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Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet vs OpenText Documentum 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 June 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 5.1%, down from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 5.8%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Documentum Content Management is 6.1%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM FileNet5.8%
OpenText Documentum Content Management6.1%
Hyland OnBase5.1%
Other83.0%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Abdul_Jabbar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Infosys
Automated workflows have transformed document handling and support daily approvals and billing
The best features Hyland OnBase offers in my experience include being a robust storage solution that integrates well with the Epic solution, allows Unity Forms to be easy to create and use, and has Distribution Services for sending email notifications as reminders.Out of those features, the workflow engine has made the biggest difference for me because it is excellent for automating approval processes, and we use Hyland OnBase for legal requests, hardware requests, travel requests, corporate credit card requests, and file transfer requests. WorkView is an incredible module for gathering and displaying summary information, and we utilize it highly in our subsidiary to manage our legal contracts, their financial billing process, and their travel. We also use the Document Import Process coupled with Unity API for writing custom code to automate processes to send and receive data from other systems that are not yet API enabled. 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. I measured the man-hours saved through the tracking of workflows and automation processes. Additionally, Hyland OnBase has allowed us to move away from moving paper around various departments, providing workflow management to keep approval inside the system and out of the email boxes, eliminating the need for paper storage, and saving storage costs with other vendors.
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.
Ashish Shelar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Manager at IBM
Offers version control capabilities, easy to set up but highly-priced
The main thing is the cost. Most of the time, organizations move away from Documentum due to cost. It's highly-priced, and the support costs are high. Now, SharePoint and other options. Microsoft gives free licenses, so organizations mainly look for cost-effective products. The second thing is updates and patching. We patch very often, every six months or a year. We have SP1, SP2, and SP3, and then suddenly, it's moved out of support. That's the organization's main pain area. They don't want to keep investing from a storage perspective. The licensing model should be changed. The product itself is out of support. They have not considered it for AI initiatives. The new version should be on the cloud. I'm not sure if the new version of Documentum, xECM, is cloud compatible or on which cloud it is compatible, but the OpenText server itself is on a cloud, which would be beneficial to the business. And it would also be easier for migration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I like the flexibility and its modular nature that allows us to create solutions that meet our business needs."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"This solution is easy to implement and easy to use as long as you know what your business requirement are or the specifications are straightforward."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"The usability is very good. We like the Content Navigator. It's very easy to use the search and retrieve for documents and has a lot of options for the user to download documents or send an email."
"​I have found that it scales well."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and broad capabilities, as it covers anything a small company might need all the way to what a large enterprise may require, providing a full feature set."
"We use it for content management and to manage documents, and it has performed well."
"It also helps with compliance and governance issues because it's a datastore that is not modifiable, and you can guarantee that. You cannot guarantee that with a folder-based file structure, where multiple people have access."
"It improves the time when providing customer service to our constituents."
"The product has helped with compliance and governance issues. There are some archiving policies which a financial organization has to keep. Our organization can keep up with them because of the IBM product."
"The solution increases productivity and reduces operating costs, and with a few customers, it has reduced costs by 30 percent from the legacy systems to the new system and saves our customers time by 30 to 40 percent by eliminating the time to process paper."
"I recommend Documentum as it supports big systems and offers good integration."
"It is a very secure system. It is reliable, and that is one of the reasons people manage their content within Documentum. It gives them the confidence that the content is accessible to the right people and not to the wrong people."
"The tool's most valuable feature is ACL, which helps to control the user groups that access the documents."
"OpenText Documentum's composition is good. It is convenient and straight out of the box."
"Documentum is a highly scalable document management solution because it's built on a solid platform."
"It has the ability to categorize and search."
"It has reduced the amount of paper documents; reducing time and errors in the process."
"We like Documentum for its capacity and reliability."
 

Cons

"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"I believe Hyland OnBase could improve by making its user interface more user-friendly."
"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 look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"Hyland OnBase can be improved because Report Services is an additional license and should be included with the base product."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"​I would rate the technical support as medium. I do not like the login process. It is not great."
"Ease of use with IBM FileNet is a disadvantage of this tool. It is complex and hard to use."
"There is room for improvement in the file management. It's very complex."
"I would like to have an offline DR deployment. If that is doable, then it would be a big win."
"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."
"While the stability is pretty good, there sometimes can be issues with the database connections. FileNet has too many outages because things are broken in the database."
"The usability is fair. It could be a bit better."
"Technical support was not excellent, but very good."
"The price of Documentum could be lower. It's quite high compared to its competitors."
"It should provide more tools to help clients upgrade solutions based on Webtop."
"OpenText Documentum is moving to the cloud, and I am concerned about the security aspect of it."
"An area that needs to improve is how to reduce storage space on the AWS site."
"The BPM side should be improved."
"The price is quite high as the licensing prices are significant."
"The user interface can be improved. Searching for documents is complex and should be easier."
"It needs a better UI and it should also be cloud-ready. The UI has not changed in years."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"The tool's price is high."
"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."
"​There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need.​​"
"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."
"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."
"FileNet is not cheap, but you absolutely get what you pay for. ​"
"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."
"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 biggest issue is the cost of the FileNet, because the license cost is very high. If a customer doesn't have good technical guides that are aware of the license calculation, they will pay too much. FileNet's license calculation depends on the processor and number of users. So my advice to a new customer is to be very careful with your calculations before purchasing FileNet."
"It has reduced operating costs by reducing the amount of manual work needed."
"OpenText Documentum has announced a new licensing model, which could be more expensive."
"OpenText Documentum's pricing is good."
"It falls in line with a lot of things that are out there on the market. There is nothing extraordinary in terms of great or bad."
"The price is considered affordable now."
"The product is expensive."
"It is quite an expensive product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise74
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
The main factors that influenced my decision to choose Hyland OnBase over other options available on the market were ...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe Hyland OnBase could improve by making its user interface more user-friendly.I am referring to the learning ...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
Hyland OnBase serves as the primary document management solution for all of my company's documents.A concrete example...
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 a...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
I believe IBM FileNet could be improved or enhanced in the future, specifically the user interface development suppor...
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 yo...
What needs improvement with OpenText Documentum?
The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is l...
What is your primary use case for OpenText Documentum?
We are using it to archive the information about our sales.
What advice do you have for others considering OpenText Documentum?
One of my colleagues has found some automation features. It is not my responsibility regarding security features; I a...
 

Also Known As

OnBase
No data available
Dell EMC Documentum, Documentum , Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform
 

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.
Agility; Bibliotheca Alexandrina; Capitec Bank; Department of Social Development, Republic of South Africa; County of Los Angeles, Department of Human Resources; Fresenius Kabi; Heathrow Airport; Lahey Health; Linde PLC; Milestone Pharma Co. Ltd; National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development; Open Grid Europe GmbH; REPCO NEX Industrial Solutions; Springer Nature; Syngene International; Tata Power DDL; University of Texas Austin
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, IBM, Adobe and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: May 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.