
• Greater efficiency when designing pieces (easy to share assets with external designers).
• Increased use of marketing assets across regions due to sharability.

Incentivized

• Covid: We all worked from home. It was a major impact for us to stop using a sketchy VPN that is slow and painful. We all became so much more efficient in our work.
• Sharing assets: Our company has grown substantially in the past 3 years. Having Canto means that we can easily share assets with our worldwide divisions. We are leading the way on this as the companies we acquired are using archaic servers. We will bring everyone in the Canto world to better manage our assets.
• Control: Prior to Canto, people were misusing images - not using the right ones, not using watermarks. Now it's all preventable and we are seeing better quality images used appropriately.

Incentivized