Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Box
Ranking in Document Management Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (4th), Cloud Storage (9th), Digital Asset Management (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
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
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Document Management Software category, the market share of Box is 8.1% and it decreased by 9.5% compared to the previous year. The market share of M-Files is 10.8% and it increased by 44.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Document Management Software
Unique Categories:
Enterprise Content Management
3.7%
Cloud Storage
15.4%
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

JL
Jul 19, 2022
User-friendly, easy to navigate, and has helpful support
We are a customer and end-user. We're using the latest version of the solution at this point. My own preference is to have one system for sharing files so that everybody's on the same page. They do have governance, which we didn't implement. However, it would be important to keep retention consistent. I did work at one point with the sales rep, and they were very informative. They helped us understand what all the different options we had for different Box products. The governance would also be a really good thing to implement along with just the enterprise version of Box. I would rate the solution ten out of ten.
LN
Oct 11, 2020
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

"Governance and ease of use are why I think a lot of people like Box, including ourselves. Basically, we're concerned about what information is being sent to Box, so we use a lot of the Box governance features to make sure that what is being sent to Box is appropriate. If it is not appropriate, it is not allowed to be sent. It is also pretty easy to use. It is the easiest to use for customers and for technologists."
"Box is very user-friendly; more so than SharePoint."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"Box is very realistic when it comes to sharing capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Box is security."
"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."
"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."
"It is really easy to load files to and from this solution."
"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

"It could be cheaper."
"The integration with other products should be improved."
"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."
"The solution's data security should be improved."
"One thing that Box would benefit from is a records management component."
"I find their API to be quite complex and it could be more straightforward."
"The UI should be faster. Sometimes it lags when switching between documents."
"Maturity of the enterprise security around user management."
"The integration with other products needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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'm in Higher Ed, so we purchase through Internet2-Net+. I absolutely recommend going that route for Higher Ed customers."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"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."
"A business account has a minimum of three users. If you are more than three people in-house, go for the Enterprise version. All the external users are free of charge."
"It is expensive per head, as you need the enterprise license to get full security and tools. So negotiate a discount!"
"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."
"I believe Box is cheaper than SharePoint."
"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
50%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
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.
What needs improvement with Box?
One drawback is its permissions system, which has caused issues prompting our transition to SharePoint. The reporting functionality could be improved; currently, they utilize Excel for reporting pu...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

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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: June 2024.
787,104 professionals have used our research since 2012.