2026 comparison · Updated this year
Artwork Archive is a good product for one person cataloguing their own work. This page covers what to use instead when the archive needs provenance depth, more than one user, insurance schedules, or a sales side — and when you should stay exactly where you are.
Decision matrix
| Platform | Best for | Pricing | Free tier | Multi-user | Provenance | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aurelian | Collectors and artists who expect the archive to outgrow one person | Free · €59 · €149 · €299 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Head to head → |
| Artwork Archive | One person cataloguing a personal body of work | $8 · $23 · $47 / mo | Trial | Partial | Partial | — |
| CatalogIt | Small museums, historical societies and object-heavy collections | Free personal tier · paid org plans | Yes | Yes | Yes | Head to head → |
| Collectrium | Large private collections with a dedicated collection manager | Enterprise, custom quote | No | Yes | Yes | Head to head → |
| Artlogic | Working galleries selling regularly, not personal archives | Mid-to-enterprise, custom quote | No | Yes | Partial | Head to head → |
| A spreadsheet | Under ~40 works with no images, loans or insurance schedule | Free | Yes | Partial | No | — |
Pricing bands are taken from public pricing pages at time of writing. Verify with the vendor before purchase.
Web-native archive and CRM covering artists, private collectors, galleries, jewellers and watchmakers on one shared data model.
Verdict: Closest match on cataloguing, with room to grow into sales and clienteling.
Aurelian vs Aurelian →The incumbent. A well-built cataloguing tool aimed squarely at individual artists and independent collectors.
Verdict: Excellent for solo cataloguing. Thin once a second person or a sales pipeline appears.
Museum-lineage cataloguing app with strong object records and a mobile-first capture flow.
Verdict: Best pick if the collection is museological rather than commercial.
Aurelian vs CatalogIt →Collection management aimed at high-net-worth private collections and their advisors.
Verdict: Serious depth, serious price. Overkill under a few hundred works.
Aurelian vs Collectrium →Established gallery suite with inventory, CRM, viewing rooms and website integration.
Verdict: A step up in scope and cost. Wrong shape for a private collector.
Aurelian vs Artlogic →Still the most-used alternative in the category, and honestly fine for a while.
Verdict: Breaks at the point images, valuations and locations all need to stay in sync.
It depends on who is doing the cataloguing. For a solo artist or collector who wants a free permanent tier and room to add sales, provenance and multiple users later, Aurelian is the closest like-for-like alternative. For museological object records, CatalogIt is stronger. For very large advised collections, Collectrium. For a working commercial gallery, Artlogic or a gallery-specific platform is the right category entirely.
Yes. Aurelian has a permanently free single-user workspace covering inventory, provenance and contacts. CatalogIt also offers a free personal tier. Artwork Archive itself offers a trial rather than a permanent free plan.
Yes. Artwork Archive supports CSV export of your inventory and associated fields, and images can be downloaded. Export before you cancel, not after, and check that custom fields and provenance notes came across before you close the account.
Export inventory and contacts to CSV, download the image set, then map fields explicitly in the new tool — dimensions, medium, edition, provenance chain, valuation history and current location. Run a ten-row test import first and check the provenance field survived before importing everything.
Aurelian, Collectrium and CatalogIt all carry valuation history with source and date. Aurelian and Collectrium can export an appraised schedule suitable for an insurer or estate counsel; a spreadsheet cannot do this reliably once values change over time.
Under roughly forty works with no loans, no insurance schedule and no images to keep straight, a spreadsheet is genuinely adequate. Past that, the reconstruction cost when something goes wrong exceeds the cost of a proper archive.
Inventory, provenance, valuations and images in one private workspace — free for a single user, exportable at any time.