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Box vs IBM FileNet 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

As of June 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Box is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 5.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Documentum Content Management is 6.1%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM FileNet5.8%
OpenText Documentum Content Management6.1%
Box3.8%
Other84.3%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Chirag Morajkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
Structured cloud storage has streamlined document collaboration and automated workflows
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and using it as a cloud platform, I have not encountered any significant negative aspects. A few times, I might have faced performance issues, but I am uncertain whether that was due to the automation platform or Box itself. Overall, the only thing I could mention is that it can take a little time to understand how the integration works with Box; setup and figuring out what can and cannot be done might take some time, but other than that, I do not think anything else bothered me. One thing I would want Box to introduce to improve the platform and make it stand out even more would be incorporating AI. For example, the only way to identify documents shared in Box currently is by their names, and if those names are not precise, I can get confused. If Box had an AI feature to summarize and identify documents based on their contents, it would significantly enhance usability. AI is essential for making work easier, so that would be an excellent addition to the platform.
Shankar-Kambhampaty - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting CTO at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
Business workflows have been automated and document processes are streamlined at large scale
I believe IBM FileNet could be improved or enhanced in the future, specifically the user interface development support, which, despite all the improvements, still feels from the 2010s or 2000s. The current state of the user interface development support and the ability to customize it leaves much to be desired. The backend engine, process engine, and object engine are fantastic. However, the user interface, which is required to provide an impressive experience to the user, is difficult to build. IBM will need to do something about this area. Over time, IBM has made improvements with enhancements through CP4BA and other tools, with which user interfaces can be built. But there is much more is needed. The initial setup process for IBM FileNet requires specialists. IBM FileNet is not a click-click-click deploy kind of product. It has several components that need to be installed in different versions and in a particular order. Additionally, IBM Cloud does not provide a proper experience. The problem is I cannot use IBM Cloud easily. I cannot even get a membership easily. With AWS, I just use my credit card, sign up, and I am done. With IBM Cloud, that is not how it is. They go through all validation processes, and it is a nightmare at times. There are problems around IBM FileNet, not exactly with IBM FileNet itself, but the point is that it is not a click-click-click deploy either on the cloud or on-premise. It requires specialists, and there is a big learning curve toward deploying and managing the whole infrastructure as well as the software. I communicate with the technical support of IBM frequently. I have communicated several times, and frankly, there is much to be desired on that side. When you raise a ticket, it takes 24 to 48 hours for them to respond. We live in a time where business moves at the speed of light. Twenty-four hours is a very long time. You need to be able to get technical support instantaneously. It is not like the more contemporary support models where you get turnaround in minutes, not days.
Ashish Shelar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at IBM
Offers version control capabilities, easy to set up but highly-priced
The main thing is the cost. Most of the time, organizations move away from Documentum due to cost. It's highly-priced, and the support costs are high. Now, SharePoint and other options. Microsoft gives free licenses, so organizations mainly look for cost-effective products. The second thing is updates and patching. We patch very often, every six months or a year. We have SP1, SP2, and SP3, and then suddenly, it's moved out of support. That's the organization's main pain area. They don't want to keep investing from a storage perspective. The licensing model should be changed. The product itself is out of support. They have not considered it for AI initiatives. The new version should be on the cloud. I'm not sure if the new version of Documentum, xECM, is cloud compatible or on which cloud it is compatible, but the OpenText server itself is on a cloud, which would be beneficial to the business. And it would also be easier for migration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For basic file storage and a little collaboration, the product is fine."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"The editable features and upgrading capabilities are great."
"The interface is very good."
"Box's automation capabilities have helped optimize my business processes by saving time for sharing or sending files between the team."
"File sharing, authorization on the back, its ease of use and reliable uptime performance are valuable features of this solution."
"Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure."
"The key feature for us is that it keeps our content store small. That helps our DBAs when they have to do the backups of our audit system, or of the content store."
"FileNet is a fantastic system and almost all of our clients use it."
"One of our clients, a customer of IBM, rolled out and replaced their existing ECM system with FileNet, and their productivity has increased pretty dramatically."
"With IBM, we have just one platform with multiple components, making it a very good solution in terms of maintenance."
"Our clients are saving a minimum of two hours a day in work time."
"There are a lot of valuable features, but the biggest advantage is that this system is stable; it's always online, it always works... once it's configured and running, we don't need to touch it and constantly make changes to it. It's a low-maintenance platform."
"If we run into problems, which is inevitable (and we run into problems all the time), we get quick responses and good solutions back from the technical support."
"The solution increases productivity and reduces operating costs, and with a few customers, it has reduced costs by 30 percent from the legacy systems to the new system and saves our customers time by 30 to 40 percent by eliminating the time to process paper."
"It is easy to develop a VPN and UI."
"The tool's most valuable feature is ACL, which helps to control the user groups that access the documents."
"The product is user-friendly."
"The stability is very good, and sometimes we have connection issues with the DocBase Java Method Servers or DocBroker services because our project is about 400 megabytes and very big, but the designer works hard to resolve it."
"OpenText Documentum has improved availability and performance in our organization."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the security, storage, and document search capability."
"In terms of scalability, Documentum is a very good product; it's scalable, flexible, and reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the good automation engine, which helps in reducing the development cost and allows easy development of applications."
 

Cons

"I truly believe that Box should have a box consulting division which would really enable customers who do not necessarily want to work with ISVs."
"Collaborative editing was challenging if multiple people were in a document at once."
"It could be cheaper."
"Box Sync is still a bit buggy and it is difficult to get used to not being able to organize your view of folders as it is determined by the owner of the folder."
"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."
"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’)."
"In future releases, there could be encryption, to have better security."
"I find their API to be quite complex and it could be more straightforward."
"I would like to see it able to capture NLP in an advanced search. It would also be good if it could capture images and segregate them in categories within a span of seconds."
"Our client feels FileNet does not provide them with content searchability. They feel it's cumbersome. They're only using Metadata. If the Metadata is not well-populated, it becomes a problem to retrieve a document."
"The initial setup is complex. It is complex because there are several pieces of software that have to be installed in the right order to make it work alright."
"What I would like to see is more integration."
"It may be a little complex to implement and take some effort, but with the integration the way it is, it is worth the effort."
"The complexity of installation can also be improved. They should re-imagine the way that they install products."
"The application's processing engineer needs to be more advanced."
"There is room for improvement when we need a fix to a bug in the application. It takes time for them to release any interim fixes, and sometimes it takes three weeks, sometimes it takes more than a month."
"The product needs to improve the way documents are logged together. I believe running it on the cloud or containerization will bring value to it. The tool's Time to Market and deployment cycle need to be improved. Finding suitable training materials for OpenText Documentum is also a bottleneck. If we can find the training modules easily, we can bring together people, give them quick training, and start working on the deployment. It can help with quick outputs."
"OpenText Documentum's user interface could be improved a little bit."
"The price is quite high as the licensing prices are significant."
"The user interface can be a bit more intuitive."
"The main issue is the software's performance when storing around 10 million or more documents. It becomes slow and needs improvement. Perhaps it's a cloud-related issue, but it needs to be addressed. It could be due to our S3 bucket or something else. Nevertheless, this is a significant challenge we're facing."
"Several sub-products, like RMA and RPS are really bad stability-wise and many other aspects."
"The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is located."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"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."
"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."
"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"My organization pays for the license."
"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."
"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."
"FileNet is not cheap, but you absolutely get what you pay for. ​"
"For the medium scale or large scale, I would recommend FileNet. FileNet is free of licensing expenses, thus good for the money. It is not expensive, but worth for the money, especially for medium scale and large scale industries."
"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."
"It has reduced operating costs by reducing the amount of manual work needed."
"For small scale industries, they allow different options. They can do open source. It is the complexity of the data security that they should think about before they choose."
"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."
"The solution saves time and money. It helps us to be able to accomplish the goals of our business, as opposed to being tangled in the weeds of what we could do."
"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"The product is expensive."
"OpenText Documentum has announced a new licensing model, which could be more expensive."
"OpenText Documentum's pricing is good."
"The price is considered affordable now."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise74
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
I found the pricing reasonable because when I was working for an IBM partner, Box was free for us. We did not go to p...
What needs improvement with Box?
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this plat...
What is your primary use case for Box?
My main use case for Box is storing cloud content on its cloud and managing it as a collaborating platform so that I ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?
The pricing and licensing of IBM FileNet is high. We are living in a world where the minimal license from IBM costs a...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
I believe IBM FileNet could be improved or enhanced in the future, specifically the user interface development suppor...
What is your primary use case for IBM FileNet?
My usual use cases for IBM FileNet involve three primary areas. The first is document management. For instance, if yo...
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...
What is your primary use case for OpenText Documentum?
We are using it to archive the information about our sales.
What advice do you have for others considering OpenText Documentum?
One of my colleagues has found some automation features. It is not my responsibility regarding security features; I a...
 

Also Known As

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

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
Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
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, IBM, Adobe and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: May 2026.
899,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.