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Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet vs OpenText Content Management 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

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 9.1%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Content Management is 10.8%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Emad Rizki - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless integration for large enterprises with strong deployment capabilities
FileNet was scalable and could be implemented into big multinational organizations. However, it has become very expensive recently. Compared to low-code solutions such as Appian and outsystems, FileNet has gaps, mainly because it requires coding, which is not preferred by clients due to pricing concerns in Pakistan. We transitioned clients to cloud solutions, although FileNet has been strongly integrated with on-prem deployments.
Jaideep MS - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective document control yet requires better affordability and clarity
I use extended ECM for procurement, sales, engineering documents, and sometimes invoices and accounts payable or receivable The version controls and the business workspace part integrate well with SAP and OpenText, providing granular level control over who accesses the workspace. The seamless…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"
"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."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"For a large company, for the robustness, stability, performance, and the growth — that you can grow it within seconds — I would advise using FileNet, without any doubt."
"The most valuable features for us are Wex (Watson) for search, Datacap for OCR/ICR, and Automation Anywhere for RPA."
"It improves the time when providing customer service to our constituents."
"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."
"It is really usable. There is a lot of support for it. You have the online components to trawl through the storage. I have a lot of fun with it."
"There is a significant ROI from IBM FileNet because before its introduction, the company needed to do all the work manually."
"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."
"There aren't very many ECM solutions that scale properly, both up and out. We have customers who hold billions of documents. There aren't very many that can scale that far, and that can also scale out so that they can handle lots of users, lots of documents, and that understand how to handle external users. FileNet is one that can."
"Simplicity to roll out, features available, customization options."
"We also have a module on top of the Content Server called WebReports that has been one of the things that helped us facilitate the workflow and give managers good reporting and visibility into where everything is. Being able to use that on top of the Content Server was a big help."
"The solution's automatic document numbering, state management, and process flow are very useful features to go through the full cycle of the document."
"The engineering document management system is one of the most valuable features."
"The ability to add metadata and use that to categorize information is a valuable feature of OpenText Extended ECM."
"We can configure the solution with any industry's products per customer requirements."
"The tool's most valuable features are document storage, security, and compliance."
"Retention is useful. I have been pleased with the search functionality and the extensibility for tying it into integrations with other systems and building workflows on top of it."
 

Cons

"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."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"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 solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"Simplifying both training and maintenance would be an improvement."
"I think it's to the point where there are probably too many features. Every software, as it matures and graduates, grows the list of features. What many of our customers express is that it's just too complicated. They're using maybe five or ten percent of the features but they're having to pay for 100 percent. There is room for improvement in terms of simplifying it."
"I would like to see it able to capture NLP in an advanced search. It would also be good if it could capture images and segregate them in categories within a span of seconds."
"Our client feels FileNet does not provide them with content searchability. They feel it's cumbersome. They're only using Metadata. If the Metadata is not well-populated, it becomes a problem to retrieve a document."
"A little better control into the ACLs of FileNet and databases."
"We would like to have more automation of rollout solutions."
"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."
"The analytics in FileNet are too complicated and they consume too much infrastructure, memory, and CPU. They're too expensive to work with."
"The solution should work better with partners and be more developer-friendly."
"Pricing could be improved and the stability or the performance needs improvement, which is very important."
"The architecture needs improvement, as it's complex."
"There are no additional features that I would like to see. I am pretty happy with it, but their support could be a bit better."
"User interface needs improvement (at least in the version we are using, desktop client)."
"OpenText Extended ECM's user interface could be improved."
"I have not used it enough to start running into issues. Some of my technical guys could name a couple of things, but in terms of support, we did have challenges getting good responses from them."
"The response time is not effective, and the staff lacks adequate knowledge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"FileNet is not cheap, but you absolutely get what you pay for. ​"
"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."
"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."
"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."
"1. It will be more expensive than estimated to setup. 2. You will need to double the staff while you are running the old system and installing the new system. 3. Depending on the number of documents to be migrated, make sure you understand the potentially massive amount of time and effort required to migrate the existing content to the new platform."
"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."
"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 platform is inexpensive."
"The licensing is not that complex for the core products, but it becomes more complicated for some additional modules."
"The tool's pricing is confusing to the end customer."
"The total cost of the product will vary on the capabilities required"
"It is a little more expensive than our previous solution, but because of the fact that it has become a rallying point for different groups to come under, it might end up paying off better in the long run by not having seven siloed solutions. Even though this one solution is a little pricey, it might eliminate other ones."
"The solution is expensive."
"Both Open Text ECM and IBM File share are expensive."
"The pricing is costly. It's costly to integrate with Office 365 and to go back and forth with the sales team."
"The product is pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Hyland OnBase?
The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities.
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. Transitio...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hylan...
What do you like most about IBM FileNet?
The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.
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 so...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
The API provided by IBM FileNet is a very out-of-date implementation. From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; w...
What do you like most about OpenText Content Suite Platform?
We also have a module on top of the Content Server called WebReports that has been one of the things that helped us f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost is a significant factor that may deter medium-sized businesses from using OpenText extended ECM.
What needs improvement with OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost of the product could be improved. Currently, there are certain snags in document viewing, and communication ...
 

Also Known As

OnBase
No data available
OpenText Content Suite Platform, OpenText Core Share
 

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.
ATCO Australia, MSIG Asia, Orica, Salt River Project
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: August 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.