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Alfresco vs M-Files vs Microsoft OneDrive for Business 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

Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Alfresco8.8%
SharePoint15.0%
OpenText Documentum Content Management10.2%
Other66.0%
Enterprise Content Management
Document Management Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
M-Files7.8%
Alfresco15.9%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management11.1%
Other65.2%
Document Management Software
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft OneDrive for Business9.1%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise10.1%
Google Workspace9.8%
Other71.0%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

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…
LN
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.
Richard Griggs - PeerSpot reviewer
Long-term data security and automatic saving features improve efficiency with smooth setup and deployment processes
Some of the best features of Microsoft OneDrive for Business are the ability to ensure automatic saving. I've been in IT for over thirty years and have seen plenty of times when people forgot to hit file save and lost data, and having this automatically saved constantly is a very nice feature set. The synchronization capabilities of Microsoft OneDrive for Business certainly support my work as it is handy if you're concerned about people writing data on their local PCs and the laptops getting stolen or crashing, to have it sync everything up to your Microsoft OneDrive for Business account so that you're not having to worry about backing up locally. You try to make sure that people are putting things in the right folder to ensure they'll get backed up. Before using Microsoft OneDrive for Business, we were actually storing things locally and had shared folders or home folders out on the network. They made the change to Microsoft OneDrive for Business because they wanted to put it out in the cloud and get better performance, automatic backups, and all the rest of it.

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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"Document repository."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"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."
"Ability to share documents."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the amount of space allotted to each user that is issued a subscription."
"With this solution, the sharing of documents if very easy to do. There's a lot of collaboration you can do with your colleagues."
"One of the good features is that the users are not even aware that they're using it."
"Microsoft OneDrive for Business is easier to use because it has all the tools integrated with SharePoint and Teams, and Microsoft Office is already inside the office, making it the least problematic to implement."
"The most valuable feature is to be able to modify the file online and keep it stored on the cloud, since it is not necessary to download it to make modifications."
"The stability of Microsoft OneDrive is very good, it is reliable. There were multiple instances where I had lost my valuable data on hard drives in several other places. However, with Microsoft OneDrive, I've never lost a single file."
"It helps you keep organized."
 

Cons

"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"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."
"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 integration with other products needs to be improved."
"The file structure insight could be made more flexible like for creating more flexible folders."
"OneDrive is a bit behind competing products like Dropbox and Box."
"One of the things that I find to be challenging about Microsoft OneDrive for Business, specifically working with Windows eleven, is that it automatically tries to sync up accounts."
"The user interface sometimes fails and when it cannot connect, it does not give the reason why."
"If I want to pick out certain criteria of pictures, Google enables me to do that whereas OneDrive is a bit sort of flaky."
"It takes too long for OneDrive to synchronize various applications, especially when you are saving office data. It also requires too much bandwidth."
"The security is not as flexible as it is with Dropbox, which means that we can't share our OneDrive files."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"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."
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
"This is a pricy solution, given that we are only using it at 50% capacity."
"Costwise, it is a great option. In most cases, it is a free space, which will be more than enough for most customers."
"Using this software, it has had an amazing impact moneywise on our business. It allows us to share documents without the need of extra hardware."
"We pay a lot for the Enterprise version, but it is a premium service."
"It is free if you are using Office 365, and you get a terabyte of storage with your account."
"The licensing is expensive and on a yearly basis."
"OneDrive comes with Microsoft 365 so it is just an added part of that package."
"The price of Microsoft OneDrive is reasonable and compatible with competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Microsoft OneDrive?
Regarding Microsoft OneDrive for Business's versioning control, sometimes there are syncing problems. Microsoft OneDr...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft OneDrive?
I have been working with Microsoft OneDrive for Business for three years; I started my job in that industry when I ca...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft OneDrive?
The pricing for Microsoft OneDrive for Business would be average. If we analyze deeper or require extra storage apart...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
MS OneDrive
 

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
Chevron, Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, DBS, Nestle, Lowe's, MGM Resorts, Textron, MGM Resorts
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.