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Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (14th), Low-Code Development Platforms (14th)
IBM FileNet
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 5.3%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 5.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM FileNet5.8%
Hyland OnBase5.3%
Other88.9%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Arjurn Dakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Deloitte
Workflow automation has transformed case management and reduced errors across our processes
Hyland OnBase is a great tool for document storage and retrieval, automating business processes using workflow, and building applications in WorkView. It saves a lot of time, reduces human errors, and is very cost-effective. Hyland OnBase has drastically improved our business processes and made everyone's jobs easier. Hyland OnBase is a fantastic system that does a lot for my organization. We use it for indexing and storing documents as the main reason we use Hyland OnBase, but it also has many features that we use every day. Workflows are the most common way that our employees interact with Hyland OnBase. We also ingest thousands of documents every day, and with our continued rate of growth, we do not see Hyland OnBase having any trouble handling the added traffic. It is very scalable. The best features Hyland OnBase offers include workflows, document retention and security, document ingesting and indexing, and document retrieval and storage. The user-friendly interface makes it very easy to use and provides a smooth learning curve for new users. Workflow is used to quickly and easily configure and improve business processes. We also have automation through workflow, which saves time and cost. Reporting dashboards allow us to create useful reports to keep personnel informed, making data-driven decisions easier. While we have grown a lot over the past five years, Hyland OnBase has allowed us to maintain our existing workflows rather than hiring additional employees, requiring fewer employees thanks to Hyland OnBase. Since Hyland OnBase is our central repository for all documents, our documents are more secure, allow greater work flexibility, especially for remote work, are more easily accessible, and are smarter. It has changed the way we as a company work. Through workflow automation, we have been able to save a lot of time, with forty to fifty-five percent of time being saved currently.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With Hyland OnBase, every document is unique, and access can be restricted and audited depending on user permission, allowing a company to take control of their information and be more productive."
"I like the flexibility and its modular nature that allows us to create solutions that meet our business needs."
"OnBase provides high-value solutions for organizations with much less cost in comparison to other ECM solutions."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"
"The impact of Hyland OnBase on our organization is that automating manual processes has had an incredible effect on our return on investment, and the man-hours saved by automating processes pays for the system, ranging from one to five hours."
"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 has positively impacted my organization by improving claims payment time by 82% for emergency room claims, and since additions can be made to our Hyland OnBase process, the return on investment can grow with each addition of a new process."
"We use FileNet to store all our content, and with a quarter of a billion documents stored it works great for us."
"The usability is really good. Our business users are pleased with it. They seem to get what they are looking for, and it's very efficient."
"The most critical benefit has been ease of use. It speeds along our development helping us go to market a lot sooner."
"It's been a really solid product; I've only had this area for about a year, but it's been a really good product; very few problems."
"By using FileNet, especially with bigger contracts, it doesn't take ten days or two weeks to receive and store the documents, because when the documents are emailed it takes under one second and it arrives to customer service, who can then activate the customer's product immediately so the customer doesn't have to wait and the company can earn money for the product sooner."
"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."
"The best-scaling ECM solution now comes with a beautiful, extendable UI."
"It really has improved our organization, because it's the repository of all our documents, PDF, etc."
 

Cons

"As the system grows in terms of number of modules, features, and functionality, options can be confusing and they can conflict with other options that you enable."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"For my case, there should be a cleaner, easy-to-use change management and migration tool, which would be great."
"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy."
"I haven’t rated it higher because of the workflow engine. I believe it can be improved upon, looking at other workflow solutions like Pega and Lombardi."
"In Content Navigator we want to see the ability to view different types of video... We are using HTML 5 but it's very limited... We definitely want to see support for most types of video formats in the market."
"I would rate it higher if they improved the usability, because as a product, it went through iterations and things like that."
"I might give it a higher rating if it cost less; as with anything else, licensing is an issue."
"I would like IBM to improve with each release, continue moving towards a continual, tighter integration, and build solutions that take advantage of all the different modules the platform has from one place."
"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."
"At this time, it has improved, but it wasn't that stable not that long ago."
"Cognos is a product that's wishy-washy at times, and most of the issues that we've ever had with Cognos were because our content store was too big."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The tool's price is high."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."
"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."
"Talking about the cost is difficult because IBM has offers that combine different products, and each of these offers has different types of licensing. IBM also has a policy that the actual price for a given customer may be very different from the stated book price. It's hard to say whether it's expensive or not."
"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."
"FileNet is not cheap, but you absolutely get what you pay for. ​"
"IBM FileNet is an expensive solution."
"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."
"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise74
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very cost-effective and affordable.
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
Hyland OnBase could be improved in terms of service support response time. More timely updates to solution software support documentation also should be improved.
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
Hyland OnBase is used across the entirety of the organization in a variety of different ways, and its primary use is as a document storage solution that is used in conjunction with other systems su...
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 anywhere from seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand US dollars, depending...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
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...
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 you have an insurance application, you can store all the documents required to pro...
 

Also Known As

OnBase
No data available
 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,426 professionals have used our research since 2012.