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Adobe Experience Manager vs IBM FileNet 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.1
Adobe Experience Manager boosts ROI with enhanced content management, automation, improved security, and efficiency, increasing traffic and reducing effort.
Sentiment score
4.3
IBM FileNet improved efficiency, reduced errors and costs, saving clients up to $30,000 annually with enhanced automation and accuracy.
I have seen a return on investment through reduction in time to market, automation through AI, and the availability of very scalable solutions.
project manager at FedEx
Security has been very robust and has improved by 70%.
Digital Marketing Manager at Ford Motor Company
Cost savings come from re-engineering the business processes using IBM FileNet and related strategies.
Consulting CTO at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
There is a significant ROI from IBM FileNet because before its introduction, the company needed to do all the work manually.
Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Adobe Experience Manager's support receives mixed reviews, with response times varying by issue complexity and client location.
Sentiment score
7.0
IBM FileNet customer service is praised for responsiveness but faces challenges with time zones and specific expertise issues.
They are attentive to big companies but tend to be negligent towards mid-sized companies.
Managing Partner(Austria) at a integrator with 11-50 employees
There are Adobe engineers, sales representatives, and engineers assigned to Sephora North America.
Digital Asset Specialist at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
For P1 tickets, the resolution time is approximately four hours.
Senior Technical Program Manager /Senior Lead Solution Architech- Product Technology & Gen AI at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
People come from all over the world, and they have specialists at the other end of the world to help if needed.
Senior Consultant EIM and ECM at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
IBM has a different division that provides consultation to end users, and most customers utilize consultation from IBM, which costs approximately $100k USD to $200k USD.
Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN
The consulting experts that IBM provides sometimes do not understand the tool very well.
Consultor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Adobe Experience Manager is scalable and customizable, ideal for global enterprise use despite cloud transition challenges and licensing needs.
Sentiment score
7.6
IBM FileNet excels in scalability and adaptability, effortlessly handling growth, integration, and large-scale operations, meeting diverse business needs.
You cannot simply add more servers without purchasing the license.
Infra At Idealake IT Pvt Ltd Head at Idealake Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.
Adobe Experience Manager's scalability is excellent, as it reduces infrastructure and maintenance costs.
project manager at FedEx
Adobe Experience Manager can handle numerous projects because more projects can be developed, enhanced, and numerous components can be reused in many projects and published.
Senior Project Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The bigger products like IBM FileNet can handle billions of documents and thousands of users.
Senior Consultant EIM and ECM at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
With Kubernetes, we can simply add instances of the worker, CPU, or memory without needing deployment.
Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN
We have about 80 transactional systems connected to IBM FileNet.
Consultor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Adobe Experience Manager is highly rated for performance and reliability, despite occasional integration issues and memory leaks.
Sentiment score
8.0
IBM FileNet is praised for stability and reliability, though some clients face issues with high-volume ingestion or outdated APIs.
Adobe Experience Manager is a stable tool.
Senior Project Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Adobe Experience Manager delivers very high performance, is reliable, and operates fast.
Digital Marketing Manager at Ford Motor Company
Since they are enterprise and have significant digital business coming through the digital medium, the stability of the product is very important.
Infra At Idealake IT Pvt Ltd Head at Idealake Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.
I have never encountered a problem of data corruption, losing data files, insecure access, or anything of that nature.
Consulting CTO at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
FileNet was restricted to DB2's enterprise edition instead of the standard edition, causing complications.
System integrator at Indépendant
In terms of stability, we haven't experienced any big technical issues or downtime with IBM FileNet.
Senior Consultant EIM and ECM at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Adobe Experience Manager faces criticism for costly complex setups, integration issues, and limited support, needing user-friendly improvements.
IBM FileNet users seek improved cloud integration, enhanced usability, automation, analytics, modern interface, and better integration with existing systems.
I believe the user interface should be more user-friendly and intuitive for all levels, allowing beginners to use this tool easily.
Digital Marketing Manager at Ford Motor Company
Technical support could be improved, especially for smaller companies.
Managing Partner(Austria) at a integrator with 11-50 employees
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.
Infra At Idealake IT Pvt Ltd Head at Idealake Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.
Ease of use with IBM FileNet is a disadvantage of this tool. It is complex and hard to use.
Consultor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The response time and resolution of issues by technical support need improvement.
Assistant Vice President at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; we have to use the IBM FileNet native API, which is quite outdated.
Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN
 

Setup Cost

Adobe Experience Manager is costly but efficient for large enterprises, offering value for scalable organizations despite high setup costs.
IBM FileNet is costly, with high licensing and setup fees; negotiation can reduce prices, yet remains expensive for smaller enterprises.
For large enterprises, the cost is often comparable with other major CMSs.
Managing Partner(Austria) at a integrator with 11-50 employees
Adobe Experience Manager is expensive compared to competitors.
Infra At Idealake IT Pvt Ltd Head at Idealake Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.
The price is significantly high.
Senior Technical Program Manager /Senior Lead Solution Architech- Product Technology & Gen AI at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
We are living in a world where the minimal license from IBM costs anywhere from seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand US dollars.
Consulting CTO at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
The product has become more expensive and requires significant investment for enterprise solutions.
System integrator at Indépendant
The price is high, with yearly subscriptions increasing day by day.
Assistant Vice President at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Adobe Experience Manager streamlines content management, integrates with Adobe tools, and enhances brand consistency and operational efficiency across channels.
IBM FileNet offers scalable document management, seamless integration, automation, strong security, and high performance for efficient business processes.
Feature-wise, I believe the dispatcher module is the best aspect of Adobe Experience Manager.
Infra At Idealake IT Pvt Ltd Head at Idealake Information Technology Pvt. Ltd.
Adobe Experience Manager has made document management smoother because many people use Adobe, making it simpler for me to modify and resend PDF documents.
Founder . Interior Architect & Interior Designer at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
Adobe Experience Manager increases operational efficiency through centralized assets and reduces time spent searching, editing, and managing files.
project manager at FedEx
There is a significant ROI from IBM FileNet because before its introduction, the company needed to do all the work manually.
Chief Architect at NEUSOFT JAPAN
The impact when using IBM FileNet is the faster retrieval of documents and how end users are happy with the ability to retrieve documents faster than before in an easier way.
Development Lead at Public Authority for Civil Information
The main features we find impactful are the workflow and document management along with FileNet file stores.
Assistant Vice President at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe Experience Manager
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (1st), Enterprise Social Software (4th), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (1st)
IBM FileNet
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Adobe Experience Manager is 3.6%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 6.2%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM FileNet6.2%
Adobe Experience Manager3.6%
Other90.2%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Hilax Chamberlain - PeerSpot reviewer
Digital Marketing Manager at Ford Motor Company
Centralized content management has unified our digital channels and delivers consistent experiences
Adobe Experience Manager offers enterprise-level digital assets management and very robust customization, brand value consistency, and omnichannel delivery. It saves development and maintenance time. The digital asset management and omnichannel delivery features have benefited my team by managing our digital assets, ensuring brand consistency, and enabling us to deliver customized content easily to our clients. Organizing and obtaining information from results is beneficial. Strengthening our online experience as a brand is valuable. Easy integration with other Adobe services improves productivity and provides a smooth experience. Adobe Experience Manager has positively impacted my organization by enabling component and page reuse, which reduces application size. It saves manual effort for maintaining all applications, improves traffic, and ensures consistency across all our applications. It provides better security, scalability, and makes our applications more robust.
Shankar-Kambhampaty - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting CTO at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
Business workflows have been automated and document processes are streamlined at large scale
I believe IBM FileNet could be improved or enhanced in the future, specifically the user interface development support, which, despite all the improvements, still feels from the 2010s or 2000s. The current state of the user interface development support and the ability to customize it leaves much to be desired. The backend engine, process engine, and object engine are fantastic. However, the user interface, which is required to provide an impressive experience to the user, is difficult to build. IBM will need to do something about this area. Over time, IBM has made improvements with enhancements through CP4BA and other tools, with which user interfaces can be built. But there is much more is needed. The initial setup process for IBM FileNet requires specialists. IBM FileNet is not a click-click-click deploy kind of product. It has several components that need to be installed in different versions and in a particular order. Additionally, IBM Cloud does not provide a proper experience. The problem is I cannot use IBM Cloud easily. I cannot even get a membership easily. With AWS, I just use my credit card, sign up, and I am done. With IBM Cloud, that is not how it is. They go through all validation processes, and it is a nightmare at times. There are problems around IBM FileNet, not exactly with IBM FileNet itself, but the point is that it is not a click-click-click deploy either on the cloud or on-premise. It requires specialists, and there is a big learning curve toward deploying and managing the whole infrastructure as well as the software. I communicate with the technical support of IBM frequently. I have communicated several times, and frankly, there is much to be desired on that side. When you raise a ticket, it takes 24 to 48 hours for them to respond. We live in a time where business moves at the speed of light. Twenty-four hours is a very long time. You need to be able to get technical support instantaneously. It is not like the more contemporary support models where you get turnaround in minutes, not days.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise74
 

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?
Adobe Experience Manager could be improved by making it more reliable for all developers to access, rather than restricting access to a certified pool of resources or developers. We also have anoth...
What is your primary use case for Adobe Experience Manager?
Adobe Experience Manager manages most of our websites, and content management is conducted exclusively through the AEM platform. Whenever we need to publish a new page, blog, or podcast, we access ...
What do you like most about IBM FileNet?
The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?
The pricing and licensing of IBM FileNet is high. We are living in a world where the minimal license from IBM costs anywhere from seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand US dollars, depending...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
I believe IBM FileNet could be improved or enhanced in the future, specifically the user interface development support, which, despite all the improvements, still feels from the 2010s or 2000s. The...
 

Also Known As

Adobe Day CQ5, Ektron Social Marketing, Episerver Content Cloud, Adobe CQ5
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Metra
Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe Experience Manager vs. IBM FileNet and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.