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Alfresco vs M-Files comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Ranking in Document Management Software
1st
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (4th)
M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 8.1%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 3.5%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco8.1%
M-Files3.5%
Other88.4%
Document Management Software
 

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.
LN
Director of IT at JH Kelly
Good workflows, and it is easy to use with a dashboard that improves contract visibility
My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing this product is to do a pilot first. After you do your research, do an actual pilot before you commit because everyone has nuances and you might find out that it is not what you want, or that it doesn't really do what you think it's going to do. It is not the simplest product to use but because of the robustness of its feature set in the ability with the workflows, and the APIs, to do just about anything you can imagine with it, that's very valuable. I wish it was a little easier to use because we have to spend more time than I'd like with new users, teaching them how it works. We try to hide all that from them but the setup time to get everything the way we wanted was probably two months. That is two months in one resource working on it half time a week, but it just took a lot of work to get the metadata set up, to get the workflows set up, and to get all the documents added to the repository. Now we've got versioning and we know where everything's at, the dashboard is great, but don't assume when they tell you that you'll be up and running in two weeks, that that is the truth. It takes much longer than you think. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alfresco is a very good product that has very good inbuilt features, and at the same time, it is customizable and we can customize this product the way we want."
"One of Alfresco's strengths is the data modeling, as document domain experts can model type and hierarchical associations and metadata constraints in a declarative way, and a graphical user interface model manager now allows users that don't know XML formalisms to build models."
"Document repository."
"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by providing consistent use and the ability to utilize the system when needed to research zoning compliance records."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"Alfresco has impacted my organization and my customers' organizations positively by enabling them to have a very flexible solution that could meet their requirements."
"The features which are most valuable to us are rapid deployment, ease of installation, ease of use, and Linux platform support."
"Using M-Files means anybody on the executive team to go in and immediately look at a dashboard and know the status of a contract."
"M-Files licence model is very flexible. You have the choice of Named User, Concurrent, or SaaS. This gives the business so much room and flexibility to implement new projects whilst maintaining costs and maximizing production."
 

Cons

"We did encounter some stability issues when there were many simultaneous requests on the server."
"Alfresco could be improved in terms of maintenance and could have a simpler architecture regarding search functionality."
"The areas where Alfresco can be improved include perhaps the interface, which is not very modern, as you can find other solutions with a more attractive design."
"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality. Currently, for document capture functionality (ocr, read document metadata automatically, automatic document classification), Alfresco needs to be integrated with document capture such as: Kofax, Ephesoft, etc., while other Alfresco competitors already make document capture functionality as their default functionality."
"I have not seen a return on investment, as at the time it was not saving them money at Evernorth and Cigna, which is why they moved out of it."
"Technical support is probably the weakest part. We had a number of authentication issues and support has been very slow to respond and get us solutions."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"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."
"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
No data available
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Alfresco vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
918,169 professionals have used our research since 2012.