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With so many different enterprise content management systems available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want to improve business processes by managing the flow of information effectively but need to figure out which tool is best. I've got you! In this post I'll help make your choice easy, sharing my personal experiences using dozens of different content management tools with various teams and projects, with my picks of the best enterprise content management systems.

What Is An Enterprise Content Management System?

Enterprise content management systems (ECM) are tools that manage an organization's information and documents. They handle various forms of content, from documents to images and emails, organizing and storing them digitally. ECM systems streamline the process of capturing, storing, accessing, and managing enterprise information.

The benefits of ECM systems include enhanced efficiency in managing large volumes of content, improved compliance with data management regulations, and facilitated collaboration among team members. They aid in decision-making by providing quick access to relevant information, reduce paper-related costs, and secure sensitive data, adapting to the evolving needs of a business.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Enterprise Content Management Systems

Here’s a brief description of each enterprise content management solution to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the interface.

Best for automatically tagging assets

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.5/5

Brandfolder is a cloud-based digital asset management (DAM) platform with powerful enterprise content management (ECM) solutions.

It is designed for enterprise usability, allowing creatives and marketing professionals to manage and distribute all their digital assets efficiently while getting a better understanding of their performance. The platform offers multiple processes to facilitate the organization, storage, and retrieval of media assets as well as the management of digital rights and permissions. It can be customized to serve the unique requirements of businesses in different sectors, including retail, technology, and sports.

Brandfolder is equipped with a centralized storage facility, referred to within the platform as ingesting and storing. Businesses and enterprises can use it to store all their branded assets. They can upload, organize, share, and store an unlimited number of digital assets and files, all from a secure location. An admin can set the permissions so internal and external users can easily and securely access and/or add more branded assets.

The tool can support multiple file formats and it allows for easy bulk uploads with drag-and-drop functionality.

Brandfolder features a proprietary AI engine for brand intelligence. It empowers teams to find branded content easier and quicker, giving them the ability to engage in more strategic projects while ensuring more effective budgeting for creative and marketing initiatives. This AI engine is constantly working in the background, serving as a consistent extension of creative and marketing teams.

Brand Intelligence is built on proprietary algorithms designed to analyze and tag every creative asset, while also adapting to the users’ tagging behavior behind the scenes. One of the key advantages of this function is that it doesn’t require any additional data scientists or even specialized training for users.


Best for managing content production

  • 14-day free trial + free plan available
  • From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)
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Rating: 4.7/5

Monday is a flexible platform that lets you build tools for multiple use cases, including content management. The tool has several customizable templates teams can use, each with different specialized features.

The content planning template lets you create entries for each piece of content and then add crucial information such as the word count, who will write it, and the content category. Meanwhile, the content calendar helps you manage the publication of this content.

The great thing about Monday is that these templates are highly customizable. You can add or remove capabilities to help with the planning process. You can also view the content in multiple ways including as a spreadsheet, in a calendar, or as a Gantt chart.

The tool integrates with plenty of productivity, cloud storage, and content creation tools—for example, DropBox, Google Drive, and Adobe Creative Cloud. Monday pricing starts at $6 per seat per month, and you can try each plan for free.

Best for workflow management and collaboration tools

  • 14-day free trial available
  • From $109/month
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Rating: 4.3/5

GatherContent is a content management platform designed to help you streamline your content creation process and collaborate on content pieces. With it, you can outline various content production workflows and track each piece through the development process. It's well-suited to marketing teams, agencies, publishers, and media companies.

The software's project management tools allow you to design multiple workflows to represent how different types of content are created at your organization. Using these workflows, you can map and track projects through the various stages of development across teams, departments, or your entire organization. You can also set up the software to auto-assign tasks to specific team members, and create an editorial calendar to keep an overview of what's getting published and when.

Beyond managing your content projects, you can also actually create and collaborate on pieces using the software's content editor. This includes the option to build a template library for faster production. To ensure standards are upheld, you can embed your style guide and set guidelines and field rules within the editor. Team members can exchange feedback using the system's inline comments, and a revision history is kept for every document.

The software integrates with other tools like Microsoft Word, Wordpress, Slack, and Adobe Experience Manager, among others. Pricing starts at $109/month, and a free 14-day trial is available.

Best ECM software for security and compliance

  • From $20/user/month
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Rating: 4.2/5

Box is an ECM solution that lets businesses store and share all their files: from multimedia to documents. It has features that enable real-time collaboration and powerful search that helps team members access what they need.

The tool stands out due to its security and compliance features. You have granular access to permission controls to set precisely who can view each file. You can also label files as classified to restrict downloads and add watermarks.

Box Shield is perhaps the most powerful security feature. It is a security platform that has malware detection, the ability to spot compromised accounts, and tools that automatically classify sensitive data.

Box integrates with over 1,500 apps, including Office365, Google Workspace, Slack, Salesforce, and Netsuite ERP. Pricing starts at $20 per user per month and goes up to $47 per user per month for the complete offering.

Best enterprise tool integration

  • Free demo available
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.2/5

OpenText Enterprise Content Management software helps businesses store, organize, share, and access all their documents.

It comes with intuitive tools to enable content creation and collaboration. For example, the Microsoft integration lets users work and collaborate within Microsoft Office apps while ensuring the files stay connected to the OpenText platform. It also has document capture features that let you store both electronic and paper documents.

Compliance is an issue for enterprises that store content, and OpenText has several features to help. For example, governance policies and content management best practices are automatically applied to information as it is created. It also has records management features to help you comply with external regulations and your company’s internal policy.

OpenText integrates with many other business applications like Microsoft, Salesforce CRM, and SAP. The company doesn’t publicize pricing. But you can contact the sales team on the website to find out more.

Best for cloud, on-premises, or hybrid ECM deployment

  • 14 days free trial of the cloud-based platform
  • Pricing upon request
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Rating: 4.3/5

Alfresco is a powerful open-source ECM system. It enables anyone in your business to upload and share files, including images, videos, PDFs, and documents with others. You can even scan and upload paper files to create a record of non-digital documents.

The tool has powerful search features. Access the search bar from within the workspace and then filter the results based on several criteria to find the exact content you need. Meanwhile, you can easily set permissions for documents and folders to ensure only the right people can see files, libraries, and folders.

The tool’s most useful integrations are with Google Docs and Microsoft365. These allow you to use each service’s powerful document editing functionality while keeping the content stored in Alfresco. It makes file sharing and collaborating on content in real-time easy.

Pricing depends on your needs and you can contact the company for more information. Alfresco offers a free 14 day trial of the cloud-based platform or a 30 day trial of the downloadable software.

Best for centralized project tracking

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $30/user/month (billed annually)
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Rating: 4.2/5

Artwork Flow by Bizongo is a cloud-based project management and workflow automation tool designed to facilitate the artwork management process for teams. The tool aims to reduce the time spent on artwork approval processes and to improve collaboration between stakeholders by providing a centralized space for project tracking and communication. 

Artwork Flow by Bizongo provides a centralized platform for managing and tracking the creation, approval, and storage of marketing content and artwork. It offers features such as digital asset management, which allows enterprises to store, organize, and retrieve digital assets efficiently.

Additionally, Artwork Flow's workflow management capabilities help enterprises to define and monitor the progress of content through various stages of development and approval, ensuring that projects adhere to timelines and quality standards. The tool also supports collaboration among team members by enabling them to share feedback, annotations, and approvals within the platform, thus facilitating clear communication and reducing the risk of errors.

Artwork Flow by Bizongo integrates with Slack, Google Calendar, Figma, Dropbox, and Google Drive.

Pricing starts at $30/user/month (billed annually). A 14-day free trial and a free plan are also available.

Best headless CMS

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $1249/month

Kontent is a headless CMS that lets teams create, store, and collaborate on content for multiple end destinations.

In practice, this means that each piece of content—whether text, image, or video—is created separately. Then teams can push this content to the places they want in a way that makes sense on that platform, be it a website, mobile app, digital display, or any other place where content is published.

Kontent has plenty of features that make this possible. For example, you can upload and manage all your content in a single repository. From here, your team can collaborate on designs and take advantage of the built-in editorial calendar.

It’s also easy to categorize and manage content in ways that make sense. And there’s a WYSIWYG web page creation tool that lets you design pages as you want them.

Kontent pricing starts at $1,249 per month for a single project with up to ten users. The premium plan is $2,499 and adds more features and users. There’s also a trial that lets you try out the platform for free.

Best for publishing content across multiple channels

  • Free for 5 users
  • From $300/month

Contentful is a content platform that helps you manage unstructured content and publish it across multiple channels.

The way it works is that you connect your website, mobile app, or any other platform that displays content to the Contentful API. You then upload, create, and edit the content you want to publish within Contentful. When it’s ready to go live, you push the content from Contentful to the relevant platforms.

The benefit is that you only have to create the content once, rather than creating or repurposing one piece of content for different channels. And any changes you make to the content once it is live are reflected across all published channels.

Contentful has several tools that make this easy to do. The editor is easy to use and multiple people can collaborate on a single piece of content. Then there’s the preview that lets you see what content will look like on each platform before publishing. There are also tools for managing and organizing video, images, and other multimedia brand assets.

Contentful integrates with plenty of tools. For example, you can use Netlify to build and preview sites, Dropbox to share files, and Slack to be alerted to content changes. There’s a free version of Contentful you can use to test out the software. Prices for paid plans start at $489 per month.

Best for collaborating on content

  • Free forever plan available
  • Plans start at $12/user/month

Bluescape is a SaaS online collaboration space that helps teams bring their ideas to life. It’s ideal for remote or distributed teams as it helps provide a similar experience to an in-person meeting.

The way it works is that you start with a digital space anyone in your team can access. Employees can then add content from various sources, including cloud storage solutions like Google Drive and DropBox, and creation platforms like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite.

Anyone with access to the space can comment on, edit, or discuss the files. Features such as diagraming tools, sketching, and shapes make collaborating and sharing ideas easy. And you can do all this while in a video call to emulate the feeling of a real meeting.

Bluescape pricing starts at $10 per user per month for unlimited workspaces. The business plan costs $20 per user per month and is suitable for teams that require enterprise integrations.

The 10 Best Enterprise Content Management Systems Comparison Chart

Here is a table you can use to compare all the tools we just covered in the overviews.

Tools Price
Brandfolder Pricing upon request
monday.com From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)
GatherContent From $109/month
Box From $20/user/month
OpenText Pricing upon request
Alfresco Pricing upon request
Artwork Flow by Bizongo From $30/user/month (billed annually)
Kontent From $1249/month
Contentful From $300/month
Bluescape Plans start at $12/user/month
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Compare Software Specs Side by Side

Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.

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Other Options

Here are a few more tools that didn’t make the top list but are worth your consideration.

  1. DocStar – In-cloud or on-premises document management solution.
  2. Contentstack – Headless CMS to create and manage content.
  3. Bynder – Digital asset management platform with collaboration tools.
  4. IBM Filenet – Cloud content management system for organization, collaboration, and process automation
  5. WoodWing Studio – Digital asset management plus multi-channel publishing.
  6. Paperflite – Document management software with advanced sharing tools.
  7. Imagen – Securely organize digital media.
  8. DOCUBASE – Collect, store, and share media in any format.
  9. Systemware Content Cloud – Content management with on-site deployment.
  10. Agility CMS – User-friendly headless CMS.
  11. Nuxeo Content Services Platform – Low-code enterprise content management platform.
  12. Umbraco CMS – Flexible website CMS.
  13. Dokmee ECM – ECM with automated workflows and powerful management features.
  14. Tizra – Build an online content library to maximize your existing content.
  15. ELO ECM Suite – Digitize business content and connect to a suite of enterprise integrations.
  16. Hyland’s OnBase – Enterprise content management with case management and business process features.
  17. Laserfiche – Capture, organize, and automatically index documents to make content available throughout your organization.
  18. Microsoft Sharepoint – Team intranets designed to share and manage content and knowledge.

How I Picked The Best Enterprise CMS Solutions

What do I look for when I select the top enterprise content management systems? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:

User Interface (UI)

A good UI makes the software easy to use. This is essential because non-technical people throughout your organization rely on it.

Usability

Content management software is designed to make it easy for end-users to access the content they need. Therefore, it's important to look at the ways in which the tool facilitates learning. I look at training videos, tutorials, knowledge bases, and customer support.

Integrations

I look at the ways in which the software can connect to other SaaS tools. Content management software typically integrates with content creation tools, document management systems, web content-related platforms, and productivity tools. This lets you connect with your tech ecosystem and access information from one place.

Pricing

Enterprise content tools are high-ticket items. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t offer value for money. I think all the tools on this list offer value for the right business. Most tools offer pricing on request, but you can get an idea of general costs here.

Enterprise Content Management Systems FAQs

Find answers to common questions other people ask about this topic.

What key features are in enterprise content management software

  1. Document Management: Document management features help you organize files. Features to look out for include automatic tagging, powerful search, results filtering, and permissions management. Tools should store electronic files and enable the digitization of paper files.
  2. Digital Asset Management: The software’s management features should stretch to video and images. Look for the ability to upload large files, edit or comment on the go, automatically tag content, and share assets with third parties.
  3. Workflow Automation: Workflow automation handles tasks, so you don’t have to. In enterprise content management software, this could mean automatically categorizing files, applying content management or compliance rules, or enabling you to publish content on multiple platforms with a single click.
  4. Content Archiving: Content archiving means keeping a record of all your digital content. Content management software should come with the storage and management features to make archiving and retention possible.
  5. Metadata Management Tools: Consistent metadata best practices help organize content. Content management software typically has tools that help you standardize metadata management.

What is enterprise content management?

Enterprise content management software are the tools that help you manage your organization’s content. Content can be anything from text documents and spreadsheets to multimedia assets like video and images.

The goal of these tools is to provide instant content access to people in your organization who need it. They often also enable people to work and collaborate on documents in real time. This ultimately helps teams that rely on content work more efficiently.

And it’s not just used by businesses that you would typically associate with content creation. All large enterprises use content somehow, from governments to those in healthcare, law, education, and financial services.

What are the benefits of content management systems?

  1. Improved productivity. Enterprise content management software improves content access, which in turn improves productivity. It ensures that everyone in an organization who benefits from access to content can get it whenever and wherever they need it.
  2. Streamlined document organization. ECM platforms typically come with advanced document organization features. This may include automatic document tagging, version controls, and the ability to share files across teams and departments. This combines with powerful search features to make finding the right document a breeze.
  3. More intuitive collaboration. Many document management tools enable collaboration and real-time document editing. This achieves two things: first is that it makes working on documents and files easy. Second is that version control means you always end up with a single file representing the most up-to-date content.

enterprise content management systems logos list

What's Next?

The tools on the list are some of the best enterprise content management software available. Using one will help you organize content so teams throughout your business stay productive. If you need more help managing your content (or managing projects using a enterprise PM framework), we have plenty of resources available.

This workshop goes through all you need to know about using content models to unify teams and stakeholders.

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By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 20 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, PRINCE2 Practitioner and productivity nut!