Canto Reviews & Product Details

It's quite comforting knowing how amazing Canto's customer support is. I was in a panic a couple of Fridays ago when I inadvertently deleted several important files while working on two portal. Since I'm not an account admin, I couldn't restore the files myself. This happened late on a Friday afternoon/evening so all of our account admins were offline. I contact Canto support and low and behold, they responded very quickly! They were able to restore all the files and saved the day/weekend for me! This was only one out of three times I'd contacted support in the same week. The first two times I'd contacted them was to switch/update a portal url and also when I had issues uploading folders and albums to our portals. All three times they rocked and provided the best support! Thank you! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There's actually nothing I dislike about the Canto software. Some of our team members have trouble locating files from time to time but this is due to the way it was set up on our end. Canto's constantly making updates to make things easier for everyone as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Canto is a very visual DAM system. It is extremely customizable--not only in tagging, but in branding as well--which makes it truly feel like your own. Canto has provided our team with a easy solution for storing and searching for our assets. Portals are simple ways to share certain assets with our distributors, retailers, and licensers. We have also had a great experience with customer support; they are quick to help solve any issues and make sure that we are happy with the system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Metadata tags from Bridge are not always imported, so more often than not assets must be tagged within Canto. Collections can only be viewed by the creator and not others. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The most helpful feature of Canto is its searchability. You're able to put assets in folders along with adding tags and keywords. This way, anyone is able to find assets even if they aren't familiar with your folder structure. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The hardest part of Canto is putting all the assets in it, to begin with. It's a long process adding assets and tagging them. Once you have all your current assets in Canto, it's still a pain to put new ones in. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What's most helpful about this product is the ability to create different portals and levels of access to certain content. This is especially useful working at a higher education institution where there are multiple distinct campus partners. You are able to create, and customize the design of, distinct portals to restrict access to certain content. So within the entire system, you have multiple ways to restrict access, starting with Roles, Portals, and Workspaces.

Canto offers far more options for customizing access and sharing assets than other DAMs our team reviewed. In addition, the customer service experience has been excellent so far; Canto staff are committed to helping you optimize your experience, and have the knowledge to assist you in building the best possible system for you. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I would enjoy the added feature of restricted downloads by type as well as a field to indicate usage before download. For example, if an asset is low-resolution, I would like to restrict the download usage to "social media only" so that someone who selects "print" would be blocked from the download. Right now the only way to do something similar in Canto is to utilize the "notes" feature to indicate how an asset was used/why it was downloaded. Canto will automatically tell you who downloaded an asset and when, so that's helpful information. If you have competent staff in your design and social media spaces, this won't be an issue for you. If you are sharing assets far and wide for usage in print, swag, social media for a company structured like LuLaRoe, then this lack of feature might be an issue for you.

If you are new to this, setting up the structure on your own can be difficult. We chose Canto for the ability to customize on our own, as several staff members have had experience serving as administrators for other DAMs in previous roles. There are other products out there that will offer more structure straight out the gate, if that's what you're looking for. However, I think you'll find that after putting the work into building a thoughtful system architecture on your own, you're going to have a much more fluid experience in your workspace.

As expected with some tools, upload speed in slow. Our account manager suggested using an Ethernet cable for best results. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A key component to our switch was the facial recogintion tech Canto has - just upload and tag one photo of an individual and it tags the person in every photo they are in. This has been invaluable considering we have photos that date back 20+ years that did not previously have any metadata associated with it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Honestly, it's a small thing but it annoys me to no end. You cannot right click in Canto. You have to Ctrl C/Ctrl V to copy and paste information. This is such a simple thing they could add. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We use this to offer a DAM to our client. We maintain all of their assets and this allows them to have access to the resources we have organized and optimized for them. One of the features I enjoy is the custom client facing portal that is branded for the specific client, while maintaining a separate branded portal for internal use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It can be difficult to keep it maintained. That being said, new features like Google Drive sync is making great progress in making this a flawless system. Once all of it is completed, I will never need to upload files to it again as anything I save to the Drive will automatically load into Canto! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Portals are our Client's favorite feature. It enables the Client to stop spending time responding to internal and external requests for assets. The upload links allow the Client to receive assets from external parties in one organized location. Any somewhat tech savvy employee can become an administrator. The admin panel is feature rich, yet the layout makes it very easy to use. Categorization and terms do not require a computer science degree to administer. Configuration can be completed without needing to engage technical support. For PowerUsers and end-users, it could hardly be made simpler. Canto has struck a nice balance between the familiarity of the folder structure and the efficacy of metadata. I think they found a sweet spot that accommodates the vast majority of users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The project management-related capability is not as robust in Canto as it is in some competitor products. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Very visual

Ease of finding files

Ease of viewing files

The smart way to find the assets

Friendly to share

Integration with other platforms to export

Can choice the quality of the asset

Like / Dislike the asset

Canto is very intent, you can understand the functionality and its features the more you use it, however training with the tool team was a differential, having support in the use of platforms is essential. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Excessive steps to successfully save files

Difficulty creating my own groups in a library

No integrations to import assets

Absence of comment field in assets

Could also group creatives by recognition, like Google functionality of similar standards.

The viewing of PNG files for example could be applied on a standard background allowing recognition.

Could have a feature to already export the selected assets in presentation mode, like an album Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

After years of getting by with a server-based media drive, it's been a huge boon for efficiency to have a cloud-based digital media storage solution. The search feature alone has saved us days worth of productivity. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Load times are occasionally a noticeable issue, though those challenges are mild. I do wish there was a simpler way to group collections/albums. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Canto is exactly what they said, it's easy to use, it's supported well, and the cost is extremely competitive. In addition to all those factors you also see the features that most of their competitors are charging additional fees for. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only real limitations that I've run into Weir band with and that was more to do with the environment that users were in then the actual application. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Canto is used throughout multiple departments at my company. It is primarily used for graphic assets and branding. It is allowing the marketing department to streamline our text, colors and graphics between Email, Video and Print Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface is a bit confusing when you first open the program, it takes a bit to get used to the flow Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the ability to search for different projects by name and get a sense of what projects are able to be shared publicly and in what context. I also like that everything is in one place that is accessible from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. I appreciate that I can brand the platform as an admin for my company so that when my colleagues interact with it they feel like they are directly engaging and interacting with our company as opposed to a third party host or another site hosted elsewhere. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I dislike that it can get messy fast if the project owners do not upload the correct information or tag things incorrectly. For example, if the person who uploads a project defines a tag as one color when it actually is a different color, that can pose issues in marketing materials when we incorrectly identify something and the project is wrong in printed materials. It can make us look bad to clients as a result. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love the search functionality. It's super quick and easy to find the assets I need. Also, the share links are awesome. Everything is very user friendly.

I love how you can create share links and toggle their settings. Now, we can share videos with clients and not worry about them downloading the videos. This is also much quicker for everyone. The client can watch the video on a web browser, instead of having to download it, and depending on the video size, this can take quite some more time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish you could quickly share "My Collections" with anyone, like create a shareable link to a collection, instead of having to select all the assets within a collection and then creating a share link.

I wish some of the tools were more readily available. For example, I have to select an asset, then the select all button will appear, so I need to make 2 clicks to select everything, when I wish it could be 1. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The best features (there are many!) are keyword tagging, file conversion and downsize options on download, and albums features (files can exist in more place than one).

Integration with outside contributors, contractors, and agencies is great and very simple.

Filtered searches/filter are also very handy when looking for one specific file type. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Canto can be clunky to work with, especially if you don't have the time to sit down and watch onboarding content or video tutorials on how to navigate the program. The number of features is EXTENSIVE, but they can get overwhelming to work with on the day to day.

Maintaining all the files and keeping everything up to date is also imperative for Canto to work its best, which can get time-consuming. This, however, is not much different to other asset management sites out there, though.

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 in the scrolling experience. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Assets are accessible by those who need to be dealing with them. Assets, which include photography, video, presentation, and branding, can be added by everyone within our organization. Being able to have contributions in an organized, secure, and fast way has allowed us to utilize that material for reaching our target audience with general ease and directness. Through having all our data assets in one place we have been able to communicate our brand in mission within our organization effectively and consistently. This has also allowed for us to reference the same file without wondering who has the most recently edited content. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is sometimes difficult to navigate through out the various sections of the software. Integrating with presentation software has not been seamless. When I want to save as a asset to reopen and edit is not real easy on the go. When I first started using Canto my account was mistakenly crossed with another brand page, which made it difficult to get to the content that was relevant to me, that seems to have disappeared since. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Very easy to use. UI is well built. Canto team is always available to help if difficulties. AI for tagging is really effective Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

API can be hard to use if you don't have an expert development team. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Canto interface is relatively intuitive, but does have a bit of a learning curve initially. The interface is very icon-based. All features are represented as icons and require hovering over to understand what the icon actually represents. One fantastic aspect of Canto is that it allows for locking down content very easily. The sharing settings are particularly robust and offer a variety of custom fields, expiration being a key field. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Certain aspects of the user experience are not great. There are a ton of icons and some of them that you think would mean one thing actually mean something else entirely. It is also not clear which folders or assets can be shared and how. I often find myself looking for where the share icon lives and find that I can't share certain folders or that I need to make certain selections before sharing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

How easy it is to manage and share files uploaded onto the platform to different users, as well as controlling visibility of said files thorough different user specific portals. It is unbelievably easy to manage users as well, with registration to it being able to be set up as a self-registration process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Excel Exports could be more robust, in terms of being able to filter or pull specific groups of files (Such as duplicates) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.