Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

IBM Maximo vs IFS Cloud Platform 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

IBM Maximo
Ranking in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Billing Software (4th)
IFS Cloud Platform
Ranking in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
CRM (21st), Customer Experience Management (7th), Field Service Management (2nd), Help Desk Software (11th), ERP (12th), Activity Based Costing Software (7th), Local Government CRM (6th), IT Asset Management (10th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (10th), License Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) category, the mindshare of IBM Maximo is 28.8%, up from 26.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IFS Cloud Platform is 9.9%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
A very strong and powerful tool in the market preferred by a variety of industries
I rate the technical support a seven out of ten. Three levels of support in IBM. The first one is a fixed level, while levels two and three are very good. Here, level one is not very good, as it takes time to go from level one to level two and from level two to level three. So, level one is of low capacity.
Brendan Fisher - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, customizable, and modern
IFS is a very large and complex software, and implementation of IFS can be challenging and may lead to a difficult lengthy project. It can take between 12 and 24 months in some cases to deploy. I have found that not all clients are fully aware of how big the task is that they're undertaking when they make a decision to move to software like this. Companies need to be more aware of the complexity of an ERP implementation project and while I fully recommend moving to IFS, it is not easy and does require business change when adopting an ERP solution. New features are a difficult ask - I work across multiple industries and everyone would probably choose a different feature. Maybe BIM in Construction or Customs link-ups for importers/exporters.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Work order management and scalability enables the businesses' needs to be met."
"Preventive maintenance management."
"IBM Maximo is a very strong and powerful tool in the market…Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The ability to configure and integrate it with other solutions for ERP."
"There are not many enterprise asset management systems on the market and not many that have the categories that IBM Maximo has."
"It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world."
"We were able to scale perfectly.​"
"The most valuable features of IBM Maximo are the overall power and interface, and there are a lot of different modules that we use that are helpful. Additionally, it's an integrated solution and it has a lot of capabilities."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users."
"What I like about IFS Applications is that it's easier to use and implement than SAP. I also like that the IFS Applications team is more flexible than the SAP team."
"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."
"The solution overall is very versatile and flexible, especially compared to other products."
"I like the connectivity and interfaces. In V10, it's easy to modify the interfaces and layouts, but it's becoming more complicated in the cloud. IFS is excellent at asset maintenance and incident management. They have specialized modules for IFS that cover incident and asset management and everything else connected to finance. The reporting in IFS is also easy to use."
"There are fewer fields on the user screen compared to other products."
"The main reason for the ERP project was to bring together our fourteen sites, which had until then worked in separate silos."
"Having a young talented programmer, during the six years of use, we were able to save around 75 000 EUR preparing simple modifications using customization rather than ordering them in IFS / Partner."
 

Cons

"The solution is not stable. We can have one day when it is stable and another day it is not. Sometimes it crashes or becomes very slow, and there are times we are not even able to download all the databases. Without the database, we cannot work on that application. These are the small glitches, and stability issues we are facing."
"​Maximo is a big system, so the initial setup is complex."
"Coding can be complex when customization is required."
"The interface is not very easy or user-friendly and is in need of improvement."
"It needs full-service visibility. There are a lot of things that are hard for users to find out. For example, the Service Catalog is not too friendly. You really have to know what you're looking for."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is easy and one is difficult, I rate the setup process a two since it is very complicated."
"Revision management of file attachments."
"There are always ways to improve and make things better."
"We would like to see AI-driven CSI functions built into the tool that would allow us to quickly tie our improvement goals to metrics and activities, so Assyst will suggest the next steps to help us get closer to our goals."
"IFS uses Crystal Report mostly, which isn't too user-friendly. Developing reports isn't easy and requires a lot of dev time. Since SAP bought it, Crystal Report has become more complicated to use on IFS. You have a dashboard for reporting that is good, but it's incomplete. Most of our clients use Power BI or some additional tooling for BI."
"The CRM was shaky and although this improves in Apps 10, there is room for improvement."
"The user interface can be improved. When you're clicking through the screens, there are some icons or symbols that really need updating and would be more useful and noticeable if they are aesthetically pleasing."
"IFS Applications can improve the reporting capabilities and increase the speed of feedback time in the IFS Applications. This would help with the overall performance of the solution and provide better experiences for customers."
"It would be ideal if, in the future, the product could incorporate IoT and blockchain elements. We'd like to explore more of these types of features going forward."
"We have upgraded to the latest version right now. We have issues with the quality. We tried to enroll in their Evergreen program which was meant to help us adopt any service update or anything that the tool’s providers come up with."
"Some kind of bot assistance, some kind of artificial intelligence to help people solve the problems, would be interesting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low and ten is high, I rate the pricing a nine. The price is very high."
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"The price of IBM Maximo could reduce, it is expensive."
"I do not know about the price of the solution. However, this has been an expensive project overall."
"IBM has changed the licensing policy. As I understand now, they are going from a complex way of licensing to a more simple way of licensing."
"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."
"The additional cost that comes with the solution includes the overhead of the people who are trying to fix the tool issues. These people are trying to reproduce the issue and report it to the technical support and testing with them which is huge. It is the cost of quality in the end."
"IFS Applications are competitive in terms of pricing compared to other vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Epicor. They are generally cheaper, especially for licensing costs."
"Ask for all-inclusive pricing, as they are pretty flexible if you ask for custom models."
"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."
"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Maximo?
It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world.
What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
Though I liked it a lot, I think it was lagging a lot. It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning. The aforementioned...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world. With IBM Maximo,...
What do you like most about IFS Applications?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?
The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive features and minimal need for customization. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
I am not able to recall much about batch. Documentation-wise, they need more. There is not much available online, and the documentation availability is on the lower side compared to other products,...
 

Also Known As

Maximo
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Maximo vs. IFS Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.