Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet comparison

Hyland and IBM are both solutions in the Enterprise Content Management category. Hyland is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.6, while IBM is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.9. Hyland holds a 6.4% mindshare in ECM, compared to IBM’s 7.7% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hyland users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Hyland OnBase

Read 13 Hyland OnBase reviews

3,796 Views
2,240 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

Read 103 IBM FileNet reviews

3,716 Views
3,419 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Hyland OnBase

IBM FileNet

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

IBM FileNet and Hyland OnBase both compete in the enterprise content management market, with FileNet taking the upper hand for organizations focused on compliance due to its stability and governance features.

Features: IBM FileNet offers robust scalability, integration with various business units, and comprehensive document management. Its automation capabilities improve business process efficiencies and enterprise search functionality. Hyland OnBase is known for its flexible modular approach, integration abilities, and excellent customization across different business functions.

Room for Improvement: IBM FileNet could improve its integration with other systems and enhance the user-friendly aspects of its Content Navigator. Hyland OnBase may benefit from a more intuitive user interface and improved integration with external applications to enhance overall usability and flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM FileNet is mostly on-premises, suitable for organizations with stringent security needs, with mixed reviews on technical support responsiveness. Hyland OnBase offers both cloud and on-premises deployment, providing versatility and generally favorable support, though some users find it complex without training.

Pricing and ROI: IBM FileNet is seen as costly but justified by its powerful capabilities for large enterprises, with ROI realized over an extended period. Hyland OnBase also has a high initial setup cost but offers modular pricing for cost control and significant productivity gains contributing to a good ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet

November 2025

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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

Hyland OnBase

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

5th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Process Management (BPM) (15th), Low-Code Development Platforms (12th)

IBM FileNet

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 7.7%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM FileNet	7.7%
Hyland OnBase	6.4%
Other	85.9%

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Rao Kagitha

Senior Onbase Developer & Administrator at HTC Global Services (INDIA) Private

Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features

The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.

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ARTHUR BRUNO

Consultor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Has provided robust content management but requires simplification in configuration and usability

We almost do not utilize the automation capabilities of IBM FileNet to streamline our business processes. The process automation and business automation features are barely used. Currently, we primarily use it to store content. We are now trying to use all of the functionalities of IBM FileNet, but we have not yet utilized the full capacity of the system. We are trying to reduce redundancy with IBM FileNet by enhancing our business rules. However, we still have significant redundancy. IBM FileNet can help us reduce redundancy, but we need to understand the tool and use all the functionalities to accomplish this. Ease of use with IBM FileNet is a disadvantage of this tool. It is complex and hard to use. When we try to set up IBM FileNet, we have many questions. We do not understand what we need to do in IBM FileNet. There are many configurations we must make but do not know how to implement. While IBM FileNet is very reliable, it is very difficult to set up. When reading the documentation about IBM FileNet, it appears to be very reliable and secure, but setting up configurations, access rules, authorization, and authentication seems to be very challenging.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."

"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."

"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"

"I like the cloud and its integrability."

"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."

"The retention module is one of the most valuable features. Whatever we scan onto the system can be identified and we are notified when the records are due to be disposed."

"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."

"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."

More Hyland OnBase pros

"It has a straightforward approach to the install."

"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."

"We are able to find the proper documents which are needed for business processes."

"It is very stable and reliable."

"IBM provides good support since it's a big company."

"It puts governance in place around the content and processes. Access levels can be set to certain parts of the document based on role level."

"The most valuable features for us are Wex (Watson) for search, Datacap for OCR/ICR, and Automation Anywhere for RPA."

"FileNet has the capabilities to meet compliance and regulatory requirements. It is very secure."

More IBM FileNet pros

Cons

"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."

"We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application."

"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."

"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."

"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."

"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."

"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."

"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."

More Hyland OnBase cons

"Currently, our primary ERP system is SAP S/4HANA. Despite this, we have encountered difficulties integrating the solution with it, which remains an unresolved challenge for our team."

"It needs better collaboration between the IBM teams on the FileNet and CCM sides."

"The initial setup was pretty complex. There are too many options, and it can get a bit confusing."

"We brought DocuSign into our company's solution three years before. At that time there was no direct integration. We would like to pull documents out from FileNet, push them to DocuSign and, when done, retrieve them and store them back in FileNet. We wrote our own custom solution for that. It would be nice if there was some tool we could have used to do that."

"During the initial setup, all the details and different technical things that we were trying to figure out became complex."

"It is stable as long as you create the right environment. We have had issues at times, but just because of configuration issues."

"The new software and trends with the cloud solution is a little slow. I would like them to move toward more cloud-based and microservices rather than a SaaS model. This is where the industry is going and what customers are asking for."

"IBM has a lot of documentation but the kind of information in a lot of the documents can be confusing to our clients. It would be easier if they used video tutorials. Right now, the information is too hard to understand, and there is a lot of it. If they used videos I think FinalNet would be easy to use for an end-user."

More IBM FileNet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is high."

"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."

"OnBase is reasonably priced."

"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."

"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."

"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."

"IBM FileNet is an expensive solution."

"My customers have seen ROI. There have been productivity gains, time savings gains, and things that they have been doing much more efficiently in a more modern way than they were before."

"We use extraction. Therefore, we can see 80 to 85 percent accuracy on data extraction. This reduces the manual indexing part, which is definitely a gain on performance efficiency."

"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."

"When it comes to pricing, IBM needs to make an effort to improve the cost. That's the main issue regarding use of FinalNet in Columbia."

"The tool is expensive, and I rate its pricing a ten out of ten."

More IBM FileNet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	74

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?

I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...

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What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?

I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...

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What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?

I was a vendor managing Hyland OnBase ( /products/hyland-onbase-reviews ) for Hyland, not as a direct user but as a business partner. We managed the solution and were a partner with Hyland.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM FileNet?

The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?

From the company's perspective, the licensing cost for IBM FileNet is still affordable. Though the license cost is somewhat expensive, it remains manageable. The company rates it between 3 and 5 be...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 16% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 15% of the time

Alfresco vs IBM FileNet

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 10% of the time

OpenText Content Manager vs IBM FileNet

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Hyland OnBase

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FileNet

October 2025

Download IBM FileNet product report

Also Known As

OnBase

No data available

Overview

Hyland OnBase is acclaimed for its robust document management, automating workflows, and improving organizational efficiency across various industries. Praised for its ability to manage records compliantly, especially in regulated sectors like healthcare and finance, the tool also integrates smoothly with other enterprise systems. Users benefit significantly from streamlined processes, reduced manual tasks, and enhanced data accuracy, boosting productivity and customer satisfaction.

Hyland

IBM FileNet is a leading IBM enterprise content management product family. IBM FileNet is one of the ECM solutions that can change the way a company does business by enabling users to capture, activate, socialize, analyze, and govern content throughout its lifecycle.

There are many IBM FileNet products available, all of which are integrated and based on the FileNet P8 Platform.

IBM

Sample Customers

Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.

Buyer's Guide

Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet

November 2025

Free Report: Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet

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