The Brandfolder Alternative Built for Marketing Teams

Who this page is for

If you’re a VP of Marketing, Marketing Director, or brand/creative operations leader evaluating Brandfolder — or already using it and running into its limits — this page is for you.

Brandfolder is a well-regarded, easy-to-use digital asset management (DAM) platform. It’s genuinely one of the more intuitive DAMs on the market for storing, tagging, and distributing finished assets. What it doesn’t include is a real way to manage the work that produces those assets — creative requests, assignments, deadlines, and full review and approval. Brandfolder’s own product pages point customers to its parent company, Smartsheet, for that.

Lytho includes that work natively: intake, creative production, and review/approval, alongside a DAM to store the finished assets — in one platform, with one contract.

Below, you’ll find a side-by-side feature comparison, an honest breakdown of where each platform is stronger, and answers to common questions.

On this page

• How Lytho and Brandfolder compare
• Two different tools, two different jobs
• One platform, not two products
• Built for how marketing teams work
• And review still catches compliance issues
• Where Brandfolder wins
• Where Lytho wins
• Frequently asked questions

A DAM Stores Content. It Doesn’t Manage the Work of Making It.

Brandfolder is a digital asset library, and a well-designed one — clean interface, fast search, and AI-assisted tagging that makes finding assets easy. But like any DAM, it picks up after the work is done. It doesn’t help your team take in a request, assign it, track a deadline, or route it through review.

Brandfolder’s answer to that gap is Smartsheet — the company that acquired Brandfolder in 2020 and now sells it as part of a joint offering. Creative requests submitted in Brandfolder kick off projects in Smartsheet; the two remain separate products with separate logins, separate contracts, and separate admin panels. Customers describe the integration as smooth in theory, seamed in practice.

For a marketing leader or brand/creative ops manager, that shows up as: two vendor relationships, two implementations, and no single place to see a piece of content from request to published asset.

Two different tools, two different jobs.

Brandfolder plus Smartsheet is two products doing two jobs: one stores and distributes assets, the other manages the work of creating them. Lytho does both in a single platform.

• Brandfolder’s job (with Smartsheet): Brandfolder gives your team a clean, searchable home for finished assets. Creative requests and project tracking are handed off to Smartsheet, a separate product with its own contract and login.
• Lytho’s job: manage the work of creating content from request to publish — intake, assignments, deadlines, review, and approval, with brand and compliance checks built into that process — and a DAM to house the results once they’re done.

If your team’s biggest need is a clean, easy-to-use asset library, Brandfolder is a strong option on its own. If your need is one place to manage requests, track work, and get things reviewed without adding a second vendor, that’s where Lytho fits.

How Lytho and Workfront compare

Feature availability varies by plan.

Ready to learn more? Book a demo.

One platform, not two products.

A team that picks Brandfolder for DAM and needs real work management typically ends up buying Smartsheet alongside it:

• Brandfolder for asset storage, tagging, and distribution
• Smartsheet for creative requests, project tracking, and deeper review workflows
• Two separate contracts, renewal cycles, and admin experiences — even though they’re sold by the same parent company

Lytho brings intake, creative production, review and approval, and DAM into one connected platform, under one contract. Fewer logins, fewer handoffs, and one place to see a piece of content from request to finished asset.

Built for how marketing teams work.

Requests don’t require a second product. Brandfolder’s intake forms exist, but the actual project — assignment, tracking, deadlines — happens in Smartsheet. Lytho handles intake, prioritization, and routing natively, so work starts and finishes in the same system.

Review that goes beyond comments. Brandfolder’s Creative Workflow covers annotations and version compare — useful, but lighter than a full review process. Deeper proofing, reviewer routing, and approval chains live on the Smartsheet side. Lytho’s review and approval is native, with AI Reviewers checking brand standards automatically as part of the process.

One system to learn, one bill to manage. Brandfolder and Smartsheet have separate UIs, separate admin panels, and separate renewal cycles — even under the same parent company. Lytho is one platform, one login, one contract.

And review still catches compliance issues before they leave your team.

Worth a brief mention: neither Brandfolder nor Smartsheet includes automated brand or compliance checking as part of review — approvals in that stack are based on human sign-off alone. Lytho’s AI Reviewers check content against your brand standards as part of the review step, which is a plus for any team, and especially relevant for marketing teams in compliance-heavy industries like financial services or healthcare.

Brand governance built in — not added on.

Brand compliance and content governance are built into how Lytho works. Every asset that goes through your workflow carries an approval record. Your brand center gives internal teams and external partners the right assets with the right permissions — without anyone manually distributing the latest version. Lytho’s AI Reviewers are live and work throughout the content creation process, not just at the end.

This distinction matters most for marketing leaders in compliance-heavy industries:

• Healthcare — where every asset needs a documented approval trail
• Financial services — where regulatory review is non-negotiable
• Higher education — where brand consistency and compliance intersect

Where Brandfolder wins.

To be fair to Brandfolder: it’s a well-designed, well-liked product, and there are real reasons teams choose it.

• Usability. Brandfolder is consistently rated as one of the easiest, most intuitive DAMs to use — a real advantage for teams that found other enterprise DAMs too complex.
• Smart CDN. Automatic format conversion and on-the-fly resizing for embedded assets across the web is a genuine strength, particularly for e-commerce and partner-site use cases.
• AI-powered tagging. Auto-tagging, facial recognition, and video scene detection are mature and well-regarded — a strong option for teams managing large image and video libraries.
• Lower price point for DAM alone. If your team only needs asset storage and distribution, Brandfolder on its own is typically priced below Lytho’s full platform.

Where Lytho wins.

• Built-in project intake and work management. No need to add a second product just to manage creative requests, assignments, and deadlines.
• Review and approval, not just annotations. Brandfolder’s Creative Workflow is comments and version compare; full review lives in Smartsheet. Lytho’s AI Reviewers check content against brand standards natively, in one platform.
• One platform instead of two. Work management, DAM, and review in a single system, under a single contract — not a DAM plus a separate project management purchase.
• Brand standards enforced at the point of creation. Lytho’s Edge integrations flag issues while content is being made — in Chrome, Outlook, PowerPoint, Canva, and Adobe — not after it’s already uploaded.
• A plus for regulated industries. If your team operates under FINRA, SEC, HIPAA, NCUA, or ADA/WCAG requirements, Lytho’s review process is built to help enforce those standards — something neither Brandfolder nor Smartsheet currently offers.