Third Light Reviews 57

When we decided to make an investment in asset management software, we evaluated 6 platforms including ThirdLight. ThirdLight came out on top in most areas of our evaluation, and I think what stands out to me the most is how well they've performed in a couple of areas where we thought the competition might do better. For example, one vendor pitched us really hard on a separate indexing server for our metadata because our photo archive is so large. As we've grown to over 1M assets, I can confidently tell you that the queries are incredibly fast, responsive, and accurate. SmartFolders (ThirdLight's implementation of saved queries) work brilliantly to help manage specific content. We used the API to connect our proprietary metadata capturing software, and our development team found it extremely easy to work with. So all in all, working with the underlying metadata has far exceeded our initial expectations. Secondly, in our initial evals, we scored a couple of vendors higher due to their client software. After we used ThirdLight for a month in trials, we found that they had done a marvelous job at putting all of the functionality we'd need in the browser, and with a remarkably intuitive feel. So, we decided that client-side software wasn't necessary, and looking back on it we are glad we went this direction. Quite frankly, ThirdLight gets the job done, and I'm glad we don't have the added management costs associated with supporting a client. We did opt for the file server module so that we could do some advanced image editing with Photoshop, and this has worked brilliantly for our needs. We've challenged our DAM with a lot, and ThirdLight has met every single demand.
Another reason you should strongly consider ThirdLight is the support. In a word, exceptional. They answer questions and resolve issues in an extremely timely fashion (usually same day). They are proactive in helping us manage our platform. They've worked very closely with us to ensure we have our backup server configured and working properly so we can sleep at night. When we seek guidance on planning or architecture, they give us all the options and help steer us towards the best solution. They've listened to our needs and incorporated many of those in updates and releases. This support organization is the best I've dealt with in 20 years of IT, hands down.
Finally, I'd recommend ThirdLight on its technical merits. In our experience, it is extremely stable (zero downtime in almost 2 years), highly scalable (we are currently at 35 TB plus cloud-based backup), and far exceeded our expectations in terms of performance. This is an IT implementation you won't regret.

We spent a long time researching and trialling software solutions to handle our ever growing database of imagery - we just kept coming back to Thirdlight which delivered on price, service and attention to what our customers needs were. The Thirdlight Support team engaged with how we needed the system to work and worked with us to integrate it in to all of our cross platform needs. We often have heavy traffic weekends and we found the support team to offer fast support to ensure that the system was able to handle this high traffic without compromise. We feel the system has now ensured smooth running of all of our ongoing archive, staff daily needs and when necessary our press facing actions. Being built by people who know about photography has also ensured that any changing technical areas are quickly updated to make for an excellent up to the minute image management system.

Third Light IMS is a world class DAM product. The user interface is intuitive, it is highly scalable, it can deployed in a number of ways. Best of all, Third Light IMS is highly tailorable and backed by an incredible group of people.

I have deployed IMS in a cloud environment as this is what suited my use case. The team at Third Light were very supportive - working to understand my needs and then helping me to deploy the platform. The training and feedback loop is strong. Support is first class - not that you will need it as the product is so robust and well developed. It's worth mentioning that I am on the other side of the world, deploying the platform in a non-standard manner. And the support and service has been nothing short of epic.

I researched a lot (really a lot) of DAM solutions before I settled on Third Light. My main reservation was that I couldn't really believe IMS had the same or better functionality than competitors that are at a price point up to ten times that of IMS. Of course I got a full demo for as long as I needed (underline: epic service) and sure enough - IMS confirmed itself as the golden solution that covers price, functionality and scalability.

Our organization has used Third Light for several years. We have been extremely happy with the product Third Light provides. We have been even more pleased with the customer service they provide. From the sales process at the very beginning of our relationship to sporadic issues that might pop up to large scale questions we have about how to improve our use of the Third Light software, we have been impressed with our customer service experience

One of the questions that came up when we first signed on with Third Light was whether we would be able to get help fast enough because we are in the US and they are 8 hours ahead of us. That concern was quickly resolved as we were able to receive any needed help very quickly. In many cases, the Third Light staff helps us more quickly than vendors we use who are in the same building!

We have also been impressed with the way Third Light is continually improving their product. They come out with software improvements several times per year. And the upgrade to the new software is a very easy and painless process. We never have to worry about the software being out of date or falling behind other digital asset management software.

I have recommended Third Light to anyone who was looking for DAM software. And I will continue to highly recommend them to anyone I can. For the price and the quality of the software, Third Light can't be beat.

When I first started using this software, there were few other options for managing photography sales online, but Thirdlight has grown with the times, and now demonstrates that it can meet the needs of the most demanding professional photographers. The enthusiasm and experience of the team behind it also reassures you that they understand the nuances of how to keep data safe and what features delight photographers.

It's worth saying that this is not a product for amateurs dabbling in photography, but they can provide plenty of assistance for helping make your site look and work professionally.

I have been using the Third Light software for over 2 years and whenever I have any problems the help desk answers you right away. The software is so easy to use and the functionality is great. My customers get their images right away and can download in any format. The software is kept up to date and they have training sessions online. I would recommend this software.

Kathy Stevenson

I have 4 sites with Third Light and have worked with them for 5 years with no problems.
Great software, fast support team , its secure, stable and easy to use.
I can recommend them and the software without reservations.

If you are searching for a complete digital asset management system, look no further than IMS. We have been using IMS enterprise version installed locally on our servers for just over 4 years and I can say with certainty that it has completely changed the way our organization works with images.
Countless hours that I used to spend weekly distributing images by email and discs can now be devoted to creating more images. With close to 100 user accounts customized to specific needs and the ease of sharing images with non registered users, IMS delivers results daily.
It couldn't be easier to search for and share images. Downloading at any size needed is simple with the "download" wizard. Publishing files directly to social media or to unique URL's, creating lightboxes and quickly distributing password protected event links are just some of the ways to utilize this powerful yet simple tool!

Customer service and technical support are second to none, efficient and personal . Emails are responded to within a couple of hours and even the rare technical issue is always dealt with swiftly and professionally. Feature suggestions are always considered and often implemented in periodic updates (applicable with one click by the system administrator).
Other than my user experience, I know that my main system users are thrilled with the system.
I've even received emails from our IT people saying how professional the Third Light IT team is when their help is needed.
Overall - this is an excellent product backed by a great team of developers, staff and support!

Since choosing Third Light nearly ten years ago, The Scout Association has used its powerful functionality and capabilities to store, retrieve and share high quality brand assets.

Both our headquarters team and network of communications volunteers use the library on a daily basis when putting together both print and online resources. The system is reliable, intuitive and the range of admin facilities makes it easy to manage and maintain.

The team at Thirdlight is always friendly, helpful and progressive, keen to share developments and improvements with all users.

Chris James, Brand Adviser, The Scout Association

We have been using Third Light IMS for more than three years in our company. In our opinion, IMS offers a user-friendly, safe and cost-efficient online mediabase for companies of all sizes.

We are a digital marketing agency, and we use IMS both for our own needs and on behalf of clients. IMS helps us store, organize, share, find and edit media files of all kinds. We especially like the dynamic, faceted search functionality and the very powerful way in which IMS uses metadata.

We have also integrated IMS with two different content management systems – CMS’s that we use. Together with the developers at Third Light we have developed a picker inside the CMS that allows editors to browse and search their way to right picture, select it, and then dynamically crop and format the image to fit the CMS templates. All of this is done without creating copies of the original image, even if the original is a 50 Mb CMYK TIF file. This gives the advantage of consistent use of images on websites and in other applications, and it saves a lot of time which was previously spent editing, versioning, downloading, organizing and uploading. Our clients are happy to be able to control this entire process themselves – with only a single version of all images in one place, and without the need for any knowledge of image editing software.

We have used Third Light's image library since 2007 and have been very pleased with its functionality. It allows us to share our images with both our staff and externals, but gives us the control we need too. It's user-friendly and has a super search facility.

We've had almost no problems at all with the product, and on the odd occasion when we've had to get in touch with Third Light, their support has been immediate, very friendly and efficient, with follow up emails to ensure that everything is working as it should.

I'd be very happy to recommend this product to anyone (and have done).

We have been using ThirdLight since 2009 and have recently upgraded from our original in-house appliance to their cloud service. The solution and the service have always been outstanding.

The product itself offers exactly what we need in terms of functionality as well as in terms of look, feel, ease of use and manageability.

The company held our hand through the initial deployment making it a painless and straightforward process. The training they offered at the time was perfectly tailored to our requirements and we were very quickly up and running. There have been no issues with the product in all this time apart from the discovery of vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed which have always been handled proactively by their support team.

They held our hand again with our recent migration to their Premium cloud service. All the data and settings were moved across so that the transition was entirely seamless.

I would highly recommend Thirdlight. They have a truly great product and have consistently provided us with a friendly and helpful service.

We took the decision to use ThirdLight as our digital asset management tool for all our websites and digital products. We'd never used a third-party tool before and so did lots of research into different systems. ThirdLight was right for us as it offered flexibility of use at a very good price.

We've been using it for a couple of years now and are very pleased with its performance.

As a long term customer of Third Light I could no longer imagine the dealing with the complication of digital asset management without them.

We have our own server infrastructure hosting our Third Light system comprising a primary and backup server. Third Light installed and set up these and arranged the relevant access through our firewalls, which was done in a timely and professional manner – one of the only system installs that I remember going without a hitch!

The team at Third Light support us with updates and regular server maintenance, and although we have very few issues, those that do occur are swiftly and efficiently fixed. Our network requires regular PCI scans and Third Light have been excellent in ensuring that our data is secure against the most up to date threats.

I have enjoyed our partnership with Third Light and can recommend them without hesitation.

We use Third Light to store and access photo's and documents. The three things that stand out for our application are:

1) The ease of use and access to our stored data
2) The amazing - and accurate - search facility
3) The reliability of the product.

In the time we have been associated with Third Light, we can't think of anything to fault their product or service. Their DAM software really is worth the 5 star rating I have given it.

After spending months researching a DAM for our company (self hosted not cloud) I found that you run into two different things. Either you find a very complicated solution that is extremely expensive or you find a cheaper solution that has very little features.

A friend of mine suggested I look into ThirdLight and to be honest at first I thought it would end up being another cheap solution with no features. However, the more I worked with their free demo the more I fell in love with the Intelligent Media Server (IMS). It is very feature rich but also extremely easy to use. It fit what we needed almost perfectly (they do also have a hosted solution for those looking for that). ThirdLight's IMS was the only solution that we found hit the middle between little features or overly complicated.

I always enjoy working with Steve and Ogii who are on their support team. They are very kind and have proven extremely helpful. I would recommend ThirdLight to anyone wanting a solid solution without having to pay the price for a TV Studio level solution or server back end.

I also want to mention that I was very impressed with how the evaluation period went. Roland at ThirdLight was a huge help and always tried his best to understand what I was asking and even pulled in the developers to help make changes while I was building the demo system. It was a refreshing change from the other companies I was working with.

We began using Third Light in 2010 in order to manage our growing collection of digitised images from our archive and museum collections. The functionalilty of the system has grown steadily over that time to incorporate changes to users needs, such as plugins for Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, direct sharing to social media platforms and dropbox.

Adding metadata and configuring the system is pretty simple and the level of reporting is great for tracking use and monitoring the way staff use the system.

What has impressed us from the start, and continues to do so, is the level of customer support we receive. Direct and rapid support from helpful people at Third Light means that problems are resolved quickly and with the minimum of fuss. More than that, they are open to new feature requests and updates to the feature-set happen regularly.