Brandquad vs Pimcore: PIM Comparison

A comparison of the Pimcore and Brandquad PIM systems with DAM features.
KT.Team experts analyzed the systems against the following criteria: the out-of-the-box feature set; which additional sales- and marketing-related features can be added to the system; how the PIM system can be integrated with an existing IT landscape; where the system can be hosted; whether customizations are possible if the out-of-the-box solution is not enough; how much it costs to own the system.
When a CIS company plans to implement a PIM system, the choice most often comes down to two contenders: Pimcore and Brandquad.
Both systems make the same marketing promises: they will help bring order to product data, reduce the share of manual work, and contribute to higher sales. But…
The real differences — often the decisive ones for the business customer — lie deeper. Integrators are not always ready to talk about them, and vendor websites don't cover everything either.
Yet it is precisely these differences and system specifics that will ultimately determine how effective the implementation is and whether the PIM system delivers the expected results.
Having implemented PIM systems since 2020, we meet with business representatives every day and answer their questions about the features and nuances of popular PIM systems. In this article, KT.Team experts have gathered information on the PIM aspects that our clients pay attention to.
This will help make the choice of system more transparent and use the PIM and DAM implementation budget efficiently.

Key point

In brief

The marketing promises of Brandquad and Pimcore are the same; the differences that matter to business buyers are deeper: deployment model, code openness, customization, and total cost of ownership.
Brandquad is SaaS only on the vendor's servers, with closed-source code and customizations available only through feature requests. The interface and support are in CIS, with a fast start.
Pimcore offers cloud and on-premise deployment, with open-source code on Symfony: any IT team familiar with the stack can customize it; some functions are available only in on-premise versions.
Pricing: Brandquad is custom-priced (KT.Team client example: RUB 5 million/year for 125,000 SKUs); Pimcore offers a free Community Edition, Enterprise from EUR 1,800/month, and Unlimited from EUR 7,200/month.
Brandquad is suited to a simple linear catalog with established processes; Pimcore is suited to companies of any size with complex multi-step workflows and dozens of roles.
The choice depends on your product data workflows: which features you need inside the PIM, and which customizations and integrations will be required.

The marketing promises are the same for both systems. The real differences lie deeper, and those are what ultimately determine whether the PIM system delivers the expected results.

Disclaimer: what we look at when analyzing a PIM system

When choosing the comparison criteria, we considered the goals companies usually set for implementing a PIM system.

Reaching these goals becomes a marker of how effectively the money invested in PIM is spent. A PIM system should bring order to product data.

This means it must centrally store all existing product information, product cards must not be duplicated, and the information must be complete and accurate. A PIM system should help improve sales metrics: number of buyers, average order value, upsells, repeat purchases, and so on.

Users of a PIM system should easily master its features without getting confused by buttons and sections. A PIM system should integrate easily with already existing systems.

This does not require writing complex, poorly maintainable integrations on a rare stack. A PIM system can be customized to fit a company's business-process specifics. For example, at one KT.Team client the PIM system is used by staff from several divisions and dozens of departments. Some enter data on new products, some enrich product cards with media files, some create marketing information and make decisions based on analytics, and so on.

Each role must have access to its own pool of data and only at a specific stage of the product lifecycle. A PIM system must meet the company's security requirements.

For some companies it is essential that the core of the system runs on their own servers, while others find SaaS (software as a service) solutions acceptable.

Based on these parameters, we put together a short outline for reviewing Pimcore and Brandquad: the out-of-the-box feature set (what the PIM can cover right after implementation, and what the development team will need to build in, taking your business-process specifics into account); which additional sales- and marketing-impacting features can be connected to the system; and how the PIM system can be integrated with an existing IT landscape - there is

ready-made APIs are available; where the system can be hosted (in the cloud or on your own servers); whether customization is possible if the out-of-the-box solution is not enough; and how much owning the system costs (licenses, cloud space, additional users, additional features).

Brandquad and Pimcore: key points

A detailed breakdown of each system is below. If you need a decision right now, here are the key differences.

Criterion	Brandquad	Pimcore
Deployment	SaaS only (vendor cloud)	Cloud and on-premise (some functions are available only on-premise)
Code and customizations	Closed source; customizations only through vendor feature requests	Open source on Symfony; any IT team can customize it
Integrations	Ready-made API (1C, SAP, website), limited attribute set	Built-in REST API and Pimcore Datahub, flexible endpoint configuration
Cost	Custom pricing; example: RUB 5 million/year for a catalog of 125,000 SKUs	Community - free; Enterprise - from EUR 1,800/month; Unlimited - from EUR 7,200/month
Who it's for	Simple linear catalog, established processes, fast launch	Any size; complex multi-step workflows and dozens of roles

Where the PIM system sits in the product data flow

Sources

1C / SAP / ERPproduct pages, stock

Suppliersprice lists, content

PIM

PIM / DAMBrandquad or Pimcore

Customizationsfeature request ↔ your own Symfony code

Channels

Marketplacesup to 13 channels

Website and catalogsAPI, exports

A PIM collects reliable product data and distributes it to channels. The difference between systems lies in the openness of customization and deployment options.

Brandquad platform overview

An ecosystem of products for working with product data. It includes PIM, DAM, DSA (digital shelf analytics), e-commerce analytics, and data distribution modules. One of Brandquad's main interface languages is CIS, with documentation and support available in CIS. As a result, CIS-speaking users learn the platform easily.

Brandquad: core features available out of the box

Brandquad has two out-of-the-box plans: PIM and PIM Lite.

Their core feature sets differ

Brandquad PIM and PIM Lite include: configurable product pages; automatic data validation and product-page completeness scoring; a product category tree; bulk data import; a module for configuring document approval workflows (with limitations); a system for monitoring product pages on retailer websites; attribute transliteration for publishing on English-language sites.

The following services and features are available only in the full version of Brandquad PIM: DAM tools; building product information models; links between products (for example, for upsells); configuring different levels of access to product pages and workflows by role; an unlimited number of public catalogs (PIM Lite has only one); sending the product catalog to sales channels (only within the functionality of the ready-made API; everything,

anything outside the scope of this API must be ordered separately from Brandquad).

Business users note that product search and filtering are well implemented in Brandquad; in Pimcore, which we discuss in the next part of the article, these features are less convenient and precise.

Custom export of reports or product selections by attributes, on the other hand, is not implemented.

To get these features, you must order the corresponding customization from the vendor.

Additional Brandquad features that help grow sales and improve marketing processes

Public catalog

A virtual storefront with a user interface synchronized with the PIM. It lets you show a catalog or product selection to any number of clients and send product information via API, mailings, or manual export directly from the catalog in CSV, PDF, XLSX, or XML formats.

300+ channels

E-commerce analytics module

Collects information on prices, reviews, and promotions from more than 300 platforms for both the company and its competitors.

BuyButton

A widget that can be added to a website (if it is not an online store) or the company's social media. A button, or a set of buttons if your product is listed on several channels, lets the customer open the product page on the sales channel they prefer.

Adobe and Figma plugins

Plugins for working with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, and Figma improve the handling of media assets and metadata.

Algorithms for distributing data to online marketplaces

Automated machine-learning algorithms that transform all required content into each retailer's or partner's format: from product names and marketing copy to image resolution and file names.

Brandquad: deployment options, integrations, and license pricing

Deployment options: Brandquad is available only as SaaS, meaning the company gets access to its own space on Brandquad's servers.
Integration capabilities: the full version includes a ready-made API for integration with 1C, SAP, the website, and more.
But the set of attributes and formats that can be passed through this API is limited.
To transfer a custom set of attributes, you need to order the relevant API customization from the vendor.
License pricing: Brandquad prepares each commercial proposal individually.
The annual payment depends on the system version, required resources, and number of users. For example, one KT.Team client with a catalog of 125,000 SKUs paid RUB 5 million per year.

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Which companies Brandquad is right for

Brandquad is a good fit if you need to quickly launch a product or digital asset management system and set up fast exports to marketplaces and online catalogs. For example, KT.Team implemented Brandquad in eight weeks and configured exports to 13 sales channels for Campari Rus LLC.

Pimcore platform overview

A multifunctional platform that has long gone beyond PIM.

Pimcore currently includes the PIM, MDM, DAM, and DXP modules (abbr

from English digital experience platform

), DCF (abbr

from English digital commerce framework). Using one or more of these modules, a company can configure a clear presentation of reliable information not only about a product, but also about related assets and customers.

Pimcore: core features available out of the box

All versions of Pimcore (Community Edition PaaS and on-prem, Enterprise Edition, Unlimited Subscription) offer the following features: product catalogs of any complexity and with any interdependency; building product cards with any logic and information model; linking to value reference books for colors, sizes, materials, and so on; fields with calculated values (using mathematical formulas or composite values); linking to media assets; validation

product pages and data; building workflows for working with product information, from simple to complex; integration with external systems and applications; publishing to sales channels; multilingual support and AI translation of page content; links between products (substitutes and upsells).

Only in paid Pimcore versions: PXM (abbr

from English product experience management

); PDS (abbr

from English product data syndication) - an analytics tool that helps increase sales and improve the customer experience across more than 2,500 channels; CDP (Customer Data Platform); building alternative hierarchies and category trees (a useful feature if several departments work with the same product, each requiring its own catalog and product-page logic); integration with Adobe and Microsoft products.

Additional Pimcore features that help grow sales and improve marketing processes

Customer Data Platform

Only in paid on-premise versions. Collects data on customer activity across different sales channels. Helps build customer profiles, segment audiences more accurately, unify user profiles, and automate some marketing tasks for content personalization.

Digital Commerce Framework

Only in on-premise versions. A framework for building automated omnichannel B2C commerce.

Digital Experience Platform

A headless platform for centrally managing content across multiple websites in different languages and for different target audiences. It covers a wide range of tasks, from content creation and adaptation to analytics and optimizing the digital customer experience.

Deployment options

: any Pimcore plan offers cloud and on-premise deployment options.

Customization capabilities

: Pimcore is an open-source platform built on the Symfony framework. Any IT team familiar with the stack can adapt the platform to unique processes and business specifics. IT integrators with several Pimcore implementation cases in their portfolio may have ready-made bundles (custom code enhancements) for your company's tasks and business-process specifics. Overall, Pimcore is quite flexible and includes many microservices and tools for different business tasks.

For example, one KT.Team client, a manufacturer of plumbing and bathroom products, had a catalog structure that required creating 300 classes (reference tables that product pages point to). That many classes significantly reduced system performance, so we used one of Pimcore's options, Classification Store. This option makes it possible to keep classes out of the main load and reference them only when needed, without affecting the performance of the PIM system overall.

The Classification Store option also lets you "package" additional product attributes and pull them into the card depending on the product category.

Integration capabilities

: Pimcore ships with a REST API out of the box. You can configure its endpoints in Pimcore Datahub to pass each system and each application exactly the set of attributes it needs.

Pimcore: license pricing

Pimcore offers three basic plans to choose from

Community Edition is the free version of Pimcore with a limited number of installations within one company.

Does not support some features, including Product Experience Portal, Asset Experience Portal, integration with marketplaces and Adobe and Microsoft software, a workflow editor, and additional product data export functions.

Pimcore does not provide user support

Enterprise Edition is an expanded version of Pimcore with access to all platform capabilities.

Price starts at EUR 1,800 per month, depending on the option set.

A limited number of installations within one company (but not users), with technical support available. Unlimited Subscription is the most advanced Pimcore version, with no restrictions on functionality or the number of installations within a single organization.

Which companies Pimcore is right for

Pimcore imposes no particular restrictions on the size or profile of the company that can use the system, especially given the platform's almost unlimited customization options. For example, the free Community Edition can suit both a small business and large companies with relatively simple product management processes.

Paid versions (which also have a larger feature set) better meet the needs of large companies with complex processes. They make it possible to build multi-step workflows for working with product information that account for the involvement of multiple departments and dozens of roles.

Brandquad or Pimcore: which system fits when

When Brandquad

Companies with a linear product page structure and a small number of dependencies. Companies with a simple product catalog.
Companies whose product management processes are already established and change very little, and whose product page and category approval workflows are simple and short.
You need to quickly launch product or digital asset management and set up fast exports to marketplaces and electronic catalogs.
Deployment is only possible as SaaS, and vendor feature requests are enough for customizations.
A CIS-language interface, documentation, and support are important.

When Pimcore

A catalog of any complexity and interdependence; alternative hierarchies and category trees are needed for different departments.
Complex processes: multi-step workflows involving several departments and dozens of roles.
You need customizations for unique processes, implemented by your own IT team or a contractor - the open-source Symfony codebase makes this possible.
On-premise deployment is required, or some features are available only on-premise.
Flexible budget: from the free Community Edition for simple processes to Enterprise/Unlimited for larger ones.

What questions to ask so you don't make a mistake when choosing a PIM system

The choice of a PIM system depends on your company's existing product information workflows. Before choosing a vendor, analyze the following points.

Which functions should be inside the PIM, and which can stay in other systems or be moved there? This can be worked through with a contractor during the pre-project assessment.
Are the out-of-the-box features enough? Are customizations needed? Consider the processes already in place at the company.
Which systems does the PIM need to integrate with? What information needs to be received and sent?
Which additional marketing and analytics options do you need?

Read more about the seven steps to take before implementing a PIM system in our article "Why You Can't Just Implement a PIM System."

Comparison of Brandquad and Pimcore - popular PIM systems in the CIS market

Disclaimer: what we look at when analyzing a PIM system

Brandquad and Pimcore: key points

Brandquad platform overview