Enterprise Content Management Software

Enterprise Content Management Software Overview

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a system for capturing, preserving, managing and delivering unstructured content and documents. ECM also secures content digitally in compliance with policy. ECM systems make these records retrievable and shareable. Content can be transferred with minimal risk to the content's security.

Enterprise content management systems ensure that users can easily access up to date documents. ECM systems also include version control features so that old versions of documents can be recovered as needed. Businesses use ECM systems to reduce organizational risk and ensure that users get the documents and information they need.

Top Rated Enterprise Content Management Products

TrustRadius Top Rated for 2021

These products won a Top Rated award for having excellent customer satisfaction ratings. The list is based purely on reviews; there is no paid placement, and analyst opinions do not influence the rankings. Read more about the Top Rated criteria.

Enterprise Content Management Software TrustMap

TrustMaps are two-dimensional charts that compare products based on trScore and research frequency by prospective buyers. Products must have 10 or more ratings to appear on this TrustMap.

Enterprise Content Management Products

(1-25 of 74) Sorted by Most Reviews

The list of products below is based purely on reviews (sorted from most to least). There is no paid placement and analyst opinions do not influence their rankings. Here is our Promise to Buyers to ensure information on our site is reliable, useful, and worthy of your trust.
Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint

Customer Verified
Top Rated

Microsoft's SharePoint is an Intranet solution that enables users to share and manage content, knowledge, and applications to empower teamwork, quickly find information, and collaborate across the organization.

Box

Box

Customer Verified
Top Rated

Box is an online cloud content management solution that caters to individual users as well as businesses.

Key Features

  • Content search & retrieval (34)
    95%
    9.5
  • Enterprise content collaboration (34)
    95%
    9.5
  • File sync, storage & archiving (35)
    95%
    9.5
PowerDMS

PowerDMS

Customer Verified
Top Rated

PowerDMS is a document management system focused on compliance and industry policy regulations. It is commonly used by Law Enforcement, Healthcare, Fire/EMS, and Corrections organizations.

Atlassian Confluence

Confluence

Customer Verified
Top Rated

Confluence is a collaboration and content sharing platform used primarily by customers who are already using Atlassian's Jira project tracking product. The product appeals particularly to IT users.

Key Features

  • Notifications (101)
    86%
    8.6
  • Document collaboration (97)
    86%
    8.6
  • Search (101)
    77%
    7.7
M‑Files

M-Files provides an information management platform that is designed to improve business performance by helping people find and use information more effectively. Unlike traditional enterprise content management (ECM) systems or content services platforms, M-Files unifies systems,…

Key Features

  • Document management (47)
    85%
    8.5
  • Content search & retrieval (47)
    75%
    7.5
  • Records management (46)
    71%
    7.1
Laserfiche

Laserfiche has two main editions: Rio and Avante: Laserfiche Rio is designed to meet the needs of large organizations that have more than 100 users. It combines content management functionality with business process management (BPM), security and auditing, unlimited servers and a…

Key Features

  • Document management (17)
    95%
    9.5
  • File sync, storage & archiving (17)
    94%
    9.4
  • Content capture & imaging (17)
    93%
    9.3
Egnyte

Egnyte provides a unified content security and governance solution for collaboration, data security, compliance, and threat detection for multicloud businesses. More than 16,000 organizations trust Egnyte to reduce risks and IT complexity, prevent ransomware and IP theft, and boost…

Key Features

  • File organization (35)
    90%
    9.0
  • Access control (35)
    86%
    8.6
  • File search (34)
    85%
    8.5
OnBase by Hyland

OnBase by Hyland is an enterprise content management platform with business process and case management capabilities. It is modular by design and allows users to tailor the solution to their specific requirements.

Key Features

  • Document management (29)
    92%
    9.2
  • Content capture & imaging (28)
    89%
    8.9
  • Content search & retrieval (30)
    86%
    8.6
Nuxeo

Nuxeo

Customer Verified
Top Rated

The Nuxeo Platform is a cloud-native Content Services Platform designed to make it easy for large enterprise organizations to build smart content-centric applications that enhance customer experiences, improve decision making, and accelerate products to market.The vendor states its…

Key Features

  • Content search & retrieval (27)
    84%
    8.4
  • File sync, storage & archiving (28)
    84%
    8.4
  • Automated workflows (28)
    83%
    8.3
Alfresco Content Services

Alfresco Content Services (formerly Alfresco ECM) is a free enterprise content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. It comes in three editions: Alfresco Community Edition is free software, licensed open source. Alfresco One is commercially & proprietary…

Sprinklr Modern Marketing & Advertising

Sprinklr's Modern Marketing & Advertising allows brands to build and protect their reputation, and take action at every point in the marketing lifecycle through AI-powered insights, automated workflows, and omnichannel campaign planning & execution.

Dashpivot - By Sitemate

Sitemate's flexible software platform Dashpivot enables companies in construction and heavy industries to digitise and streamline their standard operating procedures. According to the vendor, unlike Word docs, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets and other software tools, Dashpivot provides…

OpenText Documentum

OpenText acquired Documentum from Dell EMC in 2017, and now supports the enterprise content management (ECM) system. The vendor says users can build content-centric applications and solutions from collaborating on business documents to delivering case-based applications to managing…

Micro Focus Vibe

Micro Focus Vibe is a web-based team collaboration platform developed by Novell, and was initially released by Novell in June 2008 under the name of Novell Teaming. Novell's acquisition by Micro Focus was completed in April 2015. Vibe is a versatile collaboration solution that can…

DocStar

docStar is a document management software offering that was acquired by Epicor in 2017.

Oracle WebCenter Content

Oracle WebCenter Content is Oracle's ECM Suite. This product is tightly integrated to other Oracle products and provides ECM functionality to Siebel CRM and PeopleSoft. The WebCenter product family also includes Oracle's CMS (WebCenter Sites) which they acquired from FatWire.

IBM Enterprise Content Manager

IBM Enterprise Content Manager and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) applications enable organizations to manage all forms of content and secure secure data with respect to compliance needs. The platform enables capture, activation, sharing, analysis and governance of unstructured…

OpenText Content Suite Platform

The OpenText Content Suite Platform oversees the lifecycle management of information across the enterprise from capture through archiving and disposition. With agile information governance to address the latest data governance and data privacy best practices, the vendor states their…

IBM FileNet Content Manager

IBM FileNet Content Manager is a category-leading product and includes functionality for document management, business process management, November 1, 2011 © 2011, Forrester research, inc. reproduction Prohibited The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Content Management, Q4 2011 For Content…

SmartSearch Document Management

SmartSearch is a content management system that is offered as both a departmental and enterprise class document management solution that is designed to allow organizations to easily scale to their document management software needs.The vendor says that the flexible nature of SmartSearch…

Veeva Vault

Veeva Vault is an enterprise content management (ECM) system from Veeva Systems headquartered in Pleasonton, California.

Curata

Curata's content marketing platform (Curata CMP) enables more efficient content creation with greater impact on pipeline. According to the vendor, this solution enables users to: Analyze marketing and sales pipeline impact: Instantly access content metrics such as leads generated/…

FileCloud

FileCloud is a secure content collaboration platform (CCP) that provides compliance, data governance, data leak protection, data retention and digital rights management capabilities. Workflow automation and granular control of content sharing across most enterprise platforms is fully…

OpenText Extended ECM Platform

The OpenText Extended ECM Platform aims to transparently integrate with applications such as SAP S/4HANA®, SAP® SuccessFactors®, Salesforce®, Microsoft® Office 365® or other process-driving software. With ECM integrations, the content services platform bridges content silos and automates…

Redwood Reporting : Report2Web

Redwood Reporting automatically delivers critical report output, when, where and how it is needed most. This is to eliminate the frustration, wasted time, and errors associated with manually accessing, calculating and mapping pieces of information from disparate systems and data…

Learn More About Enterprise Content Management Software

What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software?

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a system for capturing, preserving, managing and delivering unstructured content and documents. ECM also secures content digitally in compliance with policy. ECM systems make these records retrievable and shareable. Content can be transferred with minimal risk to the content's security.

Enterprise content management systems ensure that users can easily access up to date documents. ECM systems also include version control features so that old versions of documents can be recovered as needed. Businesses use ECM systems to reduce organizational risk and ensure that users get the documents and information they need.

ECM Software Features & Capabilities

  • Capture, Imaging: The ECM system supports the digitization of content.
  • File Sync, Storage, Archiving: Foundational to the ECM system is its storage system for long-term preservation & retention of content in an organized fashion.
  • Document Management: Beyond capture, ECM systems support sharing, distributing, printing, faxing, etc.
  • Records Management: Secure, policy-controlled and compliant storage, retrieval and production of records, transactional or otherwise.
  • Search & Retrieval: Helps users find the content they are looking for. Various methods for assistance include filters, tags, metadata, and the like.
  • Collaboration: ECM systems support file and content sharing within the enterprise, or integrate with preferred collaboration software or modules.
  • Content Publishing & Creation: Some ECM systems also support the publishing of content to web pages.
  • Security, Risk Management & Information Governance (IG): Security controls with rules, policies, and permissions defining and delimiting access to content and records. This is a core feature and a necessity for enterprises.
  • Integrations: ECM systems have integrations with multiple 3rd-party systems such as electronic signature software, hardware (printers, scanners, etc.), digital asset management, Disaster Recovery solutions, CRM, ERP, and web content management systems (WCMS, or CMS).

ECM System Considerations

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software is designed to facilitate lifecycle management, information governance (IG), and collaboration. Modern ECM systems should provide a single source of truth. Additionally, they should offer features for version control and synchronization, intuitive search, and discovery. It is also important for ECM software to integrate with other applications to deliver viewable content across multiple platforms.

The timely delivery of contracts and other transactional documents is also an important component of business process management (BPM). This is a secondary goal of ECM software. Security and optimized business processes are built into a successful ECM's content storage and retrieval systems.

Pricing Information

Enterprise content management systems may have a one-time/ annual license fee that can start in the $2,000-$3,000 range. Alternatively, they might offer a monthly subscription fee that is per user per month. The subscription fees start at $15-$20/month/user and increase proportionally with the size of the company. Certain ECM vendors also offer a free trial.
However, many ECM vendors do not openly disclose their prices but will provide a quote upon request.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software Best Of Awards

The following Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software offer award-winning customer relationships, feature sets, and value for price. Learn more about our Best Of Awards methodology here.

Best Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software Products

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do organizations use enterprise content management software?

Enterprise content management (ECM) systems allow organizations to capture, store, and manage documents and make them accessible to end-users. Types of files that can be stored and retrieved digitally include:

  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • PDF files
  • HTML files
  • scanned images

More recently, ECM software has evolved to capture other types of files as well, including video and audio recordings and social media posts.

What are the benefits of using an enterprise content management system?

There are a few key benefits that come along with using ECM software. If your organization currently keeps track of important information using paper documents and filing cabinets, you should consider the following benefits of moving to an ECM system:

  • Greater security from not needing to rely on paper records
  • Secure document storage in compliance with your organization’s policies
  • Being able to store documents digitally rather than needing physical storage space
  • Having a centralized location for all your important documents
  • Ability to access documents from any location within the company network
  • Ease of file sharing and collaboration across the business
  • Ability to automate document/content capture, publishing, and archiving processes

What are the top enterprise content management systems?

According to end-user feedback on TrustRadius.com, top-rated enterprise content management software include:

For more information about other ECM products, including which products are most popular among different business sizes, view the Enterprise Content Management Software TrustMap on TrustRadius.com

How are enterprise content management systems and document management systems different?

Enterprise content management (ECM) systems are similar to document management systems (DMS) in many ways. For example, they both help manage files, provide a central repository for document storage, and perform document retrieval. However, there are a few key differences as well, including:

  • ECMs can work with both structured and unstructured information, while DMSs work with structured document formats.
  • ECMs tend to be more complex systems than DMS software, as they are designed to manage the flow of documents across enterprise organizations.
  • Some ECMs also have content publishing capabilities, while DMSs are mainly used for creating, managing, storing, and retrieving documents.
  • DMSs also focus more heavily on document metadata management and manipulation than ECMs typically do.

How much does enterprise content management software cost?

The cost of enterprise content management software varies depending on the type of software deployment (cloud-based vs. on-premise), number of users, and pricing model. Some products will have a one-time license fee, this can range between $2,000 - $4,000.

Cloud-based products are more likely to have monthly or annual subscription-based pricing instead. Prices can range from $5 to $50 per month per user.