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Box vs M-Files 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Box
Ranking in Document Management Software
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (8th), Cloud Storage (12th), Digital Asset Management (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (8th)
M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Box is 5.4%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 5.1%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Box5.4%
M-Files5.1%
Other89.5%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Rashad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Projects Manager at Tech-hub
Team collaboration has improved through shared access and real-time synchronization
I find the synchronization feature most valuable in Box. When I use multiple devices, it syncs them together and gives excellent results. I can assess the benefits of Box's file sharing. Box's integration with third-party apps is valuable, especially with Outlook. Box has helped my team's productivity by being very helpful with team collaboration when we are sharing certain shared documents between us. I mostly value Box's automation capabilities. They have helped optimize my business processes by saving time for sharing or sending files between the team. This gives us a shared workspace to work together on the same document or the same ideas. Box's security features have helped my organization meet compliance needs.
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

"File sharing with collaborators not on the same domain with offline access from multiple devices: I work on many projects that are multi-organizational, such as with customers, suppliers, or acquisitions."
"The interface is very good."
"Simple file sharing and sync for internal and external customers."
"I like the ease of use."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box."
"Box is very user-friendly; more so than SharePoint."
"Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure."
"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."
 

Cons

"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"Like all cloud platforms, there are always areas of improvement around sync to local devices."
"Tasks and comments could be easier to see, report, search, and manage."
"One thing that Box would benefit from is a records management component."
"The UI should be faster. Sometimes it lags when switching between documents."
"Better integration with other solutions is needed."
"The search features and role permissions are not very user friendly. It only searches the first few pages of a document, which is quite a problem."
"Improvements in speed - Box's high level of security impacts performance, especially when compared with other similar services."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

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."
"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."
"The more you dig, the deeper the level of tools, and the more expensive it becomes."
"I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."
"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"My organization pays for the license."
"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
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Legal Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

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 payment and other matters like this.
What needs improvement with Box?
I believe Box has a lot of features that put it in a good rank among the file-sharing apps. I would like to see features for online collaboration between team members in the future, to open and see...
What is your primary use case for Box?
I use Box, Delphi, and IBM FileNet. I worked for a software company as a project manager, and this experience includes FileNet. I also used Delphi for programming work. I am familiar enough with Bo...
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Comparisons

 

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 vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.