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Alfresco vs Hyland OnBase comparison

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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
5.6
Alfresco delivers significant ROI with cost savings, efficiency, reduced IT support, automation, and centralized document management benefits.
Sentiment score
4.7
Hyland OnBase enhances efficiency, accuracy, and security, offering savings, reduced errors, and improved workflows, especially for insurance companies.
Alfresco provides a significant return on investment by efficiently managing documents.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
I have seen a return on investment with Hyland OnBase because it provides a very reliable ECM platform for my organization, helps to remove the dependency on paper files and file folders, saves real estate costs, and facilitates the ability to work from anywhere.
Senior Software Engineer at Infosys
There's also prevention of financial loss because I have some workflows designed specifically to validate certain processes, and in the past a lot of money was lost because calculations were done incorrectly.
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Automation processes that used to take four or three weeks now only require days, and users can be easily trained to implement their own processes.
Process Analyst at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
Alfresco customer support is generally positive but mixed, with prompt responses and some challenges due to complex workflows.
Sentiment score
5.6
Hyland OnBase provides professional 24/7 support, often praised despite complex processes or premium fees required for premium options.
I would prefer a direct relationship with them, focusing on updating their products more like in an agile practice
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Customer support is good because they are responsive.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Our vendor relationship facilitated integration with our system and offered additional service beyond the Hyland OnBase product.
Program Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Whenever I proved it was an issue on their side, they always followed up quickly and professionally and always resolved the problems.
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Customer support largely falls on us, as many aspects must be handled directly with Hyland.
Process Analyst at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.5
Alfresco efficiently scales with growth, excelling in clustering and customization, though complex setups are required for high document counts.
Sentiment score
6.4
Hyland OnBase is scalable and adaptable, supporting growth in users and documents, with cloud services easing manageability and costs.
Implementations needing to handle millions of documents may involve complex cluster setups requiring expert assistance.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
However, if you are looking to expand into areas with more images and videos, the scalability is somewhat limited without a developer and customization.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Transitioning to cloud-based services may reduce these costs in the future.
Product owner at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Hyland OnBase's scalability is one of its most significant strengths.
Process Analyst at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
In the cloud it's easier to handle; you work with pods and other infrastructure elements.
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Alfresco is stable and reliable with few issues, though proper scaling and expertise are essential for optimal performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Hyland OnBase is highly stable, with users praising its reliability, minimal downtime, and excellent scalability, security, and data protection.
The stability of Alfresco is rated highly as it hardly goes down.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco is generally a very stable and high-performance platform.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Those issues have now been corrected.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Since then they've improved a lot, and now it's very stable.
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Hyland OnBase was a stable solution that worked effectively for us.
Program Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alfresco requires UI refinement, enhanced security, better tools, documentation, modern database support, and smoother integration with other systems.
Hyland OnBase needs enhanced dashboards, AI integration, user-friendly interface, flexible pricing, improved support, OCR, and simplified processes.
It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Being able to leverage something such as MongoDB, a NoSQL database as part of the architecture would be a big improvement to enable high volume in the hundreds of millions of documents.
Manager, Major Accounts at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Governance of this system is required. If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions.
Program Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, addressing some concerns.
Product owner at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
If AI could be used more at an enterprise level, since we are purchasing at an enterprise level for the subscription of Hyland OnBase, I would say if those AI informations would stay within the enterprise and not go outside of our enterprise boundaries, it would be secure and maintain our privacy.
Business Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Alfresco has competitive pricing for large enterprises, focusing on pay-per-use with potential costs for upgrades and integrations.
Hyland OnBase's complex pricing is costly, especially in Latin America, with varied monthly licensing averaging $4,500-$5,000.
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Pricing is considered mid-range.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
We also paid for workflow licenses, which allowed up to 250 concurrent users.
Program Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture.
Product owner at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very cost-effective and affordable.
Senior Software Engineer at Infosys
 

Valuable Features

Alfresco offers robust document management, integration, customization, collaboration, and user-friendly features, meeting diverse organizational needs efficiently.
Hyland OnBase enhances document management with secure storage, AI capabilities, workflow automation, and flexible integration for business efficiency.
This makes the record independent of the document, which is beneficial as documents often change, and it helps avoid continual updates to the registry.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
It enabled users to find exactly what documents they were looking for in a timely fashion, as well as to export to patients and healthcare members what they needed to do for Medicaid, Medicare, or any other secondary insurance, including the documents they needed to fill out as well as prescriptions.
Agile Solutions Designer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Specific outcomes that demonstrate how Alfresco helped those organizations include process improvement and being able to search and find documents within seconds versus manually having to hunt for them in other systems.
Manager, Major Accounts at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them.
Program Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
The workflow engine has made the biggest difference for me because it is excellent for automating approval processes.
Senior Software Engineer at Infosys
Hyland OnBase has impacted my organization positively by faster document retrieval, intuitive setup, reduced manual processing, and comes with security.
Business Analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (1st)
Hyland OnBase
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (13th), Low-Code Development Platforms (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 5.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 4.3%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco5.7%
Hyland OnBase4.3%
Other90.0%
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Albano Garcia - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized document management has boosted search efficiency and supports secure collaboration
The best features Alfresco offers in my experience include the intelligent search, because sometimes you need to find a document, and this solution provides a full-text search across different document types and formats, which is perhaps the most remarkable feature, along with version control. The solution tracks all the changes of the documents and prevents accidental overrides or other issues. The intelligent search has made my work easier because you can just put a word. Perhaps you are thinking of finding something related to a client or a specific MSA agreement, and with one or two words, the intelligent search proposes all the documents that include this word, facilitating finding the information very easily and very quickly. This is the most important feature for us.
Joao Santiago - PeerSpot reviewer
Analista at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Digital workflows have transformed meeting minutes and document tracking across departments
There are some particular aspects of Hyland OnBase, such as layouts or some modules that have just been built, that are not designed with the end user in mind. That's something they need to improve. However, even if it's not adequate for the end user, you can still take that and, with custom development, use those modules and APIs in a user-friendly way. They need to improve the interface and usability of Unity and think more about usability. In terms of tool usability, sometimes there are too many clicks to perform an action, which, if you developed it yourself, you could do in two clicks, whereas within Unity you need four or five clicks to do the same process.
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920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

zuka19 - PeerSpot reviewer
employee at developer
Aug 9, 2022
Aug 9, 2022
last I knew they were two separate products/platforms. Before I left in February of this year there was talk of potentially combining platforms for a more cloud native somewhat combined platform. I no longer have access or knowledge of the current product/solution roadmap.
See 2 answers
EB
Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Jul 25, 2022
Hi @Andrea González, @reviewer1210746 and @reviewer1279998, Can you possibly assist @zuka19 ​with their question? Thanks for your help.​ ​ ​
MB
Senior Vice President Business Development at Viewpointe
Aug 9, 2022
last I knew they were two separate products/platforms.   Before I left in February of this year there was talk of potentially combining platforms for a more cloud native somewhat combined platform.   I no longer have access or knowledge of the current product/solution roadmap.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
Pricing, setup costs, and licensing are interesting aspects of Alfresco for our organization. We do not rely solely on licensing as it is based on a billing model rather than just licensing. Since ...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
Alfresco could be improved in terms of maintenance and could have a simpler architecture regarding search functionality. If I change the metadata, I have to perform re-indexing of all the content f...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
My main use case for Alfresco is as a content management system at an enterprise level. A specific example of how I use Alfresco as an enterprise level content management system is for sharing docu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is very cost-effective and affordable.
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
More training videos, if they are more findable, would improve documentation and training documentations from Hyland's side, because there is a lack of documentation and training materials from Hyl...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
As a business analyst, while working on a recent project, I used Hyland OnBase as an enterprise-like document management tool. It was used for storing, organizing, and retrieving invoices regarding...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OnBase
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
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 Alfresco vs. Hyland OnBase and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.