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IBM FileNet vs OpenText Content Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 2025

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

IBM FileNet
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Content Management
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of IBM FileNet is 10.0%, up from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Content Management is 11.5%, up from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Emad Rizki - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless integration for large enterprises with strong deployment capabilities
FileNet was scalable and could be implemented into big multinational organizations. However, it has become very expensive recently. Compared to low-code solutions such as Appian and outsystems, FileNet has gaps, mainly because it requires coding, which is not preferred by clients due to pricing concerns in Pakistan. We transitioned clients to cloud solutions, although FileNet has been strongly integrated with on-prem deployments.
Jaideep MS - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective document control yet requires better affordability and clarity
I use extended ECM for procurement, sales, engineering documents, and sometimes invoices and accounts payable or receivable The version controls and the business workspace part integrate well with SAP and OpenText, providing granular level control over who accesses the workspace. The seamless…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"​Streamlined our business processes."
"The usability is really good. Our business users are pleased with it. They seem to get what they are looking for, and it's very efficient."
"Instead storing our documents offsite, we are storing all of our documents electronically."
"There aren't very many ECM solutions that scale properly, both up and out. We have customers who hold billions of documents. There aren't very many that can scale that far, and that can also scale out so that they can handle lots of users, lots of documents, and that understand how to handle external users. FileNet is one that can."
"The most valuable features are the interconnectivity and the collaboration. No longer do I have to wonder what system I need to go to for the data I need. I know it's in FileNet."
"It is very user-friendly for business users. They can create their own searches. They are not dependent on administrators to create searches for them. It is self-service for them."
"The document collaboration is very good. There is something called Pink Note where departments can collaborate within the document. It has a built-in viewer to see any type of document."
"One of the most valuable features is FileNet's ability to capture things from the stack, from e-mail, to scanning of Excel and Word. FileNet can also convert many types of files to PDFs very easily."
"Most of our customers are very fond of the upgraded smart user interface."
"It's a very good solution."
"Retention is useful. I have been pleased with the search functionality and the extensibility for tying it into integrations with other systems and building workflows on top of it."
"Being able to search is valuable. Its search is pretty powerful. We are able to search for specific text, and it points us to the document that has that text. That is pretty powerful."
"The engineering document management system is one of the most valuable features."
"Smart Viewing videos are most valuable for the end users. The end users like the look and feel of Smart View. It's similar to SharePoint, with the latest HTML5 features, filters, and everything. It's like online shopping."
"The solution's automatic document numbering, state management, and process flow are very useful features to go through the full cycle of the document."
"We use Core Share to share documents with external auditors or with vendors, and that prevents them from being able to get into the whole system. It is useful."
 

Cons

"We know that they're looking at documents, but we don't know what documents they're actually going and finding the most, or where the bottlenecks might be. It would be nice if there was some interconnectivity back into Bluemix to say, "Ok, you've got a workflow problem here." That would be a neat feature moving forward because we've got a lot of users that would just say, "The system is not working." We had a few threads would get hung up because they were just constantly banging on these few documents. If that were the case, if we knew that ahead of time, then we could fix that, change the search sequences to make it more efficient. But we were blind to that until the users said it's not working."
"I think some of the technical pieces, when implementing it ourselves, were something of a roadblock until we discovered the Concierge. Those are some things they have to work on."
"Sometimes, there can be issues with the database connections. FileNet has too many outages because things are broken in the database."
"The application's processing engineer needs to be more advanced."
"It is stable as long as you create the right environment. We have had issues at times, but just because of configuration issues."
"We do have some individuals that do need to come up to speed on it technically, and the only onsite training for Case Manager is in Europe, there is not a lot of US-based training. So they have to do all their training online rather than being able to go and have a good bootcamp-style training somewhere nearby."
"I would like to see expanded search features, like content search."
"​I would like to see the dashboard be a little bit more robust and a little more user-friendly"
"The solution should work better with partners and be more developer-friendly."
"There are no additional features that I would like to see. I am pretty happy with it, but their support could be a bit better."
"Pricing could be improved and the stability or the performance needs improvement, which is very important."
"The cost of the product could be improved."
"A dashboard with information would be nice to see."
"The response time is not effective, and the staff lacks adequate knowledge."
"We had some issues with scalability in the production. So, I would rate it a five out of ten."
"The tool's documentation is not proper and has missing information like steps."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use extraction. Therefore, we can see 80 to 85 percent accuracy on data extraction. This reduces the manual indexing part, which is definitely a gain on performance efficiency."
"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."
"The physical space that we have gained back pays for the service. Therefore, it has reduced our operating costs overall. We have definitely seen ROI. I would estimate $30,000 a year."
"1. It will be more expensive than estimated to setup. 2. You will need to double the staff while you are running the old system and installing the new system. 3. Depending on the number of documents to be migrated, make sure you understand the potentially massive amount of time and effort required to migrate the existing content to the new platform."
"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."
"It is still a leading ECM solution provider, however the cost to implement and maintain are higher than other solutions."
"For the medium scale or large scale, I would recommend FileNet. FileNet is free of licensing expenses, thus good for the money. It is not expensive, but worth for the money, especially for medium scale and large scale industries."
"​There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need.​​"
"OpenText Extended ECM's pricing and licensing are aggressive and confusing for the end customer."
"The total cost of the product will vary on the capabilities required"
"The pricing is costly. It's costly to integrate with Office 365 and to go back and forth with the sales team."
"Both Open Text ECM and IBM File share are expensive."
"The licensing is not that complex for the core products, but it becomes more complicated for some additional modules."
"The tool's pricing is confusing to the end customer."
"It is a little more expensive than our previous solution, but because of the fact that it has become a rallying point for different groups to come under, it might end up paying off better in the long run by not having seven siloed solutions. Even though this one solution is a little pricey, it might eliminate other ones."
"The product is pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM FileNet?
The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?
From the company's perspective, the licensing cost for IBM FileNet is still affordable. Though the license cost is somewhat expensive, it remains manageable. The company rates it between 3 and 5 be...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
The API provided by IBM FileNet is a very out-of-date implementation. From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; we have to use the IBM FileNet native API, which is quite outdated.
What do you like most about OpenText Content Suite Platform?
We also have a module on top of the Content Server called WebReports that has been one of the things that helped us facilitate the workflow and give managers good reporting and visibility into wher...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost is a significant factor that may deter medium-sized businesses from using OpenText extended ECM.
What needs improvement with OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost of the product could be improved. Currently, there are certain snags in document viewing, and communication from the pre-sales team is not clear. The expectation from the customer versus t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
OpenText Content Suite Platform, OpenText Core Share
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
ATCO Australia, MSIG Asia, Orica, Salt River Project
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FileNet vs. OpenText Content Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,545 professionals have used our research since 2012.