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IBM ECM vs IBM FileNet comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM FileNet
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of IBM ECM is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 10.5%, 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 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The vertical scalability, as we can use it across some of our applications."
"The scalability is a valuable feature, that we're able to display our documents to so many people."
"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."
"The content management is all about you as you can make the same content for minimal purpose solutions applications."
"It has improved my organization by how we release documents, claims, and policies."
"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."
"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."
"The product has helped with compliance and governance issues. There are some archiving policies which a financial organization has to keep. Our organization can keep up with them because of the IBM product."
"We have made our service routes more efficient, as far as moving work through the system and being able to react to customer situations and needs better by improving things, such as, address and beneficiary changes. I know that we have definitely made improvements in the process."
"The application, in terms of durability, has been able to withstand the usage, given that it was installed in 2003 and it's still working."
"The main features we find impactful are the workflow and document management along with FileNet file stores."
"I would highly recommend it to those seeking a robust enterprise content management solution."
 

Cons

"The development platform is not local. For example, you need 100 days in IBM, whereas other platforms, like ServiceNow, need only 20 days."
"I would like to see seamless application integration."
"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 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."
"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."
"I think it's to the point where there are probably too many features. Every software, as it matures and graduates, grows the list of features. What many of our customers express is that it's just too complicated. They're using maybe five or ten percent of the features but they're having to pay for 100 percent. There is room for improvement in terms of simplifying it."
"To start with there are too many add-ons, which makes it hard for us. If they simplified the add-ons and plugins to be added to our existing systems, it would definitely help us in the future."
"A little better control into the ACLs of FileNet and databases."
"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.... In that area, they really must improve."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I would like to see expanded search features, like content search."
"It may be a little complex to implement and take some effort."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Reach out to local IBM partners.​"
"For small scale industries, they allow different options. They can do open source. It is the complexity of the data security that they should think about before they choose."
"The platform is inexpensive."
"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 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."
"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."
"IBM FileNet is an expensive solution."
"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."
"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
36%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
9%
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM ECM?
The product is expensive and has a perpetual license.
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.
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?
The product has become more expensive and requires significant investment for enterprise solutions.
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
FileNet needs improvement in pricing as it has become very expensive. Also, in comparison to local solutions, the need for coding is a disadvantage.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ECM vs. IBM FileNet and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.