Fabric vs. Brandfolder

Last updated April 2026

Brandfolder organises your brand assets. Fabric connects everything you know. Brandfolder is a digital asset management platform for storing, tagging, governing, and distributing marketing content. Fabric is an AI workspace where every file you save is understood, searchable by meaning, and part of a growing body of knowledge. One keeps your assets tidy. The other makes them useful beyond distribution.

Comparison table

What is Brandfolder?

Brandfolder is a digital asset management platform owned by Smartsheet (acquired in 2020 for $155M). It centralises marketing content in a searchable library with AI-powered tagging (Brand Intelligence), custom portals for curated external sharing, a Brandguide module for hosting brand guidelines, and a Smart CDN that lets you embed assets on websites with automatic updates when the source file changes. Used by brands like Autodesk, Lyft, and Mastercard. Pricing is quote-based, with Team at roughly $45/user/month and Business at $90/user/month. Enterprise is custom. Multiple reviewers note that version control is a significant gap and that pricing can be high for smaller teams.

What is Fabric?

Fabric is an AI workspace that combines file storage, note-taking, search, tasks, collaboration, and publishing. The Fabric Memory Engine automatically extracts, enriches, and maps relationships between everything you save. Where Brandfolder stores and distributes brand assets, Fabric understands all your content and makes it part of a connected knowledge base you can search, query, and work with.

Key differences

Organised vs understood

Brandfolder organises assets into collections with metadata, tags, and custom taxonomies. The Brand Intelligence engine auto-tags uploads. The structure is clean. Finding an approved logo or a product photo is straightforward if the taxonomy is well-maintained.

Fabric understands content. Every file you save is automatically extracted, enriched, and indexed. The AI maps relationships across your library without a taxonomy to maintain. You can ask questions that span everything you've saved. Search works by meaning, not by remembering which tags were applied. Brandfolder organises. Fabric connects.

AI

Brandfolder's Brand Intelligence auto-tags assets, detects duplicates, and provides usage analytics. It tells you which assets are being downloaded and where. This is management AI: track, tag, measure.

Fabric's AI is a conversational assistant that understands your entire library. It answers questions, summarises documents, transcribes audio and video, maps relationships between content, and takes actions. You can ask "what creative assets did we produce for this client last quarter and what brief were they based on?" and get an answer that spans files, documents, and meeting notes. Brandfolder tracks asset usage. Fabric understands asset context.

Search

Brandfolder filters by metadata, tags, file type, and custom fields. The AI assists with tagging accuracy. G2 reviewers note that search can be inconsistent and sometimes returns irrelevant results, particularly in larger libraries.

Fabric searches by meaning. Semantic search finds content even when you describe it differently. Visual search finds similar images. Colour search finds assets by palette. In-document search goes to the page, slide, or timestamp. Cross-platform search pulls from Google Drive, Notion, and Dropbox alongside your Fabric library. Fabric's search doesn't depend on taxonomy quality.

Brand portals and Smart CDN

Brandfolder lets you create custom portals for curated external sharing. Different audiences see different collections. The Smart CDN embeds assets on websites with automatic propagation when the source file changes. For marketing teams distributing assets across partners, agencies, and channels, these are specific capabilities.

Fabric doesn't have branded portals or a CDN. If you need curated external portals for different audiences or auto-updating embedded assets across websites, Brandfolder handles that.

Notes, documents, and beyond

Brandfolder is a DAM. No notes, no document editor, no spatial canvases, no meeting transcription, no general-purpose tasks, no publishing with stakeholder-level engagement tracking.

Fabric is a workspace. Notes, documents, spatial canvases, meeting transcription, tasks, AI across all content types, publishing with analytics. If your work goes beyond storing and distributing brand assets, Fabric covers the rest.

Collaboration

Brandfolder has annotations on assets, approval workflows, and comments. Useful for creative review processes. No real-time co-editing on documents, no in-context chat, no shared drives beyond the DAM.

Fabric supports real-time co-editing on documents and canvases, pinned annotations on any content type, threaded comments, in-context chat, and shared drives.

Version control

Multiple Brandfolder reviewers flag the lack of version control as a significant gap. Managing file updates and ensuring the latest version is available has been a recurring user complaint.

Fabric has note and document version history. For file versioning in creative workflows, dedicated tools like Frame.io handle this more thoroughly than either product.

Pricing

Brandfolder's Team plan runs roughly $45/user/month. Business is around $90/user/month. Enterprise is custom. Add-ons, implementation, and training add 10-20% to total cost. For a 20-person marketing team on Business, that's roughly $21,600/year before add-ons. Multiple reviews note pricing as high, particularly for smaller organisations.

Fabric includes AI, search, collaboration, publishing, and file storage at every tier. [Insert Fabric pricing details.] Different products at different price points.

When to use each

Use Fabric if you want your content understood and connected, not just stored and distributed. You need AI that answers questions across your entire library. You want semantic search, notes, collaboration, meeting transcription, spatial canvases, and publishing with engagement analytics. Your content goes beyond marketing assets. You want a workspace, not an asset catalogue.

Use Brandfolder if you're a marketing organisation that needs enterprise-grade brand asset management with custom portals, a Smart CDN for auto-updating embedded assets, and Brand Intelligence analytics. You have multiple external audiences (partners, agencies, distributors) who need curated access to approved content. Brand governance and distribution at scale is the problem.

Use both. Some teams use Brandfolder for distributing approved, final brand assets to external audiences and Fabric as the workspace where those assets are researched, created, and discussed. The creative work happens in Fabric. The distribution happens in Brandfolder.

Why people move from Brandfolder to Fabric

They wanted to understand their content, not just organise it. Brandfolder tags and distributes. Fabric reads, indexes, and lets you ask questions. Teams that needed context across their content, not just access to it, found Brandfolder insufficient.

They needed more than a DAM. Notes, meeting recordings, research, collaboration on documents, spatial thinking. Brandfolder stores marketing assets. Fabric stores everything and connects it.

Search depended on taxonomy. If assets weren't tagged correctly, they didn't surface. Fabric's semantic search works regardless of how content was tagged or organised.

Version control gaps. Managing file versions in Brandfolder has been a persistent user complaint. Teams needing reliable version tracking looked for alternatives.

The cost scaled steeply. $45-90/user/month for asset management. For teams whose needs went beyond DAM into workspace territory, the cost-to-value ratio shifted.

FAQs

Does Fabric have brand portals like Brandfolder?

No. Fabric doesn't have curated external portals for different audiences. For distributing approved assets to partners, agencies, and distributors through customised portals, Brandfolder is built for that.

Does Fabric have a Smart CDN?

No. Fabric doesn't embed assets on websites with automatic propagation when source files change. For that workflow, Brandfolder's Smart CDN is purpose-built.

Is Fabric free?

Fabric has a free tier with limited storage and AI. Brandfolder has no free plan and requires a sales conversation.

Does Brandfolder have a conversational AI assistant?

No. Brandfolder uses AI for auto-tagging, duplicate detection, and usage analytics. There's no assistant that answers questions about your content or maps relationships across files.

Can Fabric replace Brandfolder?

For general content storage, search, collaboration, and AI, yes. For enterprise brand governance with curated portals, Smart CDN, and Brand Intelligence analytics, no. They serve different purposes. Some organisations use both.

Which is better for small teams?

Fabric. Brandfolder is built for enterprise marketing organisations. Its pricing, implementation requirements, and feature set reflect that. Small teams that need to store, search, and work with content intelligently will find Fabric more appropriate and more affordable.