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IBM FileNet vs Laserfiche 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

IBM FileNet
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Laserfiche
Ranking in Enterprise Content Management
21st
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Document Management Software (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of IBM FileNet is 10.3%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Laserfiche is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

WolfgangPichler - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
CB
A powerful solution that offers BPM and automation to assist with our digital transformation
We use this solution for DMS, ECM, scan and imaging, plus workflows and forms solutions spread over the entire company This is a very complete and powerful solution. No code: We can address all of the features and functionalities with computer-minded people without having to call the IT Dept or…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM File Manager are workflow, content, and process capabilities."
"It improves the time when providing customer service to our constituents."
"The standout feature for us is undoubtedly the Google-like search functionality, which allows us to search for documents within the system effortlessly. Instead of just querying the document database, this feature retrieves all relevant documents, akin to searching on the internet. It is very easy to use."
"IBM FileNet was more scalable."
"It has a very broad market share and a lot of people know about it."
"The most valuable features of FileNet are its comprehensive ability to store content, to get insights from the content, and to use that content for making decisions routed through workflow."
"The main features we find impactful are the workflow and document management along with FileNet file stores."
"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."
"This is a very complete and powerful solution."
 

Cons

"It is ability to display legacy content needs improvement."
"I would say the installation process can be very complicated, and you need to to have an experience resource."
"The basic and fundamental point about FileNet is that the interface is very bad. It's just not appealing so people are reluctant to use it."
"The FileNet API seems like it is very difficult and not transparent."
"The analytics in FileNet are too complicated and they consume too much infrastructure, memory, and CPU. They're too expensive to work with."
"The only downside is that it takes a dedicated staff to maintain it and the learning curve is pretty steep."
"I know it took them seven months to convert, so the initial setup was, probably to some degree, complex."
"There is room for improvement in the scanning solution, Datacap. It's improving all the time. But since it's more an end-user software, the end-users are constantly improving their processes, and I believe that sometimes we're not catching up with their requirements."
"We would like to see more features for RPA and AI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is still a leading ECM solution provider, however the cost to implement and maintain are higher than other solutions."
"Yearly, we pay for the maintenance, which is $20,000."
"Talking about the cost is difficult because IBM has offers that combine different products, and each of these offers has different types of licensing. IBM also has a policy that the actual price for a given customer may be very different from the stated book price. It's hard to say whether it's expensive or not."
"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."
"IBM FileNet is an expensive solution."
"The licensing cost of FileNet is comparable."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Insurance Company
9%
Educational Organization
38%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
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 ...
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.
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Sample Customers

Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
D.L. Evans, College of the Desert, Community Action, Tompkins County, Hanson McClain, Olmsted County, Old Line Bank, Steinhafels, CIRCOR Pibiviesse
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: December 2024.
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