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Alfresco vs Box vs OpenText Content Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.8
Users experience significant ROI with Alfresco via efficient document management, automation, and cost-effective, customizable open-source solutions.
Sentiment score
6.0
Box increases ROI by reducing turnaround times, supporting compliance, and enhancing file management efficiency for significant returns.
Sentiment score
6.2
OpenText Content Manager improves efficiency and security, though requires more support and integration compared to modern solutions.
Centrally managing records has helped us automate legal retention policies and reduce physical storage costs by eighty percent, saving us in costs and protecting us from massive financial penalties associated with compliance failures.
Head of development at Flash
Alfresco provides a significant return on investment by efficiently managing documents.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
By having all documentation centralized, errors such as using a contract where the incorrect version was taken have been reduced.
Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.5
Alfresco's customer support is expert yet sometimes slow, with community resources effectively aiding users, especially in the Community Edition.
Sentiment score
5.0
Box's customer service is helpful and efficient but can face delays and repetitive inquiries; cost varies by support package.
Sentiment score
5.6
OpenText Content Manager support varies; users praise premium help but note deficiencies and complexity, especially after third-party involvement.
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
The support team was very responsive and resolved my query within forty-five minutes, which was a good experience.
Head of development at Flash
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Alfresco excels in scalability, managing large volumes with efficient resource management and seamless integrations for organizational growth.
Sentiment score
7.4
Box provides scalable performance for various user counts and data sizes, with potential improvements in admin reporting for enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.1
OpenText Content Manager is scalable but challenges arise with large deployments, suggesting planning and using cloud platforms for enhancement.
Implementations needing to handle millions of documents may involve complex cluster setups requiring expert assistance.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
It adapts well to the growth of my organization, and as more departments are added, you only need to buy additional licenses, and they join the process efficiently.
Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
I am uncertain about its effectiveness at an enterprise level, where SharePoint might be preferred.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Alfresco is highly stable, with past clustering issues resolved, requiring careful scaling, migration, and certified administrator installation.
Sentiment score
7.9
Box is highly rated for stability, with minor performance issues rare and seamless connectivity, even during sleep mode.
Sentiment score
6.2
OpenText Content Manager's stability is generally rated high, but integration and scalability issues affect some users' experiences.
Alfresco is definitely a stable and scalable solution.
Head of development at Flash
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
Box was very stable and did not have any latency issues.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alfresco needs UI, integration, storage, workflow, and configuration improvements, along with enhanced metadata, documentation, and API support.
Box users seek better control, improved integrations, and features like document indexing, enhanced UI, and efficient performance.
OpenText Content Manager needs enhancements in integration, usability, search, security, installation, pricing, and service responsiveness for better user experience.
It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
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
It has a considerable implementation curve.
Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 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
To open and see who is accessing the document now and see my movements across the document or the file we are sharing together.
Senior Projects Manager at Tech-hub
Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Alfresco's pricing, starting at $100,000, may challenge small businesses but offers cost-effective features and a usage-based billing model.
Box's pricing is viewed variably, offering competitive value for some, though others find it steep, especially with security features.
OpenText Content Manager's licensing is complex and expensive, but negotiation and customization are possible despite high ongoing costs.
Since we obtained Alfresco through AWS Marketplace, we are billed for what we use.
Head of development at Flash
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
My experience with the price, implementation cost, and platform licenses has been that it has been a fair price.
Project Manager at a manufacturing company 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
 

Valuable Features

Alfresco provides customizable document management with integration, automation, and security features, ideal for scalable and efficient organizational use.
Box offers secure collaboration, seamless integrations, user-friendly interface, and robust features for compliance, enhancing personal and professional experiences.
OpenText Content Manager offers efficient document management with strong search, customization, integration, security, and large-scale enterprise support.
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
Alfresco also provides automated lifecycle management that helps us enforce legal holds, retention schedules, and secure disposition of records, keeping the files secure and ensuring that our organization remains compliant with legal requirements.
Head of development at Flash
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.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 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
I find the synchronization feature most valuable in Box. When I use multiple devices, it syncs them together and gives excellent results.
Senior Projects Manager at Tech-hub
The best features of Box for me include the structured file organizing, which is the most important part I found.
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 6.7%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Box is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Content Manager is 3.7%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco6.7%
OpenText Content Manager3.7%
Box3.8%
Other85.8%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Jaspreet k - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of development at Flash
Streamlined compliance workflows have reduced manual document handling and improved governance
Alfresco offers many features that I value highly. The first is the open architecture that provides extensive REST API and support of open standards such as CMIS, allowing our development team to easily extend their capabilities. The second valuable feature is the activity workflow engine, a powerful BPMN compliant workflow engine that automates complex and multi-step processes natively alongside the content. Another favorite feature is smart document processing. Due to its built-in AI capabilities, Alfresco can automatically classify documents based on our business requirements and tagging. This directly helps us find those documents by tagging them and locating them more easily. The smart document processing in Alfresco has helped us extract information via OCR and identify entities without requiring manual data entry, as it works on a metadata approach that is directly searched via OCR. The text is assigned as a token in the backend, and using the AI capabilities, Alfresco can automatically classify and read via OCR. Alfresco also provides automated lifecycle management that helps us enforce legal holds, retention schedules, and secure disposition of records, keeping the files secure and ensuring that our organization remains compliant with legal requirements.
Chirag Morajkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
Structured cloud storage has streamlined document collaboration and automated workflows
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and using it as a cloud platform, I have not encountered any significant negative aspects. A few times, I might have faced performance issues, but I am uncertain whether that was due to the automation platform or Box itself. Overall, the only thing I could mention is that it can take a little time to understand how the integration works with Box; setup and figuring out what can and cannot be done might take some time, but other than that, I do not think anything else bothered me. One thing I would want Box to introduce to improve the platform and make it stand out even more would be incorporating AI. For example, the only way to identify documents shared in Box currently is by their names, and if those names are not precise, I can get confused. If Box had an AI feature to summarize and identify documents based on their contents, it would significantly enhance usability. AI is essential for making work easier, so that would be an excellent addition to the platform.
Maurice Riverso - PeerSpot reviewer
Records Management Officer at ANZPAA
Our our official repository and it has disposal management and retention management
The security architecture is the only problem as it's a little bit complex and too torturous at times. So it could be improved a little bit, but it is regarded as a very good system in Australia. It's probably overly subscribed. Also, what's missing is what people would like, which is basically online collaboration. That's a problem. But it has so many other things to offer that SharePoint, I'm sure, will not have. So, that will be an interesting issue to come up. It's not very good at providing stable and robust add-ins to Microsoft. That's a bit of a problem with Content Manager. They're kind of very volatile. So, that's been definitely something that could be improved.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
My experience with the price, implementation cost, and platform licenses has been that it has been a fair price, the ...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
For the moment, I have not had any complaints about how Alfresco could be improved that I could escalate.I could say ...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
My main use case for Alfresco is to centralize client records, loan documentation, digital contracts, onboarding proc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
I found the pricing reasonable because when I was working for an IBM partner, Box was free for us. We did not go to p...
What needs improvement with Box?
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this plat...
What is your primary use case for Box?
My main use case for Box is storing cloud content on its cloud and managing it as a collaborating platform so that I ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Content Manager?
Pricing is a disadvantage as it is very expensive, especially in this market.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Content Manager?
Pricing is an issue, as it is too expensive. Support and services need to be more user-friendly. The support has been...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Content Manager?
We are a system integrator. We deal with client requirements to determine the best solutions that should be deployed....
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Micro Focus Content Manager, HPE Records Manager, HPE Content Manager
 

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
Missouri State Courts
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, Adobe and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: May 2026.
899,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.