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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
Alfresco enhances document management, reduces costs, and increases efficiency with open-source flexibility, driving paperless operations and environmental benefits.
Sentiment score
5.1
SharePoint reduces costs and enhances efficiency with centralized document management and improved collaboration, benefiting organizations significantly.
Alfresco provides a significant return on investment by efficiently managing documents.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
I have seen a return on investment as open-source production with vibrant community support is cost-effective compared to many proprietary CMS solutions in the market.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
It made my office go paperless, thereby saving the environment.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Alfresco's support is responsive and professional, but faster responses often come from re-sellers or community forums.
Sentiment score
5.6
Customer service varies widely, from responsive to inefficient, depending on purchase options, support type, and regional effectiveness.
I would prefer a direct relationship with them, focusing on updating their products more like in an agile practice
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
The customer support for Alfresco is very vibrant, supportive, and responsive.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
There is a lack of detailed and timely responses, and support is not always transparent with the solutions.
Practice Manager at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
The quality of Microsoft's technical support is very high.
Consultant/Administrator O365 solutions at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
It's also difficult sometimes to get the right information because we speak at first to a generalist and they have to go to a specialist.
Supervisor at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Alfresco scales efficiently across layers, handling growth easily with strong clustering and configuration flexibility, attracting users with scalability.
Sentiment score
6.5
SharePoint is scalable with proper configuration and resources, enhanced by SQL integration, requiring IT expertise for optimal management.
Implementations needing to handle millions of documents may involve complex cluster setups requiring expert assistance.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Alfresco is very scalable and handles my organization's growth efficiently.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
Alfresco's scalability is very good; it grows with organizational needs and handles all organizational requirements.
Network Engineer at AT&T
Making it easy to scale from a load-balancing and infrastructure perspective.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
SharePoint is massively scalable and I would rate it as 8.5 out of ten.
Cloud Architect at Freelance
SharePoint allows multiple teams to work at the same time, making it adaptable for large data volumes.
PM at EUIPO - European Union Intellectual Property Office
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Alfresco is highly stable with proper configuration, despite a steep learning curve and potential large-scale request issues.
Sentiment score
7.5
SharePoint is stable with proper setup and maintenance, though issues can arise with large datasets and specific integrations.
The stability of Alfresco is rated highly as it hardly goes down.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco is generally a very stable and high-performance platform.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Those issues have now been corrected.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The stability of SharePoint is high; it is quite stable and resilient.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Everything runs smoothly, and I have no problems with its stability.
Financial Director at Est
SharePoint is a stable product.
 

Room For Improvement

Alfresco users seek improved Microsoft integration, usability, security, AI features, and enhanced tools for better workflow and interface.
SharePoint needs improvements in co-authoring, permissions, search, synchronization, mobile experience, cost-effectiveness, integration, complexity, and performance.
It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Governance of this system is required. If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
I feel the documentation needs a lot of improvement, especially for Activiti microservice adoption, which is sometimes frustrating or slows me down.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
Microsoft forces users to upgrade their license to access proper auditing information, which is essential and should be included in any license.
Practice Manager at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
The rights management aspect can be particularly challenging, which may affect the overall user-friendliness of the product.
Lead Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Expansion of scalability is needed, specifically the threshold limits for site items should be increased beyond the current 5,000 items.
 

Setup Cost

Alfresco's Enterprise Edition offers extensive features at a starting price of $100,000, with additional costs for upgrades and integrations.
Enterprise SharePoint pricing varies widely; careful planning and professional guidance are essential for cost-effective, tailored solutions.
Alfresco is a very cost-effective and affordable tool.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Alfresco is very cheap and cost-effective.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
Unlike Drupal, all necessary applications are included in the Microsoft license, making it cost-effective.
PM at EUIPO - European Union Intellectual Property Office
Microsoft offers bundled pricing for Office, SharePoint, and Exchange, making it cost-effective.
Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Enterprise licensing is generally cost-effective compared to individual purchases.
Lead Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Alfresco provides open-source document management, integration, customization, and scalability, enhancing collaboration and workflow while promoting cost-effectiveness.
SharePoint offers document management, collaboration, Office integration, and security, enhancing processes with workflows and adaptable cross-device accessibility.
This makes the record independent of the document, which is beneficial as documents often change, and it helps avoid continual updates to the registry.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
There is document storage with metadata, document versioning, document workflow, check-in, check-out, REST API for integration, easy customization, and vibrant community support.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
When it comes to scripting, if there is something that Alfresco does not do natively, you can use their custom API to do almost anything that you want.
Network Engineer at AT&T
Additionally, SharePoint acts as a version control system, allowing easy recovery of past document versions.
Cloud Architect at Freelance
Its rights management capabilities and ability to restrict access to certain people are also very useful.
Lead Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature of SharePoint is the ability to collaborate on documents without having multiple versions.
Financial Director at Est
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Content Management solutions are best for your needs.
884,732 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
12%
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 Enterprise7
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.
884,732 professionals have used our research since 2012.