Polimake vs. Frame.io
Frame.io reviews. Polimake indexes. Frame.io is excellent at putting a cut in front of five people and collecting comments on the exact frame. What it doesn't do is remember anything once the project closes: the footage settles into folders only the person who made them understands. If your problem is approving this week's cut, use Frame.io. If your problem is finding a shot from two years ago, read on.
What Frame.io does better than anyone
Video review with frame-anchored comments, versions side by side, and sign-off with a name and a timestamp. It's a mature product and we're not going to pretend otherwise: if the work ends when the client says "approved", Frame.io handles it.
And what happens the following Monday
The project closes and the footage goes into a folder named after the shoot date. Nobody opens it again, because finding anything inside means remembering what it was called. Frame.io did nothing wrong — its job ended at "approved".
They review. We index
Compare what you need during review and after delivery: retrieving footage, checking versions, and reusing material.
It arrives understood, not tagged
The moment a file lands it's described, transcribed and stripped for metadata. Nobody fills in fields: it arrives searchable. Frame.io stores what you upload under the name you gave it.
Search in plain language
"The shot of the chef smiling over the paella" finds the frame, not the folder. You search inside the video and the audio, not the filename.
The archive remembers
Every project that passes through leaves the archive more useful than it was. In Frame.io each project begins and ends alone: last year's work does nothing for this year's.
You can review here too
Comments, versions and approvals are here, and you can share the link with anyone without them creating an account. The difference is that approved material doesn’t disappear into a folder: it stays in the archive, already understood.
And it connects to your assistant
Open your library from ChatGPT or Claude and use your material where you already work: request shots from a campaign or draft a script using what you have. Your library, inside your assistant.
Without moving the file twice
Originals stay at full quality, uncompressed, in one place. Share through expiring links and revoke access when the job ends, without chasing copies. See how to search inside.
Questions about Frame.io and Polimake
- Does Polimake replace Frame.io?
- It depends what you use it for. If what you need is the review room — frame-level comments, versions, formal sign-off — Frame.io is more refined at that and we won't tell you to drop it. If you also need to find footage from months ago without remembering where you put it, that's the part Frame.io doesn't do and we do.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and plenty of people do: review in Frame.io, archive in Polimake. Material arrives here already described and transcribed, so when the project closes it stays findable. Over time, most people stop uploading to both.
- What about footage from projects that already closed?
- That's the case we hear most. You upload the back catalogue and it gets indexed in full — described, transcribed and searchable in plain language, without anyone tagging folder by folder. It's material you already paid for and can't use today because you can't find it.
- Is it only for video?
- No. Frame.io is built for video; everything a team produces lands here: photo, design, audio, documents. Search works the same across all of them, and it's useful precisely because you don't have to decide up front which folder anything belongs in.
Your archive already exists. You just can’t find it
Upload what you already have and try a search you couldn't run today.
