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Box - Intelligent Content Management vs M-Files comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2026

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

Box - Intelligent Content M...
Ranking in Document Management Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (9th), Cloud Storage (10th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Content Collaboration Platforms (8th)
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 September 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Box - Intelligent Content Management is 6.3%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 3.6%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Box - Intelligent Content Management6.3%
M-Files3.6%
Other90.1%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jeremey Kenney - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Technology & Integration at GlobalMac IT
Secure file governance has improved collaboration and automation for client document workflows
The best features are around security, being able to set up different groups, and the governance features are really great. The new AI functionality that they released has been pretty handy. For governance and security, the audit trail capability is excellent. We are able to see when people interact or change files or if something was deleted, and we can go through and review that audit trail. The AI has been great for creating different workflows that we are able to execute. When a form gets submitted into Box - Intelligent Content Management or a file is uploaded, there are certain automations that we can put in place to where it can essentially generate tickets in our system for new users or other tasks.
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

"Box thinks of features before I realize I want them!"
"The solution is scalable."
"Box has allowed us to access, share and edit content seamlessly as an organization."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"You can upload your bin, upload your files quickly, and download your files quickly. It provides a lot of other alternatives."
"Box is very realistic when it comes to sharing capabilities."
"Most of the time, they are running a free 50GB for life promotion, which is a pretty good deal."
"It is a very user-friendly product; the solution is stable and, for me, it's very easy to navigate whether I'm in my email, Smartsheet, or SLAM so that I can get my documents, make changes, and load them back without any complexity."
"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

"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"I would love to see the ability to invite collaborators extended to a file level, not just the folder level."
"Data privacy, regarding where to store your data: Offering several transparent(!) options (where to store my data and whether to sync back or not and where to sync) regarding the local law situations (USA, EU, Switzerland!) would increase the credibility of a US based company (after NSA ‘snooping’)."
"The upload speed needs improvement."
"Search function remove layers."
"The price must be lowered."
"The security settings are such that if I have a folder with subfolders several levels deep, whatever security setting I have for the parent folder gets inherited at all the subfolders. This has been limiting."
"I recommend doing the trial first, because it's not cheap ware. It's not overly expensive, but it's not cheap ware, and enterprise has a minimum number of users."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A business account has a minimum of three users. If you are more than three people in-house, go for the Enterprise version. All the external users are free of charge."
"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."
"The pricing may seem steep at first, but delve into the features and you'll soon realize it is incredible value for what you get."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"I have to pay for Box. It could be a little cheaper. On a scale from one to ten, I would give the pricing a five."
"They are very price competitive when pushed. Initially, they come out with a standard list price, but they are willing to be very competitive. The Box price was pretty much equal to or lower than the Citrix price, and Box has more features."
"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"There's a free version that allows you to use it with almost full-feature access. Even in the free version, it gives you all you need."
"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
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise32
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
Box - Intelligent Content Management has fairly good pricing for licenses, especially if you do an annual plan. We always suggest our clients do a month-to-month plan so that they have flexibility ...
What needs improvement with Box?
I would suggest more out-of-the-box integrations as far as the automations go. Box - Intelligent Content Management has many templates, and you can customize some things, but there appear to be som...
What is your primary use case for Box?
Box - Intelligent Content Management is used for file storage for clients and provides a secure way to share files with other people as well as internally with our team. Box - Intelligent Content M...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Box - Intelligent Content Management vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.