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Alfresco vs Hyland OnBase vs SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 8.6%, up from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.5%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hyland OnBase6.5%
Alfresco8.6%
SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management1.1%
Other83.8%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Karthi Keyan - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlining document management with enhanced digitalization features needed
We used Alfresco as a document management system for automating and digitizing manual forms. Those were the main use cases The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes has improved our organization. The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with…
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.
MukeshGiri - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers advanced search capabilities, integrates seamlessly with SAP and efficiently stores non-essential business content
Consider you have some use cases. For example, something for your accounting or procurement department. And you purchase equipment, machines, and plants for plant-related operations. Essentially, there will be manuals and basically anything and everything related to your particular equipment. So, where do the equipment entries go? They go into SAP. Depending on your SAP deployment, it can go into some database. Most companies these days are talking about SAP HANA and stuff like that. So it will be stored in SAP HANA. But, these documentation, drawings, manuals, and help files for these big pieces of equipment, where do they go? That’s where Extended ECM for SAP comes into the picture. All these integrations are through a one-way push, essentially, but with two-way access. So as a user in the procurement department or the accounting department, or an engineering department where you are using SAP for asset management entries inside your system. All those related documents, drawings, manuals, and files have to be stored somewhere. If you store them in SAP, it will be a costly implementation going forward. After maybe a couple of years, you will realize that it’s too much to deal with because HANA database will be too costly. There will not be much business value because you cannot utilize a lot of search and cool features inside your application from an SAP perspective. That’s where you will integrate SAP. For example, SAP Extended ECM for SAP Plant Maintenance. One of the modules SAP provides is SAP Plant Maintenance. So what you will do is deploy Extended ECM for SAP, then try something called SAP Plant Maintenance, Extended ECM for SAP Plant Maintenance. The content maintenance, manuals, files, drawings, and related stuff, its details or tags, or any kind of stuff is stored in your SAP. But anything and everything else is pushed through this integration into Extended ECM platform. So now it is available to be utilized by your business user who knows nothing about SAP. They only live and breathe in a different management system. They can look into these details depending on what kind of integration has been done for that company. So that’s one use case. Second use case will be in SAP itself. Now, if you are an SAP user, you have this information readily available at your fingertips. Anything goes wrong in your maintenance or any kind of management, you can look into these details, which are readily available because this documentation lifecycle is being managed by Extended ECM for SAP. It will give you extended storage capabilities within your SAP application. So it will be a two-way integration, essentially. Similar, wider features will be available within Extended ECM platform. Within SAP, you have these extra features called business attachments or business content retrieval. Those business contents are stored inside Extended ECM, and those features will be available within your SAP GUI from an SAP perspective. So it’s a win-win situation for both worlds.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"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."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"Document repository."
"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"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."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"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."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"The integration capabilities of the product are pretty good."
"All these integrations are through a one-way push, essentially, but with two-way access."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"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."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy. It is getting better, but it is not yet good enough. Other products are comparatively doing better in terms of the user interface. I have been hearing about Box, which is very easy to use and learn for the users. OnBase has to work on this aspect. It should have BPM capabilities. We compete with tools that provide the BPM feature and support those standards. 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 solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"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."
"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 product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The deployment could be costly because of resource availability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"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."
"The tool's price is high."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"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."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
21%
University
13%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 fr...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
Currently, the challenge is the general availability to users. Initially, they had poor documentation, but over the y...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
This is mainly for unstructured document management systems with workflow and data classification.
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. Transitio...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hylan...
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 b...
What do you like most about SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management?
The integration capabilities of the product are pretty good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management?
The prices can vary depending on the customer, region, and domain. I rate the product price an eight on a scale of on...
What needs improvement with SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management?
Improvement could be more about training because it is one of the giants in this market. Nobody can be exposed to SAP...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OnBase
SAP Extended Enterprise Content Management by OpenText, SAP Extended ECM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
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
Metropolitan Utilities District, MAN Diesel & Turbo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: August 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.