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Alfresco vs M-Files 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

Alfresco
Ranking in Document Management Software
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (4th)
M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
12th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Alfresco is 9.5%, down from 13.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 3.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco9.5%
M-Files3.7%
Other86.8%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2845779 - PeerSpot reviewer
Gerente De Proyectos at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Centralized document control has improved audits and daily workflows with accurate versions
I consider the best features that Alfresco offers to be its handling of document versioning, legal retention, traceability, and granular permissions, which helps considerably for audits. Traceability and granular permissions have greatly impacted my daily management. These aspects have improved efficiency and security in my organization. Security has been improved since with granular permissions we can give the proper access to collaborators. Those who need to read a document only have that permission, and we can also see who has permission to view a document and control who can edit and who can upload a document. Alfresco has positively impacted my organization since everything is centralized, so you do not have to waste time wondering whether the information you need is on this server or that server. Everything is in one place and everyone has their own access. I have noticed a change in team efficiency, response times, and error reduction thanks to the centralization of information. Time has improved, meaning time is not lost searching for documents. In addition, errors have been reduced, as you always have the correct version of the file. There is not one version here and another over there. You always have the updated version.
LN
Director of IT at JH Kelly
Good workflows, and it is easy to use with a dashboard that improves contract visibility
My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing this product is to do a pilot first. After you do your research, do an actual pilot before you commit because everyone has nuances and you might find out that it is not what you want, or that it doesn't really do what you think it's going to do. It is not the simplest product to use but because of the robustness of its feature set in the ability with the workflows, and the APIs, to do just about anything you can imagine with it, that's very valuable. I wish it was a little easier to use because we have to spend more time than I'd like with new users, teaching them how it works. We try to hide all that from them but the setup time to get everything the way we wanted was probably two months. That is two months in one resource working on it half time a week, but it just took a lot of work to get the metadata set up, to get the workflows set up, and to get all the documents added to the repository. Now we've got versioning and we know where everything's at, the dashboard is great, but don't assume when they tell you that you'll be up and running in two weeks, that that is the truth. It takes much longer than you think. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The features which are most valuable to us are rapid deployment, ease of installation, ease of use, and Linux platform support."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"Alfresco is the only enterprise CMS that has features like contribution, sharing, workflows, automation and robust content and record management, that are also Open Source."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"The initial setup was straightforward, because Alfresco also provides a stack installer that includes the required supporting software."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by improving the accessibility of documents across the enterprise, serving as a centralized location for all documents from every business unit."
"Using M-Files means anybody on the executive team to go in and immediately look at a dashboard and know the status of a contract."
"M-Files licence model is very flexible. You have the choice of Named User, Concurrent, or SaaS. This gives the business so much room and flexibility to implement new projects whilst maintaining costs and maximizing production."
 

Cons

"I choose eight out of ten because I have dealt with the system being down at times and not having access, which keeps it from being a perfect score."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Alfresco could be improved in terms of maintenance and could have a simpler architecture regarding search functionality."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"Technical Support: Average, this might be because I am quite experienced and the questions I have might be difficult to find an answer to quickly as I have probably already exhausted most solution possibilities before I contact support."
"There is need to improve features such as the record management and case management in the product."
"Some of the user interface could be more intuitive, such as the new record category, where the expression is a term and not really a dynamically evaluated expression as it might imply."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
"Technical support is probably the weakest part. We had a number of authentication issues and support has been very slow to respond and get us solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"The license for Alfresco is expensive - not the maximum, but close. There are also extra costs once you start building integrations, as implementation seems to be very costly."
"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"They have an Optical Character Scanning module but we didn't buy it because it's ridiculously expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
My experience with the price, implementation cost, and licenses for the platform is that the price has been fair, the implementation cost stayed within budget, and we consider the platform licenses...
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...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Alfresco vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.