Canto Reviews & Product Details

In my work, we deal with a lot of files related to project documentation, images, and reference materials, and Canto has helped keep all of that in one place. What I find most useful is how quickly I can locate a file when needed, instead of going through multiple folders or asking others. For example, when I need a specific reference during a discussion, I can search and access it immediately without interrupting the flow of work. It also helps in sharing files with team members without repeatedly sending attachments, which saves time during regular coordination. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

While Canto is highly efficient overall, there are a few areas where it could improve. At times, the initial setup and customization of metadata or taxonomy can feel slightly time-consuming, especially for new users without prior DAM experience.

One thing I’ve noticed is that organizing files properly requires some initial effort. If assets are not tagged or structured well from the beginning, it can become slightly difficult to maintain consistency later. Also, for new users, understanding how to organize and categorize files effectively may take a little time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Love the ability to keyword and tag all of our photography, then search through thousands of photos quickly and easily. Also the ability to select a few photos and make a link to just those photos that I can send to people is something I use almost every day. The facial recognition is outstanding - it makes it so easy to track down a specific person in thousands of photos. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love using the platform that we have access to, but it seems that any updates or improvements are all behind paywalls. I've been invited many times to webinars on exciting new features only to find out at the end that it's going to cost us more money. It would be nice if some of those features were also provided to legacy users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Canto as a digital asset manager to store thousands of photo assets. I like that it puts all of our photos into one, easily accessible space. It allows us to create view and download-only portfolios so that other people within our organization can access and download photos without having to be full administrators. The ability to tag photos with keywords and reliably search those keywords to get correct results is great. Other platforms had tagging abilities that didn’t work properly when searched, so Canto's consistent organization through tagging is a big help. It's a reliable way to sort and arrange photos by type, content, and use, which is especially valuable given we have thousands of images uploaded by various people. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The AI search function still leaves something to be desired. I like the idea of being able to search for 'a person with a red backpack' but in reality, it seldom actually functions well in that use. It just needs more reliable, relevant results. When I search for 'a person in a red backpack' I need only images to come up that include red backpacks - in reality, this is never the case. I am better off searching through with our manually input keywords and searching manually for images with red backpacks. The initial setup was a little rough and clunky with multiple issues getting permissions to work correctly for our different administrators on the account. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I use Canto to store, organize, and link files, which helps me to easily find content, making editing and versioning much simpler. I love the linking feature and use it often to relate files, especially PDFs translated into multiple languages. This feature keeps track of all the language versions we have. The upload links feature is great because it allows consumers to upload content directly to Canto, making cross-departmental work much easier, especially with the accounting department. My favorite features are linking, upload links, share links, portals, following, and my selections as they help me work efficiently and support my coworkers. The initial setup was very easy, and we had a representative from Canto who provided training to get us started. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I would like for Canto to add a section to the filter to allow for me to see what files within a group of files have not been related to other files. I sift through more than 8,000 files and it would be wonderful to be able to easily weed out files that have not been related to another file so that I can link them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After years of getting by with a server-based media drive, switching to a cloud-based digital media storage solution has been a huge boost to our efficiency. Even the search feature on its own has saved us days’ worth of productivity, making it much easier to find what we need without wasting time digging through folders. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Canto can occasionally be slow to load, but this is a minimal concern. It is hard to find anything that is not to like about this tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like how easy it is to organize and tag our assets in Canto, making the experience intuitive for people who are tech-savvy and those who aren't. Asset distribution and tracking work really well, especially since we're able to track what is being downloaded and used and what's not. The platform helps everything be easily organized, especially when I need to add multiple assets at once, and the mass tags facilitate asset storage. The initial setup of Canto was very easy for me and my team. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I think one thing that can be improved is the tracking report. I think there's an opportunity to make it more detailed and thorough. Another thing that can be improved is the lack of an Android app. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Overall, I love Canto and its functionality. The design, capabilities, and features are a great fit for our needs, as well as for our team members and clients. I especially love the AI capability that lets me search for a photo based on characteristics and descriptions, and I really appreciate the quick turnaround time on searches. As part of the admin team, I also get a back-end view of the interface, and I value how simple it is to use and how easy it is to teach others to self-serve what they need. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

So far I haven't experienced any downsides; however, we are new to Canto. I think the one component I'd love to see is better integration to Canva. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

My absolute favorite thing about Canto is the facial recognition. Trying to find lots of photos of a particular person in our old DAM was excruciating because my predecessors never tagged people. So I would have to try and guess what events they might of attended. Now, something that might have taken me one to two hours in our old DAM takes me less than a minute in Canto. I only have to identify the person once, and I can find every single image of them. The facial recognition is top notch. I haven't had any false positives yet.

The search is also much more robust. Someone sent me a screenshot of a picture from our old DAM, and asked if I could help her find the original. It was a drawing of a face, so I just typed in, "face drawing" in Canto and found it immediately. It would have been a nightmare to find it before without the file name.

The Canto platform is very intuitive, and we have been able to implement it seamlessly with our current processes. Our implementation manager has been stellar to work with. She has vast knowledge to draw from in supporting customers, and that has made things so much easier for us.

There are a couple of us who need to use Canto incredibly frequently, and it is actually fun to use compared to our last platform. I was telling a friend about Canto, and she said, "A look of pure joy just crossed your face." That seems accurate. Canto has made our work easier in so many ways!

UPDATE: Now that I have been using Canto for nearly a year, I want to say that I still love it just as much as I did when we first got it. The other power. user of Canto on my team left last summer, so I am in charge of making sure everything gets uploaded and correctly identified. But even now that it is a one-person job, I find it so much more user friendly and easier in Canto. I still want to go back and correct as much pre-Canto photo information as I can, but future me is going to have a much easier time accessing the photos and details they need.

It is easy to get support when I need it, but I honestly don't need it that often. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, it is hard to think of any downsides. We had a glitch with a couple of duplicate folders during the migration, and that was basically it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love the tagging features, which help me find images much faster and easier. Sharelinks is another feature I use daily, as being able to share images with a single link is great for both me and the recipients. The organization of files is much better thanks to Canto, and looking up images is way faster. Sharing images with external partners is much improved with share links, and I appreciate that there are no more duplicate files. The initial setup was very easy for us, especially since I had previous experience with Canto, making it a no-brainer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I only have one issue with the new main library look. It no longer has the option to sort the folder tree with a custom order like in the old library look. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We are approaching one year with Canto and have seen excellent adoption within our teams. We are starting to implement next level options like portals. We continue to learn more about this powerful system and it's features. We just were assigned a Customer Success Manager and have already adopted some of his suggestions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Our implementation took much longer than we were advised in the initial vetting. In many cases this was because key staff were not available or didn't understand the needs (even though outlined in our initial outline)

There is almost TOO much to learn and utilize.

The support documentation can be challenging, especially if you aren't familiar with DAM systems Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.