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IBM FileNet vs OpenText Documentum 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 Documentum Content...
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Documentum Content Management is 12.4%, up from 10.6% 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.
Ashish Shelar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers version control capabilities, easy to set up but highly-priced
The main thing is the cost. Most of the time, organizations move away from Documentum due to cost. It's highly-priced, and the support costs are high. Now, SharePoint and other options. Microsoft gives free licenses, so organizations mainly look for cost-effective products. The second thing is updates and patching. We patch very often, every six months or a year. We have SP1, SP2, and SP3, and then suddenly, it's moved out of support. That's the organization's main pain area. They don't want to keep investing from a storage perspective. The licensing model should be changed. The product itself is out of support. They have not considered it for AI initiatives. The new version should be on the cloud. I'm not sure if the new version of Documentum, xECM, is cloud compatible or on which cloud it is compatible, but the OpenText server itself is on a cloud, which would be beneficial to the business. And it would also be easier for migration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would say the workflow is pretty good. Also, the flexibility of being able to create custom objects with a lot of domain-specific attributes that we follow."
"One of our clients, a customer of IBM, rolled out and replaced their existing ECM system with FileNet. Their productivity has increased pretty dramatically."
"The main features we find impactful are the workflow and document management along with FileNet file stores."
"It has a very broad market share and a lot of people know about it."
"[The most valuable features are] scalability and ease of use. These features are important because the customer where we have deployed it has millions of documents... And over the last five years, the volume of the documents has been increasing. It's handling all of them and without any errors."
"It is really usable. There is a lot of support for it. You have the online components to trawl through the storage. I have a lot of fun with it."
"The most valuable features for us are Wex (Watson) for search, Datacap for OCR/ICR, and Automation Anywhere for RPA."
"We have probably cut out at least 40 percent of what the work process was by easing out that whole distribution of paper."
"It stands out for its impressive records management capabilities and the ability to handle an extensive volume of documents, even reaching into the billions."
"The tool's most valuable feature is ACL, which helps to control the user groups that access the documents."
"The product is tamper-proof and enables us to return to the document source, which is helpful in legal issues."
"The product is user-friendly."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the security, storage, and document search capability."
"The storage of metadata content, workflows, and life cycles are the most valuable features of OpenText Documentum."
"It has the ability to categorize and search."
"The most impactful thing is the size, which is almost 25 TB."
 

Cons

"It could be simpler to use, considering multiple use cases."
"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."
"However, the configuration does take a long time. Every company needs its own configuration design. It depends on how many applications are connecting to FileNet. It can take a long time, depending on the application count."
"It may be a little complex to implement and take some effort."
"For end-users there is a lack of administrative features. The interface of basic FileNet is not very good."
"​I would like to see the dashboard be a little bit more robust and a little more user-friendly"
"​I would rate the technical support as medium. I do not like the login process. It is not great."
"In Content Navigator we want to see the ability to view different types of video... We are using HTML 5 but it's very limited... We definitely want to see support for most types of video formats in the market."
"The user interface can be improved."
"In BPM could be better. Its GUI needs the ability to build more rules. This is a crucial feature. For example, OpenText has some products that allow you to control your checks, invoices, and so on. They have exciting approaches to converting pictures to text, but the tool for business process management isn't easy to use. The GIU is not so good."
"The user interface can be a bit more intuitive."
"The product needs to improve the way documents are logged together. I believe running it on the cloud or containerization will bring value to it. The tool's Time to Market and deployment cycle need to be improved. Finding suitable training materials for OpenText Documentum is also a bottleneck. If we can find the training modules easily, we can bring together people, give them quick training, and start working on the deployment. It can help with quick outputs."
"They should develop something so that bugs don't happen in our project. We make changes manually and some bugs happen."
"The BPM side should be improved."
"We mostly use the Life Sciences package. That package is somewhat dated. There should be enhancements to the Life Science package and additional offerings to support pharma in particular."
"The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is located."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My customers have seen ROI. There have been productivity gains, time savings gains, and things that they have been doing much more efficiently in a more modern way than they were before."
"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."
"FileNet is not cheap, but you absolutely get what you pay for. ​"
"When it comes to pricing, IBM needs to make an effort to improve the cost. That's the main issue regarding use of FinalNet in Columbia."
"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."
"The biggest issue is the cost of the FileNet, because the license cost is very high. If a customer doesn't have good technical guides that are aware of the license calculation, they will pay too much. FileNet's license calculation depends on the processor and number of users. So my advice to a new customer is to be very careful with your calculations before purchasing FileNet."
"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."
"It has reduced operating costs by reducing the amount of manual work needed."
"It is quite an expensive product."
"The product is expensive."
"OpenText Documentum's pricing is good."
"OpenText Documentum has announced a new licensing model, which could be more expensive."
"The price is considered affordable now."
"It falls in line with a lot of things that are out there on the market. There is nothing extraordinary in terms of great or bad."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Documentum?
It falls in line with a lot of things that are out there on the market. There is nothing extraordinary in terms of great or bad.
What do you like most about OpenText Documentum?
The most valuable feature of Documentum for our content management needs is its ability to segregate access based on department and role.
What needs improvement with OpenText Documentum?
The interface of OpenText Documentum could be more intuitive; sometimes it is hard to find where the information is located.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell EMC Documentum, Documentum , Documentum xCelerated Composition Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
Agility; Bibliotheca Alexandrina; Capitec Bank; Department of Social Development, Republic of South Africa; County of Los Angeles, Department of Human Resources; Fresenius Kabi; Heathrow Airport; Lahey Health; Linde PLC; Milestone Pharma Co. Ltd; National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development; Open Grid Europe GmbH; REPCO NEX Industrial Solutions; Springer Nature; Syngene International; Tata Power DDL; University of Texas Austin
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM FileNet vs. OpenText Documentum Content Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,545 professionals have used our research since 2012.