Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Hyland OnBase vs M-Files 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Hyland OnBase
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (17th), Enterprise Content Management (5th), Low-Code Development Platforms (13th)
M-Files
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Content Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Hyland OnBase is designed for Business Process Management (BPM) and holds a mindshare of 0.4%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
M-Files, on the other hand, focuses on Document Management Software, holds 9.0% mindshare, up 6.4% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM)
Document Management Software
 

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.
LN
Good workflows, and it is easy to use with a dashboard that improves contract visibility
My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing this product is to do a pilot first. After you do your research, do an actual pilot before you commit because everyone has nuances and you might find out that it is not what you want, or that it doesn't really do what you think it's going to do. It is not the simplest product to use but because of the robustness of its feature set in the ability with the workflows, and the APIs, to do just about anything you can imagine with it, that's very valuable. I wish it was a little easier to use because we have to spend more time than I'd like with new users, teaching them how it works. We try to hide all that from them but the setup time to get everything the way we wanted was probably two months. That is two months in one resource working on it half time a week, but it just took a lot of work to get the metadata set up, to get the workflows set up, and to get all the documents added to the repository. Now we've got versioning and we know where everything's at, the dashboard is great, but don't assume when they tell you that you'll be up and running in two weeks, that that is the truth. It takes much longer than you think. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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"
"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 most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"Using M-Files means anybody on the executive team to go in and immediately look at a dashboard and know the status of a contract."
 

Cons

"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."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy. It is getting better, but it is not yet good enough. Other products are comparatively doing better in terms of the user interface. I have been hearing about Box, which is very easy to use and learn for the users. OnBase has to work on this aspect. It should have BPM capabilities. We compete with tools that provide the BPM feature and support those standards. 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 dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"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 look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"The tool's price is high."
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Business Process Management (BPM) solutions are best for your needs.
861,034 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Automation Anywhere, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: June 2025.
861,034 professionals have used our research since 2012.