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Kiteworks vs Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Kiteworks
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (16th), Email Security (26th), Content Collaboration Platforms (14th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (9th)
Sterling Commerce Connect:D...
Ranking in Managed File Transfer (MFT)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Managed File Transfer (MFT) category, the mindshare of Kiteworks is 4.4%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is 4.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Managed File Transfer (MFT) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct4.3%
Kiteworks4.4%
Other91.3%
Managed File Transfer (MFT)
 

Featured Reviews

KT
Associate Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlined global file sharing with user-friendly interface and self-service capabilities
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifications, they can understand any disruptions are due to issues with their network or bandwidth rather than the site or Kiteworks. Additionally, I work from offshore India, and I told my client manager to communicate with the Kiteworks forum salesman regarding one feature. I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful.
reviewer1955103 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has delivered robust secure file transfer with exceptional encryption features
Based on experience, the one area IBM can improve for Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is the support mechanism. While support is available 24/7 whenever required, the solution time during American hours can take longer. In general, during American hours, the resource availability is not up to the standard. However, availability of support staff during UK timings or GMT timings is very good; they are supportive and helpful. Functionality-wise, they can make additional improvements to Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct. They recently improved by adding a GUI for configurations on Windows as well as UNIX platforms, which is very helpful. However, the web client is cumbersome and not as interactive as it should be. The CLI part is comprehensive, but the GUI needs improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most useful feature of this solution is to share files with external parties and we can use this functionality to share files internally too."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to allow end-users to manage their own information and data with minimal administration. That's the best feature from my perspective."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to send a large file of 30 GB in size and more. In Outlook and other email applications, you cannot send files that are larger than 20 MB. But with Kiteworks, 30 GB is transferable by default and, with the proper approval, a file of up to 100 GB can be sent. It makes file transfer very easy and smooth."
"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."
"Kiteworks is easy to manage and maintain with a user-friendly interface and I recommend it to anyone that requires a file-sharing system that supports SFTP."
"As a file-sharing application, it's an absolute 10 out of 10."
"The top two features are the two-factor authentication, which is pretty good. It's easily understood by the users. And their API is rather robust. We have numerous integrations that work off the API."
"The most valuable aspect of Kiteworks is undoubtedly the private content network. This feature is particularly beneficial for us. Furthermore, it serves as a centralized platform that enables us to track and manage our information exchange."
"The solution's file transfer speed is quite high."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is one of the stronger MFT solutions in the market, it is available in each type of installation, and offers SaaS, PaaS, YaaS, on-premise."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission."
"The solution effectively reduced large transfer file transit time across global regions by over 50%."
"It's a great tool because it offers secure file transfers and it has a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"The product has been very stable."
 

Cons

"I would like to see immediate releases of fixes because now it takes at least a week. If that time span can be reduced to one day or two days, that would be very helpful for users so that things are sorted and transactions work smoothly."
"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."
"It would be nice if Kiteworks could provide a free version of the platform so that it could be used for a certain number of file transfers. We could be charged a fee if we exceeded the number of allotted file transfers."
"Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss."
"There is no offboarding process for end-users in Kiteworks. It's a manual process. There is no automated syncing with LDAP and checking to see if the account is still active. It's a manual process to get people out of here, which isn't the best way."
"There is one particular thing that is a nuisance."
"File location could be improved."
"We have experienced a few hiccups and bugs when using the admin console and from a user perspective."
"The technical support is the number one problem."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"Technical support is difficult to work with."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"I do not have any notes for improvement."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The resources required for this tool are costly and not easily available in the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."
"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."
"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."
"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."
"The price and licensing of Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is expensive."
"The solution's licensing cost is too high."
"Annual licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is Kiteworks?
Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...
What needs improvement with Kiteworks?
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...
What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?
Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...
What needs improvement with Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct?
Based on experience, the one area IBM can improve for Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is the support mechanism. While support is available 24/7 whenever required, the solution time during American...
What is your primary use case for Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct?
The majority use case for Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is for file transfer, specifically secure file transfer.
 

Also Known As

Accellion
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL
HZMO, Bank of Communications
Find out what your peers are saying about Kiteworks vs. Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.