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Alfresco vs M-Files vs OpenText Documentum 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

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
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Documentum Content Management10.2%
SharePoint15.0%
OpenText Content Management10.0%
Other64.8%
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…
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.
Salih çakır - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly content management but needs more customizations
We use OpenText Documentum for managing the command life cycle and for content management Documentum helps by saving time during daily operations. The product is user-friendly. The BPM side should be improved. It would be beneficial to have more ability to customize features for specific use…

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."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"Document repository."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"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."
"We like Documentum for its capacity and reliability."
"The most valuable feature is that the documents are kept secure."
"It has the ability to categorize and search."
"It has reduced the amount of paper documents; reducing time and errors in the process."
"The most impactful thing is the size, which is almost 25 TB."
"I appreciate Documentum's scalability, allowing for vast volumes of content storage."
"OpenText Documentum is a robust choice for enterprise-level document management."
"The product is user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"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."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
"The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is located."
"The documentation often leaves customers feeling somewhat frustrated, as OpenText seems to expect customers to remind them constantly about the need for better documentation, as they don't provide clear guidance on their documentation practices."
"We mostly use the Life Sciences package. That package is somewhat dated. There should be enhancements to the Life Science package and additional offerings to support pharma in particular."
"It should provide more tools to help clients upgrade solutions based on Webtop."
"The price is quite high as the licensing prices are significant."
"The vertical application could be improved."
"In BPM could be better. Its GUI needs the ability to build more rules. This is a crucial feature. For example, OpenText has some products that allow you to control your checks, invoices, and so on. They have exciting approaches to converting pictures to text, but the tool for business process management isn't easy to use. The GIU is not so good."
"One area for improvement in OpenText Documentum is its handling of outdated documents, especially technical ones."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"OpenText Documentum has announced a new licensing model, which could be more expensive."
"OpenText Documentum's pricing is good."
"It falls in line with a lot of things that are out there on the market. There is nothing extraordinary in terms of great or bad."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"The product is expensive."
"The price is considered affordable now."
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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
16%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Documentum?
It falls in line with a lot of things that are out there on the market. There is nothing extraordinary in terms of gr...
What do you like most about OpenText Documentum?
The most valuable feature of Documentum for our content management needs is its ability to segregate access based on ...
What needs improvement with OpenText Documentum?
The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is l...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Dell EMC Documentum, Documentum , Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform
 

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
Agility; Bibliotheca Alexandrina; Capitec Bank; Department of Social Development, Republic of South Africa; County of Los Angeles, Department of Human Resources; Fresenius Kabi; Heathrow Airport; Lahey Health; Linde PLC; Milestone Pharma Co. Ltd; National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development; Open Grid Europe GmbH; REPCO NEX Industrial Solutions; Springer Nature; Syngene International; Tata Power DDL; University of Texas Austin
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.