IBM FileNet vs M-Files vs OpenText Content Manager comparison

The compared IBM and M-Files solutions aren't in the same category. IBM is ranked #4 in ECM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 9.4% mindshare in the category. M-Files is ranked #7 in DMS , and holds a 9.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 75% of M-Files users who would recommend it.

IBM FileNet

Read 102 IBM FileNet reviews

3,570 Views
3,284 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

M-Files

Read 2 M-Files reviews

960 Views
278 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

OpenText Content Manager

Read 23 OpenText Content Manager reviews

1,866 Views
1,400 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

M-Files

OpenText Content Manager

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM FileNet, M-Files, and OpenText Content Manager based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management.

To learn more, read our detailed Enterprise Content Management Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Content Management

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Enterprise Content Management

Document Management Software

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

Emad Rizki

System integrator at Indépendant

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.

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Laurie NYlund

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.

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Maurice Riverso

Records Management Officer at ANZPAA

Our our official repository and it has disposal management and retention management

The security architecture is the only problem as it's a little bit complex and too torturous at times. So it could be improved a little bit, but it is regarded as a very good system in Australia. It's probably overly subscribed. Also, what's missing is what people would like, which is basically online collaboration. That's a problem. But it has so many other things to offer that SharePoint, I'm sure, will not have. So, that will be an interesting issue to come up. It's not very good at providing stable and robust add-ins to Microsoft. That's a bit of a problem with Content Manager. They're kind of very volatile. So, that's been definitely something that could be improved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The application, in terms of durability, has been able to withstand the usage, given that it was installed in 2003 and it's still working."

"We use IBM Datacap's capabilities to capture data and then we use FileNet's capabilities for filing, to create an archive of documents... We [also] use FileNet's ability to expose information via APIs and interoperate with other systems."

"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."

"[The most valuable features are] scalability and ease of use. These features are important because the customer where we have deployed it has millions of documents... And over the last five years, the volume of the documents has been increasing. It's handling all of them and without any errors."

"It is very user-friendly for business users. They can create their own searches. They are not dependent on administrators to create searches for them. It is self-service for them."

"It improves the time when providing customer service to our constituents."

"The most valuable feature is access control."

More IBM FileNet pros

"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."

"It has a robust search but has often been difficult for people to learn."

"I did not face issues with the product's scalability...The solution's technical support is good."

"An advantage is integration with your IP directory."

"The tool's implementation has made life easier for customers. It is sold by SAP. The integration between SAP and the solution is good, making it easy to access the documents. It is widely recognized as a market leader in enterprise document management."

"For a records management system, Content Manager is a really good system."

"The most valuable features of OpenText Content Manager are its stability, reliability, security, and workflow engine."

"The product can be integrated with different solutions."

"We like how the solution allows us to have retention of records and workflows, as well as its fire plan."

Cons

"I'd like to see more cognitive. That's obviously where all of our world is going. I think if we can have more of those types of features and functions as a core, out of the box, that would be very helpful for us and our space."

"It is stable as long as you create the right environment. We have had issues at times, but just because of configuration issues."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"We brought DocuSign into our company's solution three years before. At that time there was no direct integration. We would like to pull documents out from FileNet, push them to DocuSign and, when done, retrieve them and store them back in FileNet. We wrote our own custom solution for that. It would be nice if there was some tool we could have used to do that."

"It could be simpler to use, considering multiple use cases."

"However, the configuration does take a long time. Every company needs its own configuration design. It depends on how many applications are connecting to FileNet. It can take a long time, depending on the application count."

"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."

"We would like to have more automation of rollout solutions."

More IBM FileNet cons

"The integration with other products needs to be improved."

"It's not very good at providing stable and robust add-ins to Microsoft."

"Due to very limited use in the industry, vendor and contract support are hard to find."

"OpenText Content Manager needs to improve its user interface. Its installation process is difficult and can be made easier."

"The product could improve its scalability."

"The stability of the solution is an area of concern where improvements can be made."

"Support could be enhanced. The first line of support consists of individuals who lack experience with some key aspects. When you create a support ticket, the time to resolve the issue may be prolonged because the first person may not understand the system or the solution."

"The ease of use should be addressed."

"Pricing is an issue, as it is too expensive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive, and I rate its pricing a ten out of ten."

"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."

"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."

"The platform is inexpensive."

"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."

"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."

"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."

"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."

More IBM FileNet pricing and cost advice

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

"The solution's licensing cost depends on the customer domain. Though its costs are high, the product is worth the money. You have to pay a one-time cost and support costs."

"I rate the product price an eight or nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The solution is expensive."

"I would suggest that you do a thorough evaluation of all competing products and look for support for these products in your local area."

"The fees incurred are for the licensing and maintenance."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

10%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

Government

18%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM FileNet?

The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.

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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...

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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...

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What do you like most about Micro Focus Content Manager?

An advantage is integration with your IP directory.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Content Manager?

Pricing is a disadvantage as it is very expensive, especially in this market.

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What needs improvement with Micro Focus Content Manager?

Pricing is an issue, as it is too expensive. Support and services need to be more user-friendly. The support has been...

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Comparisons

SharePoint vs IBM FileNet

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 15% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 14% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet

Compared 8% of the time

Box vs IBM FileNet

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM FileNet Competitors

SharePoint vs M-Files

Compared 33% of the time

Microsoft Purview Records Management vs M-Files

Compared 14% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs M-Files

Compared 9% of the time

Newgen OmniDocs vs M-Files

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs M-Files

Compared 7% of the time

More M-Files Competitors

SharePoint vs OpenText Content Manager

Compared 24% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs OpenText Content Manager

Compared 13% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs OpenText Content Manager

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Purview Records Management vs OpenText Content Manager

Compared 9% of the time

Alfresco vs OpenText Content Manager

Compared 6% of the time

More OpenText Content Manager Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM FileNet

July 2025

Download IBM FileNet product report

Buyer's Guide

Document Management Software

July 2025

Download M-Files product report

Buyer's Guide

OpenText Content Manager

July 2025

Download OpenText Content Manager product report

Also Known As

No data available

Micro Focus Content Manager, HPE Records Manager, HPE Content Manager

Overview

IBM FileNet is a leading IBM enterprise content management product family. IBM FileNet is one of the ECM solutions that can change the way a company does business by enabling users to capture, activate, socialize, analyze, and govern content throughout its lifecycle.

There are many IBM FileNet products available, all of which are integrated and based on the FileNet P8 Platform.

IBM

M-Files is the leading platform for knowledge work automation. With M-Files, knowledge workers can find information faster, work smarter, and achieve more. M-Files features an innovative metadata-driven architecture, embedded workflow engine, and advanced artificial intelligence that enable customers to eliminate information chaos, improve process efficiency, and automate security and compliance. By embedding automation and GenAI into its core, M-Files' platform not only increases efficiencies for organizations but also empowers knowledge workers to focus on what truly matters—innovation and strategic growth. With 10 global offices, M-Files serves more than 5,000 customers in 100 countries. Start your free trial OR Schedule a demo. For more information, visit www.m-files.com.

M-Files

OpenText Content Manager, formerly Records Manager, is a governance-based enterprise content management system designed to help government agencies, regulated industries and global organizations manage their business content from creation to disposal. Regardless of how you create and collaborate on your content, Content Manager gives you the ability to leverage accurate, contextual, and complete information throughout its lifecycle. Managing your content in this way helps you significantly improve services to your customers, business decisions and insight for future strategy.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.

Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator

Missouri State Courts

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Content Management

July 2025

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