IBM ECM vs IBM FileNet comparison

IBM ECM and IBM FileNet are both solutions in the Enterprise Content Management category. IBM ECM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0, while IBM FileNet is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.9. IBM ECM holds a 2.0% mindshare in ECM, compared to IBM FileNet’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of IBM ECM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of IBM FileNet users who would recommend it.

IBM ECM

Read 16 IBM ECM reviews

651 Views
570 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

IBM FileNet

Read 99 IBM FileNet reviews

3,835 Views
2,465 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

IBM ECM

IBM FileNet

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

IBM ECM and IBM FileNet are both enterprise content management solutions. IBM FileNet appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced integration capabilities, offering a more comprehensive solution.

Features:IBM ECM focuses on document management and workflow optimization, enhancing productivity with content organization, easy document storage, retrieval capabilities, and access control features for enterprise environments. IBM FileNet provides advanced content management, seamless integration with other business applications, robust customization options, efficient data scalability, and versatile workflow management systems.

Room for Improvement:IBM ECM could enhance its integration capabilities, improve scalability for large enterprises, and offer more customization options for specific business processes. IBM FileNet may benefit from simplifying its deployment process, reducing complexity in its initial setup, and offering more user-friendly documentation to assist new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:IBM ECM offers a simple and straightforward deployment model that customers appreciate for its ease of setup. IBM FileNet provides more sophisticated deployment options with extensive customization, though requiring a more involved setup process. Its strong customer support is recognized as crucial to its adoption by large enterprises.

Pricing and ROI:IBM ECM generally has a lower initial setup cost, attracting businesses that aim to minimize upfront expenses. IBM FileNet, with its higher investment requirements, offers significant returns in operational efficiency and value, aligning with its broader feature set and providing a potentially higher ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet

January 2025

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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 ECM

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM FileNet

Ranking in Enterprise Content Management

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of IBM ECM is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 10.3%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Enterprise Content Management

Featured Reviews

Omar_Ismail

ECM, Archives and Digital Preservation Consultant at DataServe

A stable solution for automation with high availability

Moving to the cloud with IBM ECM is not allowed. In Saudi Arabia, the cloud infrastructure is still non-operational, potentially for the next two to three months. Static clouds are prevalent among foundational enterprises such as IBM and Oracle. IBM offers its cloud insights, maintaining its cloud ecosystem. IBM's efforts to enhance the user experience within its ECM platform are lacking compared to competitors like OpenText. Progress in implementing new technologies and features seems sluggish. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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WolfgangPichler

Senior Consultant at pITsolutions e.U.

Easy to integrate, and enables our clients to guarantee compliance

The area of migrations to new versions must be made easier. It's quite good that they have now begun to improve the API area, to modernize the interfaces, but there's always a very big investment involved in migrating from one version to another. That prohibits rolling out new functionalities to customers. It's not so easy. You can't release a new version every three months to bring in new capabilities. That is the old-fashioned, the way it worked ten or 20 years ago. That is bad. In that area, they really must improve. We have FileNet, Content Manager, and TSM in our own installation. We migrated that installation three years ago to version 5.12. Now we have to migrate to 5.25 to bring in new facilities, and it's a big task. We have to do it in addition to our other tasks where we support customers. We need a parallel machine and to set it up there and to migrate step-by-step, then test it and roll it out. It's not so easy. That is a big area where there is much to be done to satisfy the needs of customers.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability is a valuable feature, that we're able to display our documents to so many people."

"The content management is all about you as you can make the same content for minimal purpose solutions applications."

"The vertical scalability, as we can use it across some of our applications."

"The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration on-site. You can integrate with other components and applications like SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, etc."

"FileNet can for sure cover the requirements of a medium and a big company, because of the scalability and the possibility to connect with many other IBM products."

"In terms of stability, we haven't experienced any big technical issues or downtime with IBM FileNet, which is a difference compared to smaller products."

"It is used by large enterprises. It has to be scalable and robust for them to use. We have seen that on multiple projects over the years."

"IBM FileNet supports our document management and compliance processes."

"The most valuable feature for me is the possibility to share and to collaborate, the possibility to connect FileNet with many other IBM products as well. It helps avoid the possibility of creating "island applications." We have an ecosystem where everything can be interconnected."

"It provides good stability and scalability for huge enterprises as well."

"It is very stable and reliable."

"The ability to tag data, as it seems to be indexed well. It is a good space to manage data, keep track of it, and organize it."

More IBM FileNet pros

Cons

"I would recommend not going with ECM 8 and going with FileNet instead. It seems like that is the future of the lower-volume repository. It seems like they are moving away from ECM 8.5 so I think we're going to have some challenges coming up, getting off of that technology."

"I would like to see seamless application integration."

"I think it's already getting away from Java applets. A lot of our users struggle with keeping up to date with Java versioning, so a lot of the functions they're doing, like printing, emailing, and even some of the viewing, they're struggling with."

"The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"I would like to see in FileNet integrated with Watson, which can read something and send it without any human contact or interaction."

"The FileNet API seems like it is very difficult and not transparent."

"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."

"It would be nice if they could make it like containers are working in Kubernetes to auto-scale based on demand."

"I would like IBM to improve with each release, continue moving towards a continual, tighter integration, and build solutions that take advantage of all the different modules the platform has from one place."

"IBM has a lot of documentation but the kind of information in a lot of the documents can be confusing to our clients. It would be easier if they used video tutorials. Right now, the information is too hard to understand, and there is a lot of it. If they used videos I think FinalNet would be easy to use for an end-user."

"IBM doesn't offer new technologies every year, they offer new technologies after five years, for each release of the product."

More IBM FileNet cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Reach out to local IBM partners."

"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."

"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."

"The cost is about $40,000, plus yearly maintenance."

"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."

"The solution saves time and money. It helps us to be able to accomplish the goals of our business, as opposed to being tangled in the weeds of what we could do."

"There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need."

"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."

"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."

More IBM FileNet pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

36%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM ECM?

The tool is a very stable solution with high availability and no information leakage. It has built-in API integration on-site. You can integrate with other components and applications like SAP, Mic...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM ECM?

The product is expensive and has a perpetual license.

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What needs improvement with IBM ECM?

The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days.

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What do you like most about IBM FileNet?

The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?

It depends on the business partner providing the solution to the customer. We have an ESA contract with IBM which allows us to offer the solution at a competitive price, providing added value when ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?

The setup process is very complex, and I would prefer if it were easier. A modern interface would also be an enhancement.

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Extended ECM vs IBM ECM

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SharePoint vs IBM FileNet

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Documentum vs IBM FileNet

Compared 17% of the time

OpenText Extended ECM vs IBM FileNet

Compared 16% of the time

Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet

Compared 9% of the time

Alfresco vs IBM FileNet

Compared 6% of the time

More IBM FileNet Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM ECM

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

IBM FileNet

January 2025

Download IBM FileNet product report

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IBM

Overview

IBM Content Foundation on Cloud

IBM Content Foundation on Cloud allows organizations to deliver extensive enterprise content management capabilities to their users very quickly. IBM Content Foundation is powered by the FileNet content and process platform and IBM Content Navigator user experience. This cloud offering can be leveraged for a variety of use cases including collaborative document management, imaging solutions, social content management, archiving, and more. It also offers a platform for developing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions in the cloud.

IBM Case Manager on Cloud

IBM Case Manager on Cloud is a solution platform that engages people with business content, provides contextual insight through real-time analytics, and enhances teamwork through collaboration tools and flexible workflow. Enables Business and IT to work together to create solutions across the enterprise that enables an organization to make smarter decisions for better business outcomes, while balancing the need for security and compliance in a world of heightened risk.

IBM FileNet is a leading IBM enterprise content management product family. IBM FileNet is one of the ECM solutions that can change the way a company does business by enabling users to capture, activate, socialize, analyze, and govern content throughout its lifecycle.

There are many IBM FileNet products available, all of which are integrated and based on the FileNet P8 Platform.

Sample Customers

KeyBank, Standard Chartered Bank, Union Bank, Sistema Tecnol‹gico de Monterrey, Illinois Department of Human Services, UnitedHealth Group

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.

Buyer's Guide

IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet

January 2025

Free Report: IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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