Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet comparison

Hyland and IBM are both solutions in the Enterprise Content Management category. Hyland is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.6, while IBM is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.9. Hyland holds a 6.0% mindshare in ECM, compared to IBM’s 6.5% 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

4,371 Views
2,404 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

Read 103 IBM FileNet reviews

4,015 Views
3,694 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Hyland OnBase

IBM FileNet

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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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet

December 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

6th

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 January 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.0%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 6.5%, down from 10.0% 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	6.5%
Hyland OnBase	6.0%
Other	87.5%

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

reviewer1981395

Product owner at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Seamless data management enhances security while monolithic architecture and reporting need improvements

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, addressing some concerns. Additionally, there could be more integration points with products Hyland has acquired, such as Alfresco and Nuxeo. Offering a trial version with basic features would allow users to experience the product before purchasing. I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial.

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Shoichiro Takeshita

Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN

Business process handling improves while adaptation shows potential for updates

The business process manipulation in IBM FileNet is very effective for implementing business processes. IBM FileNet has content management, and these two features are very good. Compared with Kamunda business process management, Kamunda is easier for implementation than IBM FileNet. There is a significant ROI from IBM FileNet because before its introduction, the company needed to do all the work manually. This significant ROI has been evident since IBM FileNet was first introduced ten years ago. While there might be documentation prepared by the company, it is not currently available.

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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

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

"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."

"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."

"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."

"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."

"I like the cloud and its integrability."

"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."

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

More Hyland OnBase pros

"One of our clients, a customer of IBM, rolled out and replaced their existing ECM system with FileNet. Their productivity has increased pretty dramatically."

"The standout feature for us is undoubtedly the Google-like search functionality, which allows us to search for documents within the system effortlessly. Instead of just querying the document database, this feature retrieves all relevant documents, akin to searching on the internet. It is very easy to use."

"Stability is really good. We fairly recently upgraded a version of it and have not been having any problems. The resources seem to be really good with this version; it is a little easier to troubleshoot issues."

"It is very user-friendly for business users. They can create their own searches. They are not dependent on administrators to create searches for them. It is self-service for them."

"It allows for multiple people to access content simultaneously."

"I have found that it scales well."

"FileNet can for sure cover the requirements of a medium and a big company, because of the scalability and the possibility to connect with many other IBM products."

"It is a user-friendly system and easy to manage for anyone with basic knowledge."

More IBM FileNet pros

Cons

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

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

"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."

"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."

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

"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."

More Hyland OnBase cons

"What I would like to see is more integration."

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

"It would be nice to have additional integration features, which could be integration with IoOT-based products and solutions that also have automation requirements on the IOT side. Anything can be integrated from a Gateway or API perspective would be a plus."

"A little better control into the ACLs of FileNet and databases."

"IBM does not do very good marketing for FileNet."

"It would be nice if they could make it like containers are working in Kubernetes to auto-scale based on demand."

"The analytics in FileNet are too complicated and they consume too much infrastructure, memory, and CPU. They're too expensive to work with."

"Sometimes, there can be issues with the database connections. FileNet has too many outages because things are broken in the database."

More IBM FileNet cons

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."

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

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

"OnBase is reasonably priced."

"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."

"The physical space that we have gained back pays for the service. Therefore, it has reduced our operating costs overall. We have definitely seen ROI. I would estimate $30,000 a year."

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

"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."

"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."

"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."

"IBM FileNet is an expensive solution."

"For small scale industries, they allow different options. They can do open source. It is the complexity of the data security that they should think about before they choose."

More IBM FileNet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

19%

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	32
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?

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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.

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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...

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What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?

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 prim...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs Hyland OnBase

Compared 8% of the time

SharePoint vs Hyland OnBase

Compared 7% of the time

Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Hyland OnBase

Compared 5% of the time

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OpenText Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 14% of the time

SharePoint vs IBM FileNet

Compared 13% of the time

Alfresco vs IBM FileNet

Compared 9% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 9% of the time

OpenText Content Manager vs IBM FileNet

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FileNet Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Hyland OnBase

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FileNet

December 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

December 2025

Free Report: Hyland OnBase vs. IBM FileNet

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