Artwork Archive or Vitryne? An alternative for art advisors

Artwork Archive is one of the best-known tools for keeping track of art. If you advise collectors, you have probably looked at it, and wondered whether it fits the way you work. It may, for part of your job. This is how we see the difference, based on what Artwork Archive says about itself on its own site (checked in November 2026).

What Artwork Archive is built for

Artwork Archive describes itself as an art management solution “designed for artists, collectors, and arts organizations”. Its three platforms follow those three audiences:

• artists track their inventory, sales, invoices and exhibitions, with a public profile and private rooms to show work;
• collectors catalogue the works they own, record provenance, store documents and produce reports for insurers;
• organizations such as museums, galleries and public art programs manage their collections, loans and exhibitions, and can migrate existing records from spreadsheets.

In every case the starting point is a work you made or a work you own. You enter it once, carefully, and keep it for years. Plans for artists start at $9 a month billed annually, and there is a 14-day free trial; collector and organization prices are on their pricing page.

What an advisor's week looks like

Most of what crosses an advisor's desk is on offer from someone else: gallery previews before a fair, PDF price lists, online viewing rooms, emails from dealers. That can be dozens of works a week, most of which you will look at once and never buy.

Entering each of those by hand into a collection database is not realistic. What you need is to read them quickly, compare them across galleries, keep track of holds and availability, and send a client a short selection.

Where Vitryne fits

Vitryne starts from the documents galleries send. You drop in a preview PDF, paste an Artlogic or Arternal link, or forward the gallery's email, and every work is read for you: image, artist, title, year, medium, dimensions, edition, price as printed and availability. All your previews land in one searchable catalogue, and you can send a client a clean PDF of a selection or export it to Artlogic or Excel.

Which one do you need?

• You manage a client's collection once the works are bought (provenance, insurance, loans): a collection management tool like Artwork Archive is built for that.
• You source works for clients from galleries and fairs: that is the part Vitryne covers, from the first preview to the shortlist.
• You do both: the two sit side by side. Vitryne handles what is on offer, and once a work is bought its record can move to the collection.

Your first five previews in Vitryne are free, with every feature open, so the quickest way to judge is to try it on the next preview a gallery sends you.