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Alfresco vs Box - Intelligent Content Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Alfresco delivers significant ROI with cost savings, efficiency, reduced IT support, automation, and centralized document management benefits.
Sentiment score
5.2
Box's Intelligent Content Management boosts efficiency by streamlining workflows, reducing turnaround times, and enhancing collaboration without documented monetary savings.
Alfresco provides a significant return on investment by efficiently managing documents.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
I would say time was saved as instead of hours of somebody sitting there uploading files another way, such as MassTransit or zipping them, Box - Intelligent Content Management probably saved 90% of the time.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
For example, when multiple team members need the same project document, we can access them from a shared Box - Intelligent Content Management folder instead of repeatedly requesting files through emails.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The effectiveness is evident because instead of saving documents in Salesforce and paying a lot of money for storage, my clients save documents in Box - Intelligent Content Management, and the money they pay for the solution is cheaper than what they paid before.
IT Manager & FileNet Specialist and CTO at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Alfresco customer support is generally positive but mixed, with prompt responses and some challenges due to complex workflows.
Sentiment score
4.7
Box customer service is praised for excellence, though technical support can be inconsistent with slower response times for complex issues.
I would prefer a direct relationship with them, focusing on updating their products more like in an agile practice
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Customer support is good because they are responsive.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
I'd appreciate faster response times for more personalized support and advanced issues.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Quick responses, clear guidance, and effective problem solving can make a difference, especially when dealing with technical issues or integrations.
Senior React Js Team Lead Elevating Software Solutions Developer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Typically once you do, they are able to provide assistance on whatever you need.
Manager, Technology & Integration at GlobalMac IT
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.5
Alfresco efficiently scales with growth, excelling in clustering and customization, though complex setups are required for high document counts.
Sentiment score
7.0
Box offers scalable content management with unlimited data, easy management, and robust integrations, despite some admin console issues.
Implementations needing to handle millions of documents may involve complex cluster setups requiring expert assistance.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
However, if you are looking to expand into areas with more images and videos, the scalability is somewhat limited without a developer and customization.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Box - Intelligent Content Management plans have unlimited data, which is great.
Manager, Technology & Integration at GlobalMac IT
I am uncertain about its effectiveness at an enterprise level, where SharePoint might be preferred.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Intelligent Content Management scales effectively as a team because you can add users, expand storage, and manage access permissions centrally.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Alfresco is stable and reliable with few issues, though proper scaling and expertise are essential for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Box - Intelligent Content Management is highly stable, with users rating reliability highly despite occasional outages and minor upload speed concerns.
The stability of Alfresco is rated highly as it hardly goes down.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco is generally a very stable and high-performance platform.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Those issues have now been corrected.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Box was very stable and did not have any latency issues.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alfresco requires UI refinement, enhanced security, better tools, documentation, modern database support, and smoother integration with other systems.
Box needs enhanced security, collaboration, and integration features, improved interface, and pricing, with better speed, offline and automation capabilities.
It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Being able to leverage something such as MongoDB, a NoSQL database as part of the architecture would be a big improvement to enable high volume in the hundreds of millions of documents.
Manager, Major Accounts at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Governance of this system is required. If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
If Box had an AI feature to summarize and identify documents based on their contents, it would significantly enhance usability.
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
Improving the search experience to quickly find specific information within documents would also make Box - Intelligent Content Management even more useful.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Box - Intelligent Content Management is missing a configuration connector to Active Directory and the ability to connect to the customer's internal domain.
IT Manager & FileNet Specialist and CTO at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Alfresco has competitive pricing for large enterprises, focusing on pay-per-use with potential costs for upgrades and integrations.
Box offers flexible pricing with valuable features; annual plans are cost-effective, while discounts may be negotiated.
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Pricing is considered mid-range.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I found the pricing reasonable because when I was working for an IBM partner, Box was free for us.
Senior Projects Manager at Tech-hub
Box - Intelligent Content Management has fairly good pricing for licenses, especially if you do an annual plan.
Manager, Technology & Integration at GlobalMac IT
I'd appreciate more flexible pricing options for smaller teams.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Alfresco offers robust document management, integration, customization, collaboration, and user-friendly features, meeting diverse organizational needs efficiently.
Box's Intelligent Content Management offers secure, collaborative features with AI, integrations, and cross-platform support for enhanced productivity.
This makes the record independent of the document, which is beneficial as documents often change, and it helps avoid continual updates to the registry.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
It enabled users to find exactly what documents they were looking for in a timely fashion, as well as to export to patients and healthcare members what they needed to do for Medicaid, Medicare, or any other secondary insurance, including the documents they needed to fill out as well as prescriptions.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Specific outcomes that demonstrate how Alfresco helped those organizations include process improvement and being able to search and find documents within seconds versus manually having to hunt for them in other systems.
Manager, Major Accounts at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
There is about a 90% reduction in errors.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
AI access respects existing file permissions, which helps prevent users from accessing information that they are not authorized to see.
Software Developer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Box had a very easy-to-use search feature and a good user interface on its website, which was faster and better than SharePoint.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Ranking in Document Management Software
1st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Box - Intelligent Content M...
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
7th
Ranking in Document Management Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Storage (4th), Digital Asset Management (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 5.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Box - Intelligent Content Management is 4.3%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco5.7%
Box - Intelligent Content Management4.3%
Other90.0%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Albano Garcia - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized document management has boosted search efficiency and supports secure collaboration
The best features Alfresco offers in my experience include the intelligent search, because sometimes you need to find a document, and this solution provides a full-text search across different document types and formats, which is perhaps the most remarkable feature, along with version control. The solution tracks all the changes of the documents and prevents accidental overrides or other issues. The intelligent search has made my work easier because you can just put a word. Perhaps you are thinking of finding something related to a client or a specific MSA agreement, and with one or two words, the intelligent search proposes all the documents that include this word, facilitating finding the information very easily and very quickly. This is the most important feature for us.
Jeremey Kenney - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Technology & Integration at GlobalMac IT
Secure file governance has improved collaboration and automation for client document workflows
The best features are around security, being able to set up different groups, and the governance features are really great. The new AI functionality that they released has been pretty handy. For governance and security, the audit trail capability is excellent. We are able to see when people interact or change files or if something was deleted, and we can go through and review that audit trail. The AI has been great for creating different workflows that we are able to execute. When a form gets submitted into Box - Intelligent Content Management or a file is uploaded, there are certain automations that we can put in place to where it can essentially generate tickets in our system for new users or other tasks.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
Pricing, setup costs, and licensing are interesting aspects of Alfresco for our organization. We do not rely solely on licensing as it is based on a billing model rather than just licensing. Since ...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
Alfresco could be improved in terms of maintenance and could have a simpler architecture regarding search functionality. If I change the metadata, I have to perform re-indexing of all the content f...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
My main use case for Alfresco is as a content management system at an enterprise level. A specific example of how I use Alfresco as an enterprise level content management system is for sharing docu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
Box - Intelligent Content Management has fairly good pricing for licenses, especially if you do an annual plan. We always suggest our clients do a month-to-month plan so that they have flexibility ...
What needs improvement with Box?
One aspect of Box - Intelligent Content Management that could be improved is the search functionality, which can occasionally be slow or less intuitive when locating specific files with large repos...
What is your primary use case for Box?
My main use case for Box - Intelligent Content Management is that it is a great and simple tool to use that we use every day, especially to manage our files and send and share files and collaborate...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc
Find out what your peers are saying about Alfresco vs. Box - Intelligent Content Management and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,148 professionals have used our research since 2012.