No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (14th), Enterprise Content Management (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (14th)
M-Files
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (11th)
 

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 1.2%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
M-Files, on the other hand, focuses on Document Management Software, holds 4.5% mindshare, down 8.7% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Hyland OnBase1.2%
Camunda7.9%
IBM BPM4.1%
Other86.8%
Business Process Management (BPM)
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
M-Files4.5%
Alfresco10.5%
OpenText Content Manager7.0%
Other78.0%
Document Management Software
 

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.
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

"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."
"A single platform with multiple capabilities to orchestrate processes, complex business rules and all types of business content."
"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 cloud and its integrability."
"Integrating Hyland OnBase with our systems enabled us to automate document designs and templates, which was extremely helpful in the finance and banking industry."
"OnBase provides high-value solutions for organizations with much less cost in comparison to other ECM solutions."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"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."
"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

"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"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."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be 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 solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"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."
"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 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."
"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.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
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?
Hyland OnBase could be improved in terms of service support response time. More timely updates to solution software support documentation also should be improved.
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
Hyland OnBase is used across the entirety of the organization in a variety of different ways, and its primary use is as a document storage solution that is used in conjunction with other systems su...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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: March 2026.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.