IBM FileNet vs M-Files vs SharePoint 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 9.1% mindshare in the category. M-Files is ranked #7 in DMS , and holds a 8.7% 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

3,604 Views
3,316 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

M-Files

Read 2 M-Files reviews

969 Views
300 Comparison Views

75% willing to recommend

SharePoint

Read 162 SharePoint reviews

9,649 Views
4,535 Comparison Views

79% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

M-Files

SharePoint

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between IBM FileNet, M-Files, and SharePoint 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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Madhur D'silva

Lead Consultant at Eviden

Collaborative work benefits while user-friendliness challenges persist

The most valuable feature of SharePoint ( /products/sharepoint-reviews ) is its user interface, which is very easy to use. I do not have to be very technical to use it. Its rights management capabilities and ability to restrict access to certain people are also very useful. Furthermore, I can access SharePoint from any device, whether it is a phone or laptop, which is very convenient.

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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

"If we run into problems, which is inevitable (and we run into problems all the time), we get quick responses and good solutions back from the technical support."

"The most valuable feature for me is the possibility to share and to collaborate, the possibility to connect FileNet with many other IBM products as well. It helps avoid the possibility of creating "island applications." We have an ecosystem where everything can be interconnected."

"Stability is really good. We fairly recently upgraded a version of it and have not been having any problems. The resources seem to be really good with this version; it is a little easier to troubleshoot issues."

"For a large company, for the robustness, stability, performance, and the growth — that you can grow it within seconds — I would advise using FileNet, without any doubt."

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

"Provides records management functions."

"It has improved my organization by how we release documents, claims, and policies."

"It has an excellent document storage repository, which is good at what it does."

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."

"No code and low code, scalable, and stable collaboration platform. Straightforward to set up. Its support system is good and offers fast issue resolution."

"The most valuable features of SharePoint include the ability to co-edit documents in the Office suite, particularly Excel and Word."

"It facilitates collaboration and the ability to create custom workflows."

"This solution has helped us with the categorization, organization, management, discovery, and delivery of program and project related information."

"It has improve our organization by speeding up document sharing."

"SharePoint is easy to collaborate with."

"Helps with document collaboration and workflow."

"OneDrive and SharePoint provide a secure, fully auditable way of storing information."

More SharePoint pros

Cons

"I would like to have an offline DR deployment. If that is doable, then it would be a big win."

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

"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."

"There is no room for improvement in the current version of FileNet, and I have not identified any potential new features or existing problems that require attention."

"The only downside is that it takes a dedicated staff to maintain it and the learning curve is pretty steep."

"It was complex. There were a lot of dependencies depending on the product. It had to be compatible with the Windows matching."

"In terms of functionality, what customers might be looking for is a little more in terms of native-records retention. Records Management is an add-on product. If there were just a little more of that built into the core functionality, that would be helpful."

"The setup process is very complex."

More IBM FileNet cons

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

"The areas of this solution that need improvement are the relationships between lists, cross-site web parts, and page-building tools."

"There's a challenge with desktop applications synchronizing with online documents in real-time. If someone is working on a document in the desktop version of Excel, for example, and someone else is editing the same document online, the changes won't sync immediately. That's the only real challenge we've encountered."

"The support is the worst. It is bad when Microsoft support does not even know what to do and you have to tell them. Also, they take too long to solve a problem."

"Document management and the ability to easily integrate single sign-on (SSO) are areas for improvement in SharePoint."

"The company also needs to make sure that their policies are dictating how information is stored and used, instead of letting SharePoint take control."

"The integration with Outlook could be improved."

"During uptime under our network, it is hard to find info when content is hefty."

"It does not integrate despite being part of the Microsoft family."

More SharePoint cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is still a leading ECM solution provider, however the cost to implement and maintain are higher than other solutions."

"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."

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

"The biggest issue is the cost of the FileNet, because the license cost is very high. If a customer doesn't have good technical guides that are aware of the license calculation, they will pay too much. FileNet's license calculation depends on the processor and number of users. So my advice to a new customer is to be very careful with your calculations before purchasing FileNet."

"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."

"My customers have seen ROI. There have been productivity gains, time savings gains, and things that they have been doing much more efficiently in a more modern way than they were before."

"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."

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."

"As usual, Microsoft’s licensing structures don’t really seem to fit the needs of their products. This leads to always paying for a project you will never use fully or always be adding to."

"The cost is expensive, but worthwhile."

"It is pretty reasonable. It is $5 per month per user. We have 12 users now, so it is about $60 per month."

"They are about an eight in comparison to other similar products."

"SharePoint is included with our Microsoft license."

"The pricing is competitive."

"The product is reasonably priced."

"We have purchased add-ons to handle multiple site collections, form creation, and design."

More SharePoint pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user8925

Developer with 51-200 employees

Aug 23, 2013

Jive vs Sharepoint vs Drupal Commons

At Mediacurrent we often get requests to compare Drupal to other platforms used for intranet sites and social business platforms (like https://dev.twitter.com/ for example). This is often referred to as “Social Business Software”, which has grown in popularity in recent years. I decided to do a…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

10%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Comms Service Provider

Government

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing 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 SharePoint?

The search feature is valuable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SharePoint?

As SharePoint is part of the Microsoft 365 suite, the pricing is acceptable.

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What needs improvement with SharePoint?

The web parts in SharePoint could be more intuitive for end users. Many do not fully understand these features, and i...

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Comparisons

OpenText Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 15% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs IBM FileNet

Compared 13% of the time

Alfresco vs IBM FileNet

Compared 9% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet

Compared 8% of the time

Nuxeo vs IBM FileNet

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM FileNet Competitors

Microsoft Purview Records Management vs M-Files

Compared 14% of the time

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs M-Files

Compared 9% of the time

Alfresco vs M-Files

Compared 8% of the time

Newgen OmniDocs vs M-Files

Compared 8% of the time

DocuWare vs M-Files

Compared 7% of the time

More M-Files Competitors

OpenText Documentum Content Management vs SharePoint

Compared 9% of the time

DocuSign vs SharePoint

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Content Management vs SharePoint

Compared 6% of the time

Amazon WorkDocs vs SharePoint

Compared 6% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs SharePoint

Compared 3% of the time

More SharePoint 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

SharePoint

July 2025

Download SharePoint product report

Also Known As

No data available

SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010

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

SharePoint is a Microsoft-based platform for building web applications. It covers a widerange of capabilities and while it is appropriate for experienced webdevelopers, even non-technical minded users can easily navigate through thesystem and execute functions such as collaborating data, managing documents andfiles, creating websites, managing social networking solutions, and automatingworkflow.

Major areas that SharePoint deals with are websites,communities, content, search, insights, and composites. The purpose is to give usersthe ability to create or develop these key business components on their owneven without technical knowledge of, for example, how to build a website or howto integrate coding. Configuring SharePoint into a business's system is meantto cut out all of the complicated steps, and pave the way for easierimplementation all around.

Microsoft

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

Toyota, Aeroports de Paris, ASBBank Ltd., Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals, CambridgeshireConstabulary, D&M Group, NPL Construction Company, and The Regional Municipality of Niagara.

Buyer's Guide

Enterprise Content Management

July 2025

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