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Adobe Experience Manager vs Hyland OnBase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (2nd), Enterprise Social Software (5th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (15th), Low-Code Development Platforms (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 3.2%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hyland OnBase6.4%
Adobe Experience Manager3.2%
Other90.4%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Becker - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive integration of customer behavior with an easy setup and okay support
I've worked with all major content management systems. Currently, I work with the leaders such as Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, and Acquia Working with big companies, I help them either consider setting up a new content management system or address issues they might have with their existing…
Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features
The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a complete package. You don't need to look elsewhere for digital marketing."
"Easy to work with the solution."
"I like the profiling and segmentation."
"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."
"The search capability in Adobe Experience Manager is superior, as search capabilities are determined by the metadata, and it also has metadata automation using AI."
"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."
"It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer."
"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."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"The retention module is one of the most valuable features. Whatever we scan onto the system can be identified and we are notified when the records are due to be disposed."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
 

Cons

"Programming model could be improved, it's a monolithic solution."
"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."
"In comparison to other CMS products, Adobe Experience Manager is missing some capabilities such as proper versioning or a better versioning system and backend connectivity. If something is deleted in AEM, the user cannot recover it. You have to call technical support, and they will need to recover the whole instance. So, it's really difficult. For example, if you delete a page, you cannot recover it. There should be an option to recover it. In AEM, you have to go to the previous state of the instance itself or the virtual machine, and you have to restore everything, which is not good."
"The latest trend is to render everything in the client-side framework. For example, SPA or single page application. This is a feature that needs improvement. The cloud deployment pipeline needs to be improved as well."
"There is a feature missing where if content is created on the UAT environment and needs to be transferred or synced to the production environment, there is no direct way of doing the sync."
"The licenses are very expensive."
"Adobe Experience Manager's pricing could be improved."
"The licensing model is opaque, and technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's really costly."
"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee to use the solution, which is highly-priced."
"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."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"The tool's price is high."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
 

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.
What needs improvement with Adobe Experience Manager?
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 d...
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
Adobe Experience Manager is being used for website development and app PWA developments. It is also used in multiple other use cases related to creating internal web solutions and SaaS-based platfo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
I was a vendor managing Hyland OnBase ( /products/hyland-onbase-reviews ) for Hyland, not as a direct user but as a business partner. We managed the solution and were a partner with Hyland.
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Experience Manager vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,252 professionals have used our research since 2012.