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Adobe Experience Manager vs Hyland OnBase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

Adobe Experience Manager
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (3rd), Enterprise Social Software (5th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (16th), Low-Code Development Platforms (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 3.3%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.4%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Becker - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive integration of customer behavior with an easy setup and okay support
I've worked with all major content management systems. Currently, I work with the leaders such as Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, and Acquia Working with big companies, I help them either consider setting up a new content management system or address issues they might have with their existing…
Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features
The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."
"Adobe Experience Manager is a content management system, and we use it to create and manage a website."
"If you want to use content in a mobile application and you want the content in some other application, you can simply expose it from the CMS to different clients or different systems. It's easy. On top of that, the technology underlying AEM is open-source and is very powerful like Apache Sling and JCR."
"The most valuable features of Adobe Experience Manager include its capability to manage content and create reusable fragments."
"The integration of customer behavior and website setup is impressive."
"Easy to work with the solution."
"I like the native applications such as Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, and Adobe Experience Platform. Because of these, it's very easy to connect and obtain reports on how my website is doing, how many have visited it, how frequently, etc. The multiple publisher concept is one of the best parts of this solution."
"Adobe Experience Manager is pretty stable."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"We found the setup process to be okay since they do offer a troubleshooting guide."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"The retention module is one of the most valuable features. Whatever we scan onto the system can be identified and we are notified when the records are due to be disposed."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
 

Cons

"There is a feature missing where if content is created on the UAT environment and needs to be transferred or synced to the production environment, there is no direct way of doing the sync."
"I haven't seen any areas for improvement in Adobe Experience Manager as it's a full-fledged CMS tool, and Adobe is already working on enhancements for the solution. Adobe is working to make Adobe Experience Manager more valuable and easier to use for any user, even non-technical ones, through multiple components and templates. Day by day, Adobe provides the latest update to Adobe Experience Manager, and if my team needs any particular change, it just needs to be reported to the Adobe team. As Adobe Experience Manager has a broad scope and a lot of use cases and features, it's a solution that requires some time and effort from you in terms of learning, especially if you're implementing it for different clients, which could be an area for improvement."
"The licensing model is opaque, and technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies."
"In comparison to other CMS products, Adobe Experience Manager is missing some capabilities such as proper versioning or a better versioning system and backend connectivity. If something is deleted in AEM, the user cannot recover it. You have to call technical support, and they will need to recover the whole instance. So, it's really difficult. For example, if you delete a page, you cannot recover it. There should be an option to recover it. In AEM, you have to go to the previous state of the instance itself or the virtual machine, and you have to restore everything, which is not good."
"Programming model could be improved, it's a monolithic solution."
"Tool-wise, the Adobe Experience Manager support team is not very responsive when the user face issues in AEM as a Cloud Service."
"A little bit of background knowledge of coding and website structure is required."
"The latest trend is to render everything in the client-side framework. For example, SPA or single page application. This is a feature that needs improvement. The cloud deployment pipeline needs to be improved as well."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy. It is getting better, but it is not yet good enough. Other products are comparatively doing better in terms of the user interface. I have been hearing about Box, which is very easy to use and learn for the users. OnBase has to work on this aspect. It should have BPM capabilities. We compete with tools that provide the BPM feature and support those standards. They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Users have to pay a yearly licensing fee to use the solution, which is highly-priced."
"There's a free trial for one month for Adobe Experience Manager, which you can use for learning purposes, then, after the trial period, you'll need to purchase the license. Adobe offers a few plans for Adobe Experience Manager, but I'm unaware of how much my company is paying."
"It's really costly."
"It's a costly solution. I would rate the price at two out of five on a scale from one to five, where one is the most expensive and five is the most competitive."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"The tool's price is high."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adobe Experience Manager?
It is easy to learn. You don't need to be an advanced Java developer.
What needs improvement with Adobe Experience Manager?
The content is created as Adobe Experience Manager has an author, publisher, and dispatcher. However, there is a feature missing where if content is created on the UAT environment and needs to be t...
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
We are working on digital experience platforms such as Adobe Experience Manager or Sitefinity. It's for powering their customer-facing website, not the transaction portal, but the brochureware port...
What do you like most about Hyland OnBase?
The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...
 

Also Known As

Adobe Day CQ5, Ektron Social Marketing, Episerver Content Cloud, Adobe CQ5
OnBase
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Experience Manager vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.