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Box - Intelligent Content Management vs M-Files comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2026

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

Box - Intelligent Content M...
Ranking in Document Management Software
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (10th), Cloud Storage (10th), Digital Asset Management (4th), Content Collaboration Platforms (8th)
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 Box - Intelligent Content Management is 5.4%, down from 7.6% 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 (%)
Box5.4%
M-Files3.7%
Other90.9%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Chirag Morajkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Ai Tech And Tech Automation Engineer at a individual & family service with 11-50 employees
Structured cloud storage has streamlined document collaboration and automated workflows
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and using it as a cloud platform, I have not encountered any significant negative aspects. A few times, I might have faced performance issues, but I am uncertain whether that was due to the automation platform or Box itself. Overall, the only thing I could mention is that it can take a little time to understand how the integration works with Box; setup and figuring out what can and cannot be done might take some time, but other than that, I do not think anything else bothered me. One thing I would want Box to introduce to improve the platform and make it stand out even more would be incorporating AI. For example, the only way to identify documents shared in Box currently is by their names, and if those names are not precise, I can get confused. If Box had an AI feature to summarize and identify documents based on their contents, it would significantly enhance usability. AI is essential for making work easier, so that would be an excellent addition to the platform.
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

"Box thinks of features before I realize I want them!"
"Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure."
"The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization."
"We use Box as a cloud-based storage service for our employees to share documents, such as presentations, between people, and some of our customers have many gigabytes in files and we set up shared access to them using Box."
"The sharing feature, with its various permission settings, such as viewing or uploading, is convenient and helpful."
"Being able to securely invite, share folders, do version control, and comment on files so quickly and easily without using unsecure large email attachments is a major productivity gain."
"Box is very user-friendly; more so than SharePoint."
"The editable features and upgrading capabilities are great."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The integration with other products should be improved."
"Improvements in speed - Box's high level of security impacts performance, especially when compared with other similar services."
"I don't like the low level of role-based security it provides – it's very cumbersome, and the support is ordinary at times."
"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."
"The waterfall methodology for folders does not allow for privatization of folders at the root level, which sometimes may be necessary."
"They could integrate better with other platforms."
"The UI should be faster. Sometimes it lags when switching between documents."
"There are still some management features I would like to see improved, giving more control to IT."
"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

"The pricing may seem steep at first, but delve into the features and you'll soon realize it is incredible value for what you get."
"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"Box's pricing is excellent."
"There's a free version that allows you to use it with almost full-feature access. Even in the free version, it gives you all you need."
"The more you dig, the deeper the level of tools, and the more expensive it becomes."
"My organization pays for the license."
"A business account has a minimum of three users. If you are more than three people in-house, go for the Enterprise version. All the external users are free of charge."
"It is expensive per head, as you need the enterprise license to get full security and tools. So negotiate a discount!"
"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
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
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 Enterprise10
Large Enterprise30
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
I found the pricing reasonable because when I was working for an IBM partner, Box was free for us. We did not go to payment and other matters like this.
What needs improvement with Box?
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Box is mainly the pricing part; I think five dollars for this platform is not necessarily justified. While I have used it for integrating and usin...
What is your primary use case for Box?
My main use case for Box is storing cloud content on its cloud and managing it as a collaborating platform so that I can store secure files and share through Box. I use it for document management a...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Box - Intelligent Content Management vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.