DAM vs. CMS: What's the difference?
Last updated: December 12, 2022 Read in fullscreen view



- 10 Apr 2022
Difference Between Forward and Backward Reasoning in AI 1232
- 02 May 2022
Difference between CapEx vs. OpEx: Two Ways to Finance Your Software Project 1208
- 17 Oct 2022
What is the difference between low-end, mid-end and high-end solutions of project management software? 1041
- 20 Jan 2022
Difference between Bug, Defect, Error, Fault & Failure 941
- 07 Dec 2021
What's the difference between soft freeze, hard freeze and customization freeze? 936
- 05 Jul 2020
What is Sustaining Software Engineering? 901
- 20 Mar 2022
What is a Multi-Model Database? Pros and Cons? 822
- 03 Jul 2022
What is the difference between Project Proposal and Software Requirements Specification (SRS) in software engineering? 765
- 01 Oct 2020
Fail fast, learn faster with Agile methodology 755
- 03 Aug 2022
What Are OLAs? SLAs vs OLAs vs UCs: What’s The Difference? 699
- 22 Sep 2022
Why is it important to have a “single point of contact (SPoC)” on an IT project? 673
- 14 Oct 2021
Advantages and Disadvantages of Time and Material Contract (T&M) 636
- 18 Oct 2020
How to use the "Knowns" and "Unknowns" technique to manage assumptions 598
- 19 Oct 2021
Is gold plating good or bad in project management? 578
- 21 Jun 2022
Difference between Quality and Grade 526
- 08 Oct 2022
KPI - The New Leadership 486
- 01 Feb 2022
Outstaffing Vs. Outsourcing: What’s The Difference? 470
- 30 Jan 2022
What Does a Sustaining Engineer Do? 390
- 10 Nov 2021
PoC vs. Prototype vs. MVP: What’s the difference? 358
- 24 Nov 2021
What is the difference between off-the-shelf software and customized software? 352
- 23 Sep 2021
INFOGRAPHIC: Top 9 Software Outsourcing Mistakes 324
- 13 Nov 2021
What Is Bleeding Edge Technology? Are bleeding edge technologies cheaper? 317
- 11 Jan 2024
What are the Benefits and Limitations of Augmented Intelligence? 295
- 10 Dec 2023
Pain points of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) 290
- 28 Dec 2021
8 types of pricing models in software development outsourcing 286
- 02 Nov 2021
Difference between an ESTIMATE and a QUOTE 270
- 19 Apr 2021
7 Most Common Time-Wasters For Software Development 265
- 31 Oct 2021
Tips to Fail Fast With Outsourcing 259
- 13 Dec 2020
Move fast, fail fast, fail-safe 253
- 01 Mar 2023
What is Unit Testing? Pros and cons of Unit Testing? 249
- 06 Feb 2021
Why fail fast and learn fast? 232
- 01 Apr 2022
Dedicated Team vs. Extended Team: What’s the difference? 222
- 25 Jan 2022
What is the difference between Outsourcing and Outstaffing? 204
- 18 Aug 2022
What are the consequences of poor requirements with software development projects? 201
- 06 Nov 2019
How to Access Software Project Size? 200
- 25 Apr 2021
What is outstaffing? 194
- 15 Sep 2022
CRM vs CDP: What's the difference? 193
- 18 Mar 2022
Difference between Project Management and Management Consulting 186
- 10 Nov 2022
Poor Code Indicators and How to Improve Your Code? 178
- 26 Dec 2023
Improving Meeting Effectiveness Through the Six Thinking Hats 158
- 09 Dec 2021
Customer Service vs Technical Support: What’s The Difference? 155
- 31 Dec 2021
What is a Data Pipeline? 155
- 17 Feb 2022
Prioritizing Software Requirements with Kano Analysis 153
- 01 Mar 2023
Bug Prioritization - What are the 5 levels of priority? 148
- 10 Apr 2022
What is predictive analytics? Why it matters? 145
- 06 Jun 2024
Software Upgrade vs Software Update: What is the difference? 142
- 15 Aug 2023
Production-Ready vs Feature-Complete: What’s the Difference? 121
- 05 Jan 2024
Easy ASANA tips & tricks for you and your team 105
- 12 Mar 2024
How do you create FOMO in software prospects? 79
- 14 Mar 2024
Why should you opt for software localization from a professional agency? 64
Content Management Systems (CMS)
A content management system essentially acts as the foundation for your website (blog, news, eCommerce, etc). With a CMS, you’re able to publish, change and remove content from your website, making it a strong solution for teams across the globe.
A CMS is usually home to web designers, editors, and administrators. It hosts easy-to-use templates, along with comprehensive WYSIWYG building blocks to allow users to easily and quickly build beautiful, impactful websites. It has strong capabilities when managing text-based content, with version tracking, SEO add-ons, and robust search capabilities.
Key Features of a CMS
- Storing and indexing web pages and web copy
- Searching for and retrieving relevant content
- Format management for brand consistency
- Revision control for past versions of web content
- Basic access permissions to edit and view
- Publishing and reporting on web content
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
A digital asset management system is an integral part of the media content creation process, helping companies organize, collaborate on, and distribute their visual media from within one central library. By providing a single source of truth for all the important visual content within an organization, a DAM reduces internal bottlenecks and improves brand consistency across all channels.
With a DAM, users can manage nearly any type of digital file. From within the system, users can perform a variety of functions, including re-sizing & re-formatting their media, tracking usage history, and sharing large files easily with external parties. A DAM also provides organizations with increased media security, such as user permissions, compliance regulations, recovery, and geo-replication.\
Key Features of a DAM
- Storing and managing brand and marketing material (photos, videos, etc.)
- Finding and retrieving media assets, using advanced searches
- Enriching assets with custom metadata, such as keywords
- Version control and history tracking for all media assets
- Manipulating assets into other forms, such as file type or size
- Access permissions for internal and external users
Integrating DAM and CMS
When you understand the difference between a DAM and CMS, it becomes clear that the two systems are actually complementary to each other (rather than alternatives). With a DAM, users are able to use advanced library capabilities to feed their web team the media content they need to confidently build on-brand, visual web content. This benefit only improves with an integration between the two, as users will be able to access the DAM without having to leave the CMS.
Benefits of a DAM and CMS Integration
When you’re able to access your DAM within your CMS, it allows your users to:
- Easily access on-brand and approved media assets from within your CMS
- Automatically upload and create links within your CMS library
- Use advanced search capabilities to find the assets they need
- Improve brand consistency across all web properties
- Effectively re-use media content across your website
Example of a DAM and CMS Integration
Without a DAM
You’re the web developer for a furniture retailer and you’re working on a web page to promote one of your partner brands and their upcoming sale. You go into your CMS library to find their logo, but there are 3 different variations. You know you should send a message to the marketing team to clarify which one to use, but this page needs to go live today. You ultimately decide to use the most recently uploaded logo and pray that it’s the right one.
With a DAM
You’re the same web developer, working on the same web page, but instead of searching for the logo within your CMS library, you open your DAM library plugin. From there, you can instantly see a category that your marketing team created specifically for this campaign. Within this category, you find a logo that was hand-picked by the marketing team and confidently add to the page to be published.
Conclusion
A CMS helps manage content for your website, while a DAM helps manage content for your entire organization across multiple channels.