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Hyland OnBase 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

Hyland OnBase
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (15th), Enterprise Content Management (6th), Low-Code Development Platforms (12th)
M-Files
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Content Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Hyland OnBase is designed for Business Process Management (BPM) and holds a mindshare of 1.4%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
M-Files, on the other hand, focuses on Document Management Software, holds 5.1% mindshare, down 7.7% since last year.
Business Process Management (BPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Hyland OnBase1.4%
Camunda9.9%
SAP Signavio Process Manager4.4%
Other84.3%
Business Process Management (BPM)
Document Management Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
M-Files5.1%
Alfresco11.8%
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management8.0%
Other75.1%
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1981395 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product owner at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Seamless data management enhances security while monolithic architecture and reporting need improvements
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, addressing some concerns. Additionally, there could be more integration points with products Hyland has acquired, such as Alfresco and Nuxeo. Offering a trial version with basic features would allow users to experience the product before purchasing. I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial.
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 solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
"The retention module is one of the most valuable features. Whatever we scan onto the system can be identified and we are notified when the records are due to be disposed."
"It provided data security features, allowing restrictions on sensitive documents, such as who could view or modify them."
"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"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 application could potentially be more open-source, allowing integration with more solutions."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"Software malfunctioning usually occurs when we receive documents from external sources."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"We found the size of images to be a restriction, though this may have been due to the API used rather than the Hyland application."
"The look and feel could be better. The integration with the user could be better. It could also be more user-friendly."
"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"The tool's price is high."
"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
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitioning to microservices, allowing users to pay for only what they use, could reduc...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hyland is working on a new platform (HXP) to integrate features from all products, ad...
What is your primary use case for Hyland OnBase?
I was a vendor managing Hyland OnBase ( /products/hyland-onbase-reviews ) for Hyland, not as a direct user but as a business partner. We managed the solution and were a partner with Hyland.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

OnBase
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Crowe UK, Stearns Bank, Head Energy, OMV, TK Elevator
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Automation Anywhere, Apache and others in Business Process Management (BPM). Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.