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Hyland OnBase vs M-Files comparison

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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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (13th), Enterprise Content Management (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (16th)
M-Files
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (12th)
 

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 1.0%, down 1.1% compared to last year.
M-Files, on the other hand, focuses on Document Management Software, holds 3.5% mindshare, down 7.8% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Hyland OnBase1.0%
Camunda7.2%
IBM BPM4.3%
Other87.5%
Business Process Management (BPM)
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
M-Files3.5%
Alfresco8.1%
Box - Intelligent Content Management6.7%
Other81.7%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Joao Santiago - PeerSpot reviewer
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Digital workflows have transformed meeting minutes and document tracking across departments
There are some particular aspects of Hyland OnBase, such as layouts or some modules that have just been built, that are not designed with the end user in mind. That's something they need to improve. However, even if it's not adequate for the end user, you can still take that and, with custom development, use those modules and APIs in a user-friendly way. They need to improve the interface and usability of Unity and think more about usability. In terms of tool usability, sometimes there are too many clicks to perform an action, which, if you developed it yourself, you could do in two clicks, whereas within Unity you need four or five clicks to do the same process.
LN
Director of IT at JH Kelly
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

"I like the flexibility and its modular nature that allows us to create solutions that meet our business needs."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"A single platform with multiple capabilities to orchestrate processes, complex business rules and all types of business content."
"OnBase provides high-value solutions for organizations with much less cost in comparison to other ECM solutions."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"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."
"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."
"M-Files licence model is very flexible. You have the choice of Named User, Concurrent, or SaaS. This gives the business so much room and flexibility to implement new projects whilst maintaining costs and maximizing production."
 

Cons

"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"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."
"There are some particular aspects of Hyland OnBase, such as layouts or some modules that have just been built, that are not designed with the end user in mind."
"Hyland OnBase could be improved in terms of service support response time."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"Technical support is probably the weakest part. We had a number of authentication issues and support has been very slow to respond and get us solutions."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
No data available
 

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?
More training videos, if they are more findable, would improve documentation and training documentations from Hyland's side, because there is a lack of documentation and training materials from Hyl...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
As a business analyst, while working on a recent project, I used Hyland OnBase as an enterprise-like document management tool. It was used for storing, organizing, and retrieving invoices regarding...
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Comparisons

 

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, Pega and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: October 2026.
919,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.