Adobe Experience Manager vs Alfresco comparison

Adobe and Hyland are both solutions in the Enterprise Content Management category. Adobe is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.6, while Hyland is ranked #7 with an average rating of 6.8. Adobe holds a 3.3% mindshare in ECM, compared to Hyland’s 8.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Adobe users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Hyland users who would recommend it.

Adobe Experience Manager

Read 28 Adobe Experience Manager reviews

3,343 Views
1,170 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Alfresco

Read 14 Alfresco reviews

3,544 Views
2,906 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Adobe Experience Manager

Alfresco

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Alfresco and Adobe Experience Manager are both products in the enterprise content management space. Alfresco is more appealing due to its favorable pricing, while Adobe Experience Manager is preferred for its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Alfresco focuses on collaboration tools, workflow automation, and integration with various enterprise systems. Adobe Experience Manager emphasizes advanced digital marketing features, flexibility in content delivery, and a strong suite of tools for customer engagement.

Room for Improvement: Alfresco could enhance its digital asset management and offer more robust document management features. Additionally, its user interface may require modernization. Adobe Experience Manager could improve by simplifying its deployment, reducing initial training complexity, and lowering its high entry cost.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alfresco offers flexible deployment, including both cloud and on-premise options, backed with strong customer support. Adobe Experience Manager provides a cloud-native setup and extensive support but may require more extensive initial training due to its complexity.

Pricing and ROI: Alfresco's lower setup cost is attractive for cost-sensitive buyers, enabling faster ROI with a lower initial investment. Adobe Experience Manager, although having a higher setup cost, offers significant ROI with its advanced capabilities, benefiting businesses needing a strong digital presence.

To learn more, read our detailed Adobe Experience Manager vs. Alfresco Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Adobe Experience Manager vs. Alfresco

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Adobe Experience Manager

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Content Management (1st), Enterprise Social Software (5th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)

Alfresco

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

7th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Document Management Software (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 3.3%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Alfresco is 8.0%, up from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Adobe Experience Manager	3.3%
Alfresco	8.0%
Other	88.7%

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

reviewer2771634

Senior Technical Program Manager /Senior Lead Solution Architech- Product Technology & Gen AI at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Have faced challenges with setup and pricing but have found flexibility and support helpful

Adobe Experience Manager needs more optimization. The frequency of components where we have vitals of a page or an app needs to be optimized because these are heavy Java codes along with some AEM developments. The code language should be optimized or they should have some string functions or web plugins to create a lighter version rather than implementing large amounts of code lines. They should start implementing industry best practices which are not currently offered. We perform our internal development for customization at our own pace. We have multiple frameworks that help us in various ways. We are advancing in terms of AI integration. We have already started our own POCs before Adobe implements these features.

Read full review

Jacinto Manuel Obispo Marquez

Country Head Spain at Apiux

Maintaining document integrity with persistent linking and customizable workflows

Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk. Clients, especially large enterprises such as banks, are concerned about document security if someone breaches the server. It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions. Also, it would be helpful if Alfresco's viewer could be easily embedded in other systems, as its integration is currently complex.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The best feature is the experience fragment; if you want to replicate content across multiple websites with 1,000 or 20,000 pages, this feature helps accomplish it in a fraction of seconds."

"If you want to use content in a mobile application and you want the content in some other application, you can simply expose it from the CMS to different clients or different systems. It's easy. On top of that, the technology underlying AEM is open-source and is very powerful like Apache Sling and JCR."

"Adobe Experience Manager offers several best features, including user-friendliness and a more secure platform than any other content management systems I have worked with."

"Adobe Experience Manager is quite a powerful product that you can use to design files and export them."

"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."

"I've used several CMS tools, but Adobe Experience Manager is feature-rich, especially for web security and content management. It's more efficient to manage content on Adobe Experience Manager, and you can do a lot with it, such as updating content at any time, and on any platform, even from mobile or tablet. Adobe Experience Manager is still getting updated daily, and it's the best CMS tool in the market for me. I like that you can manage assets in Adobe Experience Manager. I also like that the solution has an analytics dashboard that shows you where the traffic comes from, how many clicks come from a specific location, the number of clicks and impressions, etc. Adobe Experience Manager can be accessed by other teams, for example, the digital media department of my company, so the solution can be used and updated per each team's requirement. Adobe Experience Manager is more than just a web developer tool, as it also allows visibility tracking and has other uses. I also like that the GUI for Adobe Experience Manager is straightforward and catchy. It has separate folders and icons, so using Adobe Experience Manager isn't tough. The solution is straightforward to use and handle."

"Adobe Experience Manager is one of the best enterprise-level content management and digital experience platforms available."

More Adobe Experience Manager pros

"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."

"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."

"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."

"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."

"The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with the scanning solution, the ability to search, and the capability to store and index to capture metadata."

"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."

"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."

"Document repository."

More Alfresco pros

Cons

"Adobe's technical support is so-so."

"The licensing plus implementation and maintenance cost is very expensive, making it not suitable for small organizations, and the setup is very complex."

"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."

"Adobe Experience Manager needs more optimization. The frequency of components where we have vitals of a page or an app needs to be optimized because these are heavy Java codes along with some AEM developments."

"Many people complain about the price as it's one of the most expensive tools."

"Tool-wise, the Adobe Experience Manager support team is not very responsive when the user face issues in AEM as a Cloud Service."

"The solution's pricing and stability could be improved."

"Adobe Experience Manager could improve by allowing the reuse of components like a progress bar across multiple pages to make the development process more efficient."

More Adobe Experience Manager cons

"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."

"If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong. You have to make rules, such as one folder should not have more than 5,000 subfolders or children."

"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."

"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."

"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."

"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."

"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."

"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."

More Alfresco cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There's a free trial for one month for Adobe Experience Manager, which you can use for learning purposes, then, after the trial period, you'll need to purchase the license. Adobe offers a few plans for Adobe Experience Manager, but I'm unaware of how much my company is paying."

"It's really costly."

"It's a costly solution. I would rate the price at two out of five on a scale from one to five, where one is the most expensive and five is the most competitive."

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee to use the solution, which is highly-priced."

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."

"The license for Alfresco is expensive - not the maximum, but close. There are also extra costs once you start building integrations, as implementation seems to be very costly."

"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."

"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adobe Experience Manager?

It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Adobe Experience Manager?

Moving forward, if Adobe implements AI tools wherein a vendor or a stakeholder comes in and gives instructions, they could develop a page or a whole site accordingly in a few minutes or a few days,...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?

Adobe Experience Manager is used for developing components, content management, and developing experience fragments and content fragments. Assets are used for the DAM for storing files and document...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?

The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects. There is often a transition from the community version to the licensed version, which incurs migration costs. ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Alfresco?

Currently, the challenge is the general availability to users. Initially, they had poor documentation, but over the years, their documentation has highly improved. Initially, we had challenges find...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Alfresco?

This is mainly for unstructured document management systems with workflow and data classification.

See all answers

Comparisons

SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management vs Adobe Experience Manager

Compared 6% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs Adobe Experience Manager

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Content Management vs Adobe Experience Manager

Compared 5% of the time

SharePoint vs Adobe Experience Manager

Compared 5% of the time

Oracle WebCenter vs Adobe Experience Manager

Compared 4% of the time

More Adobe Experience Manager Competitors

OpenText Content Management vs Alfresco

Compared 11% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs Alfresco

Compared 9% of the time

SharePoint vs Alfresco

Compared 8% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs Alfresco

Compared 8% of the time

Nuxeo vs Alfresco

Compared 7% of the time

More Alfresco Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adobe Experience Manager

January 2026

Download Adobe Experience Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

Alfresco

January 2026

Download Alfresco product report

Also Known As

Adobe Day CQ5, Ektron Social Marketing, Episerver Content Cloud, Adobe CQ5

No data available

Overview

Adobe Communique 5 (Adobe CQ5), currently manifested as Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), is a web-based content management system which is developed to help businesses in offering high-end digital experience to their customers.

Adobe

The Alfresco Digital Business Platform offers open, secure content services to let you unlock the value from your most important business information. Give users access to their content wherever and however they work with Alfresco’s open, flexible, and highly scalable cloud-native content services platform. Easily integrate and connect with everyday business applications. Find, view, collaborate on, govern, and securely share digital content—and get information to the right person at the right time.

Hyland

Sample Customers

Metra

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.

Buyer's Guide

Adobe Experience Manager vs. Alfresco

December 2025

Free Report: Adobe Experience Manager vs. Alfresco

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