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Box 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

Box
Ranking in Document Management Software
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (9th), Cloud Storage (13th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Content Collaboration Platforms (9th)
M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Box is 5.7%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 5.1%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Box5.7%
M-Files5.1%
Other89.2%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Rashad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Projects Manager at Tech-hub
Team collaboration has improved through shared access and real-time synchronization
I find the synchronization feature most valuable in Box. When I use multiple devices, it syncs them together and gives excellent results. I can assess the benefits of Box's file sharing. Box's integration with third-party apps is valuable, especially with Outlook. Box has helped my team's productivity by being very helpful with team collaboration when we are sharing certain shared documents between us. I mostly value Box's automation capabilities. They have helped optimize my business processes by saving time for sharing or sending files between the team. This gives us a shared workspace to work together on the same document or the same ideas. Box's security features have helped my organization meet compliance needs.
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

"I like that Box makes it easy to deploy virtual machines."
"Box is very realistic when it comes to sharing capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"Box had a very easy-to-use search feature and a good user interface on its website, which was faster and better than SharePoint."
"We can provide controlled access to documents using the product."
"Office Integration. The full integration into the Microsoft Office products is just perfect."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization."
"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

"Data privacy, regarding where to store your data: Offering several transparent(!) options (where to store my data and whether to sync back or not and where to sync) regarding the local law situations (USA, EU, Switzerland!) would increase the credibility of a US based company (after NSA ‘snooping’)."
"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"The price must be lowered."
"I haven't really come across a case where we're not able to use it for what it is, so I don't really have anything holding us up or any customers holding us up at this point that I know of. There are always some limitations, but as a technologist, I just live with them, and there is always room for improvement, but I don't have anything quantifiable."
"One thing that Box would benefit from is a records management component."
"The room for improvement is in the area of integrations. They need to establish more integrations, especially with Office 365 and Outlook."
"The search features and role permissions are not very user friendly. It only searches the first few pages of a document, which is quite a problem."
"If there was a plugin that added some sort of toolbar in Office, that would be great."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have to pay for Box. It could be a little cheaper. On a scale from one to ten, I would give the pricing a five."
"They are very price competitive when pushed. Initially, they come out with a standard list price, but they are willing to be very competitive. The Box price was pretty much equal to or lower than the Citrix price, and Box has more features."
"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"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."
"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
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Retailer
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Box?
The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization.
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?
I believe Box has a lot of features that put it in a good rank among the file-sharing apps. I would like to see features for online collaboration between team members in the future, to open and see...
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Comparisons

 

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 vs. M-Files and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.