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IBM ECM 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 September 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of IBM ECM is 2.4%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 8.4%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Content Management is 10.1%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Content Management10.1%
IBM FileNet8.4%
IBM ECM2.4%
Other79.1%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Thinh Tran - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported enterprise document storage but lacks cloud readiness and AI capabilities
The new version of IBM ECM is at the end of support, and we need to migrate to a new version to get open support. We need AI capabilities from IBM ECM for additional functionalities in the next release. Specifically, AI is needed for finding documents. The trend is moving toward AI, and for managing many documents effectively, we need AI capabilities. Currently, IBM ECM only handles physical files, not unstructured files. IBM needs to work alongside customers and share best practices for IBM ECM. Reading the IBM Redbook alone is not sufficient for the knowledge we need to build the best architecture for my company. IBM ECM needs to improve the cloud version, such as compatibility with Amazon Cloud, not only IBM Cloud, to make their product more competitive.
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 content management is all about you as you can make the same content for minimal purpose solutions applications."
"The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration on-site. You can integrate with other components and applications like SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, etc."
"I am going to continue using it because it is a good product for enterprise document management."
"The scalability is a valuable feature, that we're able to display our documents to so many people."
"The vertical scalability, as we can use it across some of our applications."
"The key way that this product has improved the way that that our business functions is by its stability. Its ability to remain up despite other pressures, its consistency, and lack of downtime are really the greatest things that it brings."
"I would highly recommend it to those seeking a robust enterprise content management solution."
"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."
"Gves us the ability to create an end-to-end [document] transaction."
"It allows for multiple people to access content simultaneously."
"The most critical benefit has been ease of use. It speeds along our development helping us go to market a lot sooner."
"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."
"I would say the workflow is pretty good. Also, the flexibility of being able to create custom objects with a lot of domain-specific attributes that we follow."
"It's a very good solution."
"The ability to add metadata and use that to categorize information is a valuable feature of OpenText Extended ECM."
"Being able to tag metadata on documents and being able to have different workspaces in there for our documents is valuable. We do loan documents, and different types of documents have different types of retentions. We are able to categorize based on that, and we are able to do tag searching to find what we are looking for."
"Most of our customers are very fond of the upgraded smart user interface."
"We use Core Share to share documents with external auditors or with vendors, and that prevents them from being able to get into the whole system. It is useful."
"WebReports has a lot of capabilities that offer good opportunities to customize the applications the way we want to."
"Smart Viewing videos are most valuable for the end users. The end users like the look and feel of Smart View. It's similar to SharePoint, with the latest HTML5 features, filters, and everything. It's like online shopping."
"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

"Currently, IBM ECM only handles physical files, not unstructured files."
"I would like to see seamless application integration."
"I think it's already getting away from Java applets. A lot of our users struggle with keeping up to date with Java versioning, so a lot of the functions they're doing, like printing, emailing, and even some of the viewing, they're struggling with."
"The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days."
"I would recommend not going with ECM 8 and going with FileNet instead. It seems like that is the future of the lower-volume repository. It seems like they are moving away from ECM 8.5 so I think we're going to have some challenges coming up, getting off of that technology."
"The FileNet API seems like it is very difficult and not transparent."
"The API provided by IBM FileNet is a very out-of-date implementation. From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; we have to use the IBM FileNet native API, which is quite outdated."
"It was complex. There were a lot of dependencies depending on the product. It had to be compatible with the Windows matching."
"​I would like to see Azure AD added."
"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."
"Developers like us have an upgraded interface. That interface does not work in the process that we have today. It hangs and is not user-friendly."
"For end-users there is a lack of administrative features. The interface of basic FileNet is not very good."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"OpenText Extended ECM's user interface could be improved."
"A dashboard with information would be nice to see."
"The solution should work better with partners and be more developer-friendly."
"We had some issues with scalability in the production. So, I would rate it a five out of ten."
"The solution's performance, stability, and consistency could be improved."
"More out-of-the-box automation features should be added to OpenText Extended ECM."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"Pricing could be improved and the stability or the performance needs improvement, which is very important."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Reach out to local IBM partners.​"
"It is still a leading ECM solution provider, however the cost to implement and maintain are higher than other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"For small scale industries, they allow different options. They can do open source. It is the complexity of the data security that they should think about before they choose."
"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."
"The tool is expensive, and I rate its pricing a ten out of ten."
"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."
"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."
"OpenText Extended ECM's pricing and licensing are aggressive and confusing for the end customer."
"The product is pricey."
"The pricing is costly. It's costly to integrate with Office 365 and to go back and forth with the sales team."
"OpenText Extended ECM is an expensive solution."
"The tool's pricing is confusing to the end customer."
"The licensing is not that complex for the core products, but it becomes more complicated for some additional modules."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
33%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise73
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM ECM?
The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM ECM?
The product is expensive and has a perpetual license.
What needs improvement with IBM ECM?
The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNo...
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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

KeyBank, Standard Chartered Bank, Union Bank, Sistema Tecnol‹gico de Monterrey, Illinois Department of Human Services, UnitedHealth Group
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.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.