Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Alfresco vs SharePoint comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (1st)
SharePoint
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
164
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (2nd), Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (1st), Enterprise Intranet (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 7.6%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SharePoint is 11.6%, down from 16.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SharePoint11.6%
Alfresco7.6%
Other80.8%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Q&A Highlights

AS
Community Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Apr 04, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Liam - PeerSpot reviewer
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
Unified document workflows have boosted customization, search efficiency, and collaboration
In my experience, some of the best features that Alfresco offers include document management, intelligent process management, and information governance. Out of those features, I find myself relying on document management the most because it helps users to quickly find and access information from anywhere on any device using web-based viewing tools. I presume all the features are very unique, robust, and helpful. Intelligent process management, integrated process, and content service capabilities help to streamline content-centric processes and enable faster, more informed decision-making. Alfresco is very scalable. Alfresco delivers a scalable way to automatically enrich content and metadata and provides key insights by automatically extracting valuable information. I love the full-text search engine, the ability to automate record lifecycle to save time and cost, and storing documentation. Creating rules for documents and folders adds to the overall usability of the features. Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to save money by only needing to use one platform to serve our customers, which is Alfresco. The community version is free to use. We charge our customers for customization, so this greatly boosted our sales. Sales engagement and sales were boosted by at least thirty to forty-five percent.
AnjneyBhardwaj - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Market Research Analyst at IDC Corporate
Collaboration has improved through simplified document access and controlled sharing
SharePoint is definitely used to keep a record of our files and data. The capability is quite good because it is time-saving. I have used it only four or five times, but it has been very helpful to keep all my information in a consolidated manner. The search feature is one of the most beneficial factors that we use to filter out the latest data or the latest file as per our convenience and use case. When you have a large repository, this feature is particularly valuable. Role-based access control has been helpful while developing the knowledge platform. The roles were defined clearly, which made it easy for the four or five of us to work simultaneously and collaborate on our project in a similar manner.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"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 product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization as it is open-source with a vibrant community and is very cost-effective compared to other alternatives."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"Document repository."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to save money by only needing to use one platform to serve our customers, which is Alfresco."
"The stability of SharePoint is high."
"The most valuable features of SharePoint include the ability to co-edit documents in the Office suite, particularly Excel and Word."
"It allows for simultaneous users to be on it."
"It has made us faster and more efficient."
"SharePoint enabled the staff to share documents and work on a document simultaneously."
"The security feature is valuable."
"The SharePoint interface is adequate and also a little bit faster."
"Our staff found it simpler, as they did not have to work within a classification system."
 

Cons

"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 setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"One area where Alfresco can be improved is the ability to scan directly using Alfresco."
"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."
"I feel the documentation needs a lot of improvement, especially for Activiti microservice adoption, which is sometimes frustrating or slows me down."
"No good process to import emails from several users into a single comprehensive SP repository."
"Workflow is something that can become more intelligent."
"The way to change the version of the files in SharePoint should be improved. The method of synchronizing files from local to the cloud can also use improvement."
"The product must provide more automation."
"I would like it to be more compliant with global regulations. There are certain features which could be included that currently are not there, such as compliance and record management capabilities."
"The technical support from Microsoft for SharePoint is often slow and rated a three out of ten."
"I understand that some functions are lost when you store the information in a file system, so maybe that's a way SharePoint can improve."
"Microsoft support could be better, especially for enterprise troubleshooting. They require a lot of logs and often rely on online support, which does not meet customer expectations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"The pricing is competitive."
"They are about an eight in comparison to other similar products."
"The pricing is competitive."
"The solution's pricing is relatively expensive because it's bundled with other products."
"It comes bundled with the Microsoft 365 pricing plans."
"The cost is expensive, but worthwhile."
"The replacement costs for it are cheaper if you use only SharePoint."
"The pricing works for us."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Content Management solutions are best for your needs.
884,122 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user8925 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer with 51-200 employees
Aug 23, 2013
Jive vs Sharepoint vs Drupal Commons
At Mediacurrent we often get requests to compare Drupal to other platforms used for intranet sites and social business platforms (like https://dev.twitter.com/ for example). This is often referred to as “Social Business Software”, which has grown in popularity in recent years. I decided to do a…
 

Answers from the Community

AS
Community Manager at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Apr 4, 2023
Apr 4, 2023
Alfresco scores are high on all features of an ECM solution and tools. Back office processing, rated as 3.36 good. Business Process Application 3.55 Good to excellent. Document Management 4.12 Excellent. Records Management 3.81 Good to Excellent. Team Productivity 3.66 Good. Compared with Sharepoint the ratings are as below. Back office Operations 3.29. Business Process Application 3...
2 out of 8 answers
Aug 4, 2014
Hi, Sorry but I am not familiar with Alfresco. We have experience with the followings: WebSphere CMS, Sharepoint and Drupal. Thank you, Jacob (Kobi) Welber CTO
it_user71736 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works with 51-200 employees
Aug 4, 2014
www.springcm.com routinely solves this problem and there now is an "easy button" on ECM and we have lots of clients to prove it, plus it includes some pre-configured apps that are very quick to deploy and derive value from. ok, commercial over... two quick questions: 1- do you need to integrate with salesforce.com? 2- what is the primary challenge with sharepoint?
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise81
 

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. ...
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...
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 SharePoint?
I do not know the difference between the prices of the two solutions; I did not work on this project.
What needs improvement with SharePoint?
It is not really better; we use the same solution as before with Google Drive and the Google App solution. Sometimes I have to refresh pages more than with Google, but it does not charge; the page ...
What is your primary use case for SharePoint?
I create a data warehouse and establish a link between different applications. For data exchange, the vendor is Oracle.
 

Also Known As

No data available
SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
Toyota, Aeroports de Paris, ASBBank Ltd., Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals, CambridgeshireConstabulary, D&M Group, NPL Construction Company, and The Regional Municipality of Niagara.
Find out what your peers are saying about Alfresco vs. SharePoint and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,122 professionals have used our research since 2012.