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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 (10th), Cloud Storage (12th), Digital Asset Management (6th), Content Collaboration Platforms (9th)
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 May 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Box is 5.4%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 4.3%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Box5.4%
M-Files4.3%
Other90.3%
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

"Most amazingly its integration with Office 365 (online) is one of the best features it has other than integrating with other apps like Salesforce, etc."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"Box is very user-friendly; more so than SharePoint."
"Sharing and collaborating across files and folders has been a massive game changer."
"The features I have found to be most helpful over other cloud storage platforms are: Collaboration - just not that it exists, but it is easy and user friendly, allowing data that is necessary to be worked on to be brought to the surface; Security - focus on compliance, encryption, enterprise grade management; 3rd Party Integrations - allowing for Box to truly be a platform to be used with other software."
"The application is very light in terms of uploading and downloading files."
"The ability to collaborate around data anywhere, anytime is the most powerful features of Box."
"I like the ease of use."
"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."
"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."
"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

"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."
"The waterfall methodology for folders does not allow for privatization of folders at the root level, which sometimes may be necessary."
"With OneDrive, you can continuously save your files over a Box folder. That is something I wish we could have."
"Improvements in speed - Box's high level of security impacts performance, especially when compared with other similar services."
"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"I recommend doing the trial first, because it's not cheap ware."
"I would like to see features for online collaboration between team members in the future, to open and see who is accessing the document now and see my movements across the document or the file we are sharing together."
"Technical support has some room for improvement, but nothing insurmountable."
"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."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"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."
"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.