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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
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (6th), Cloud Storage (12th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Content Collaboration Platforms (5th)
M-Files
Ranking in Document Management Software
7th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Document Management Software category, the mindshare of Box is 7.3%, down from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of M-Files is 8.8%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Shrikant Pillay - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows you to upload and download files quickly but lacks integration with Office 365
For enterprise users, the data is in a local repository. We use it for files for the end user process. This is a cloud solution. In my current organization, we have over 10,000 people using this solution. I use it very extensively. Users these days are working remotely You can upload your bin,…
LN
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 sharing feature, with its various permission settings, such as viewing or uploading, is convenient and helpful."
"Office Integration. The full integration into the Microsoft Office products is just perfect."
"The interface is very good."
"File sharing with collaborators not on the same domain with offline access from multiple devices: I work on many projects that are multi-organizational, such as with customers, suppliers, or acquisitions."
"We've never had a penetration. We've never had a security issue that their support didn't solve. We love their audit trail. We can know exactly when a collaborator opens. We love how you can define a collaborator."
"Box is very simple and effective, so I prefer Box."
"The application is very light in terms of uploading and downloading files."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"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

"Improvements in speed - Box's high level of security impacts performance, especially when compared with other similar services."
"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."
"I would love to see the ability to invite collaborators extended to a file level, not just the folder level."
"They could integrate better with other platforms."
"The upload speed needs improvement."
"If there was a plugin that added some sort of toolbar in Office, that would be great."
"The price must be lowered."
"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."
"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's pricing is excellent."
"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."
"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."
"I'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."
"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."
"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
Educational Organization
62%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Healthcare Company
3%
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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?
The solution is expensive when it comes to API calls.
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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: March 2025.
841,431 professionals have used our research since 2012.