Alfresco vs IBM FileNet comparison

Hyland and IBM are both solutions in the Enterprise Content Management category. Hyland is ranked #9 with an average rating of 6.8, while IBM is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0. Hyland holds a 7.6% mindshare in ECM, compared to IBM’s 9.4% mindshare. Additionally, 78% of Hyland users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Alfresco

Read 14 Alfresco reviews

2,397 Views
1,990 Comparison Views

78% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

Read 102 IBM FileNet reviews

3,570 Views
3,284 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Alfresco

IBM FileNet

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Alfresco and IBM FileNet are in the enterprise content management system category. IBM FileNet often has the upper hand due to its advanced features and comprehensive solutions, justifying a higher price tag.

Features: Alfresco supports open-source capabilities, flexibility, and modern content services for customizations. IBM FileNet offers robust security features, scalability, and sophisticated document management.

Room for Improvement: Alfresco could enhance its security and scalability to better compete with large enterprises. IBM FileNet might improve its user interface for easier setup and customization. Alfresco needs to develop a more comprehensive set of enterprise-level functionalities, while IBM FileNet should focus on simplifying the deployment process for quicker implementation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alfresco's cloud-native design allows easy deployment and minimal setup challenges with responsive customer service. IBM FileNet is more complex to implement due to its extensive features but includes thorough documentation and professional support.

Pricing and ROI: Alfresco offers a lower setup cost favorable for smaller enterprises seeking specific customizations, yielding quicker ROI. IBM FileNet requires higher initial investment with longer ROI, matched by extensive capabilities and scalability benefits, preferred by large organizations seeking robust infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Alfresco vs. IBM FileNet Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Alfresco vs. IBM FileNet

July 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

Alfresco

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

9th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Document Management Software (3rd)

IBM FileNet

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

102

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 7.6%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 9.4%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

Karthi Keyan

Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

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…

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Emad Rizki

System integrator at Indépendant

Facilitates seamless integration for large enterprises with strong deployment capabilities

FileNet was scalable and could be implemented into big multinational organizations. However, it has become very expensive recently. Compared to low-code solutions such as Appian and outsystems, FileNet has gaps, mainly because it requires coding, which is not preferred by clients due to pricing concerns in Pakistan. We transitioned clients to cloud solutions, although FileNet has been strongly integrated with on-prem deployments.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

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

"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."

"Document repository."

"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."

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

More Alfresco pros

"I would highly recommend it to those seeking a robust enterprise content management solution."

"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."

"The ability to manage the content well."

"The most valuable features for us are Wex (Watson) for search, Datacap for OCR/ICR, and Automation Anywhere for RPA."

"The most valuable feature is the way in which it enables clients and customers to quickly access the content and information that they use for everyday functions."

"The beauty is the response time. It is very good nowadays within the platform."

"IBM FileNet has improved our organization with its single collaboration space."

"It puts governance in place around the content and processes. Access levels can be set to certain parts of the document based on role level."

More IBM FileNet pros

Cons

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

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

"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."

"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."

"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."

"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."

More Alfresco cons

"I think it's to the point where there are probably too many features. Every software, as it matures and graduates, grows the list of features. What many of our customers express is that it's just too complicated. They're using maybe five or ten percent of the features but they're having to pay for 100 percent. There is room for improvement in terms of simplifying it."

"During the initial setup, all the details and different technical things that we were trying to figure out became complex."

"The only downside is that it takes a dedicated staff to maintain it and the learning curve is pretty steep."

"IBM does not do very good marketing for FileNet."

"I would say the installation process can be very complicated, and you need to to have an experience resource."

"I would like to see the dashboard be a little bit more robust and a little more user-friendly"

"We know that they're looking at documents, but we don't know what documents they're actually going and finding the most, or where the bottlenecks might be. It would be nice if there was some interconnectivity back into Bluemix to say, "Ok, you've got a workflow problem here." That would be a neat feature moving forward because we've got a lot of users that would just say, "The system is not working." We had a few threads would get hung up because they were just constantly banging on these few documents. If that were the case, if we knew that ahead of time, then we could fix that, change the search sequences to make it more efficient. But we were blind to that until the users said it's not working."

"The basic and fundamental point about FileNet is that the interface is very bad. It's just not appealing so people are reluctant to use it."

More IBM FileNet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"For the medium scale or large scale, I would recommend FileNet. FileNet is free of licensing expenses, thus good for the money. It is not expensive, but worth for the money, especially for medium scale and large scale industries."

"We use extraction. Therefore, we can see 80 to 85 percent accuracy on data extraction. This reduces the manual indexing part, which is definitely a gain on performance efficiency."

"1. It will be more expensive than estimated to setup. 2. You will need to double the staff while you are running the old system and installing the new system. 3. Depending on the number of documents to be migrated, make sure you understand the potentially massive amount of time and effort required to migrate the existing content to the new platform."

"It has reduced operating costs by reducing the amount of manual work needed."

"The tool is expensive, and I rate its pricing a ten out of ten."

"The physical space that we have gained back pays for the service. Therefore, it has reduced our operating costs overall. We have definitely seen ROI. I would estimate $30,000 a year."

"There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need."

"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."

More IBM FileNet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 from the community version to the licensed version, which incurs migration costs. ...

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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...

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What is your primary use case for Alfresco?

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

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What do you like most about IBM FileNet?

The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?

From the company's perspective, the licensing cost for IBM FileNet is still affordable. Though the license cost is somewhat expensive, it remains manageable. The company rates it between 3 and 5 be...

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What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?

The API provided by IBM FileNet is a very out-of-date implementation. From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; we have to use the IBM FileNet native API, which is quite outdated.

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs Alfresco

Compared 18% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs Alfresco

Compared 15% of the time

SharePoint vs Alfresco

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs Alfresco

Compared 9% of the time

Nuxeo vs Alfresco

Compared 8% of the time

More Alfresco Competitors

SharePoint vs IBM FileNet

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 15% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 14% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Content Manager vs IBM FileNet

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FileNet Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Alfresco

July 2025

Download Alfresco product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM FileNet

July 2025

Download IBM FileNet product report

Overview

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

IBM FileNet is a leading IBM enterprise content management product family. IBM FileNet is one of the ECM solutions that can change the way a company does business by enabling users to capture, activate, socialize, analyze, and govern content throughout its lifecycle.

There are many IBM FileNet products available, all of which are integrated and based on the FileNet P8 Platform.

IBM

Sample Customers

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

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.

Buyer's Guide

Alfresco vs. IBM FileNet

July 2025

Free Report: Alfresco vs. IBM FileNet

Find out what your peers are saying about Alfresco vs. IBM FileNet and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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