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DocStar ECM vs M-Files vs SharePoint 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

Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
DocStar ECM1.0%
SharePoint11.6%
OpenText Content Management8.0%
Other79.4%
Enterprise Content Management
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
M-Files5.1%
Alfresco11.7%
OpenText Content Manager7.9%
Other75.30000000000001%
Document Management Software
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SharePoint11.6%
OpenText Content Management8.0%
Alfresco7.6%
Other72.8%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

it_user255402 - PeerSpot reviewer
President/Owner with 51-200 employees
It has the flexibility to span across multiple departments, improving, for example, accounts-payable automation and contract management.
Ease of use Flexibility to span across multiple departments A/P Automation H/R On boarding Client/Vendor File Management Contract Management Not designed well for high-volume batch capture Does not display the images during the scanning process, so QC is always a post process Over 13…
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.
reviewer2811600 - PeerSpot reviewer
SDE 1 at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
Centralized document governance has boosted collaboration and made knowledge sharing structured
SharePoint is a powerful platform, but there are a few areas where I think it could be improved, such as user experience. For new users, the interface and navigation can feel quite complex, specifically when working with multiple sites and document libraries. Another improvement would be search functionalities. While it is good sometimes, it does not always return the most relevant result unless a document is very well-structured and tagged. Also, initial setup and customizations can be time-consuming and may require technical expertise, specifically when configuring workflows or permissions. From a modern development perspective, tighter and more seamless integrations with tools including Power Automate and better support for custom backend integrations through APIs could make it more efficient. Overall, simplifying usability and enhancing search and integration capability would make SharePoint even stronger. One additional area I would appreciate improvement would be performance and responsiveness, especially when dealing with a large document library. Sometimes loading or navigating through large datasets can feel quite slow. Another aspect is permissions management. While it is very powerful, it can become complex to manage at scale, specifically when there are multiple levels of access across teams and projects. Improving developer experience would also be beneficial. Making customization, API integrations, and extensions more straightforward would help teams, especially backend developers, leverage SharePoint more efficiently.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have some very compelling case studies with a very positive ROI."
"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."
"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."
"SharePoint has streamlined many processes and provided additional organization for our company."
"It is functionalities that improve the efficiency of the employee workforce."
"It has made us faster and more efficient."
"The ability to take Excel files and make them dynamic SharePoint lists with instant reporting capabilities has been a major benefit."
"It's very stable; I call it a multifunctional document system because you can do a lot of things with it, and it's just incredible how much we have been able to automate a few steps that people had to do thanks to the integration with other Office products."
"SharePoint acts as a version control system, allowing easy recovery of past document versions."
"Outstanding support on SharePoint, in particular from Microsoft."
"The solution has helped host our intranet and thereby helped in content publishing and distribution."
 

Cons

"Not designed well for high-volume batch capture Does not display the images during the scanning process, so QC is always a post process"
"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."
"The solution should be made more user-friendly for technical and business people."
"Technical support is bad, as the support is for all other Microsoft products."
"When you are trying to migrate from a different platform to SharePoint for file storage, the upload utility should be more flexible, taking more files and then updating you on the upload status of the files you are trying to transfer into SharePoint."
"I would like a simpler, more cost-effective solution for connecting data sources with workflows and BI tools, or data mining tools."
"Search integration across SharePoint, Yammer, Teams, and OneDrive."
"We did have issues with scalability. Performance isn’t so good if too many people use it."
"SharePoint Designer enables creating workflows easily. However, they produce errors at times."
"The introduction of AI and automation with Copilot could be a beneficial improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
"As usual, Microsoft’s licensing structures don’t really seem to fit the needs of their products. This leads to always paying for a project you will never use fully or always be adding to."
"It comes bundled with the Microsoft 365 pricing plans."
"They are about an eight in comparison to other similar products."
"The cost is expensive, but worthwhile."
"For this type of solution, it is not wise to buy it without Software Assurance."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"It is pretty reasonable. It is $5 per month per user. We have 12 users now, so it is about $60 per month."
"The pricing is competitive."
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Government
8%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business80
Midsize Enterprise39
Large Enterprise81
 

Questions from the Community

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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 ...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

docSTAR eclipse
No data available
SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Gillette Pepsi CompaniesUnited Way of KnoxvilleUniversity of MichiganMohawk PaperCleveland IndiansThe City of CamdenPenn Foster Career SchoolCapital Cardiology AssociatesCollier Restaurant Group
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
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.
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