Alfresco Content Services vs SmartSearch | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.6 out of 10

Based on 58 reviews and ratings

Score 10 out of 10

Based on 4 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Content capture & imaging

File sync, storage & archiving

Document management

Records management

Content search & retrieval

Enterprise content collaboration

Content publishing & creation

Security, risk management & information governance

Contract lifecycle management

Automated workflows

Artificial intelligence

Mobile support

Integration

Pros

Integration with other applications, namely Drupal and Moodle, was simple and works beautifully.
The UI is intuitive, clean, and friendly. Users have required little training for basic functionality.
We have been pleased with the overall system performance of Alfresco Enterprise Content Management.

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Director of Technology and Chief Information Officer

Quality Matters ProgramE-Learning, 11-50 employees

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Sends email notifications to appropriate individuals when expiration or renewal notice dates are approaching.
Offers an easy and fast way to search for specific documents.
It allows managers to simply drop documents into the inboxes for Legal to permanently archive.
Allows documents to be easily emailed. No more sorting through various files on the desktop to try to find the correct document.
Is set up in an organized manner that is appropriate for the documents that are contained in the archives.

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Legal Assistant

OTT CommunicationsTelecommunications, 51-200 employees

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Cons

Alfresco Process Services and Alfresco Application Development Framework integration makes for best functionality/application of ECM.
Use case alignment - Marketing content and documentation of specific business requirements and user stories being available as reference material/documentation.
Integration with multiple silos for content.

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Verified User

Account Manager in Research & Development

Computer Software Company, 201-500 employees

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I use Firefox on a Mac Mini and often times my documents will not display in the preview so I will need to email them to myself first to preview prior to sending them to a client or candidate. (The Adobe image preview does not work either)
Sometimes it can hang up when saving files with a large amount of graphics.

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President/ Senior Technical Recruiter (Engineering, Architecture, Manufacturing, Design, CAD)

Techstaff of Southern WisconsinStaffing and Recruiting, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Alfresco Content Services 9.0

Based on 9 answers

As per the current market and the line of products that are available for content and document management system, Alfresco is a very good option compared to other systems in terms of features and cost. Plus the community support is great. Also since the product is open source, it can be extended or understood in a better way.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Media Production Company, 1001-5000 employees

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SmartSearch 8.6

Based on 3 answers

Too easy to use, low enough TCO to continue on with for a long, long time.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Usability

Alfresco Content Services 5.0

Based on 1 answer

Alfresco Content Services' UI has never been its strength from the beginning. Therefore, rating it from a usability standpoint, I will not rank it high. However, Alfresco Content Services can easily be integrated with any application and leveraged as a backend CMS or DM system. With the new Angular-based UI approach, it's very much possible to create custom UI on top of it as required.

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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SmartSearch 7.5

Based on 2 answers

Need to fix the preview utility.

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President/ Senior Technical Recruiter (Engineering, Architecture, Manufacturing, Design, CAD)

Techstaff of Southern WisconsinStaffing and Recruiting, 51-200 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SmartSearch 9.1

Based on 1 answer

Square-9 can get this product out to you in almost the same hour your order it. We got ours very fast.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

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Performance

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SmartSearch 8.2

Based on 1 answer

With the PDF projected viewer, the document retrieval-to-display can drag for a second more than some systems, and the capture workflow if you overload a server array can also drag, but those are the only two issues we've ever seen with this product, and they are not serious issues at all.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Support Rating

Alfresco Content Services 8.0

Based on 3 answers

I am not big fan of Alfresco Content Services' support; it works on its own speed and sometimes it becomes challenging to achieve business needs. However, I appreciate regular delivery of security patches and updates

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Verified User

Professional in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 201-500 employees

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SmartSearch 6.4

Based on 2 answers

I have never really needed support for this feature.

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President/ Senior Technical Recruiter (Engineering, Architecture, Manufacturing, Design, CAD)

Techstaff of Southern WisconsinStaffing and Recruiting, 51-200 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

In-Person Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SmartSearch 7.3

Based on 1 answer

It would have been higher, but the training is a bit muted for the lesser qualified office equipment vendors who signed up as partners to sell and support it. The more experienced ECM vendors and customer end-users will find the training very good, but a bit slow.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Alfresco Content Services 9.0

Based on 2 answers

Process was relatively smooth and overall, downtime minimal. MSI was very responsive to our needs and made the transition easier than it otherwise might have been.

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Verified User

Executive in Legal

Financial Services Company, 51-200 employees

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SmartSearch 8.1

Based on 2 answers

Just let it happen. It's very quick and smooth.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

All software has some pros and some cons. Alfresco has some good pluses, and suits our environment very well. It fit perfectly in the place that we are working on. That is why we decided to go with this software. Overall, the kind of content management that needs to be done in an organization is what would determine which software to use.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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A similar product I have used was Time Matters. For a Law Firm, I think Time Matters is more useful as it keeps track of everything for a client, including billing. However, since I now work for a legal department of a corporation, SmartSearch is definitley more useful. It is not possible to seperate the documents we have internally in neat client files. We have various miscellaneous documents for many different services and customers or vendors. SmartSearch allows us to organize in broad categories that make sense to internal employees using it and to make sure security is set on specific documents. Time Matters would not have been sufficient for our managers to have access to, since it uploads all documents to the file - some of which are confidential.

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Legal Assistant

OTT CommunicationsTelecommunications, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

SmartSearch 7.3

Based on 1 answer

The scale-ability is quite good actually, but you need competent sales/support folks providing it to you, so the scale is set right for the demands of your system use. Some resellers are not good at doing this, some are fantastic. If you are scaled correctly at first implementation, you'll be very happy with this system.

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Terrence Abrams

CEO

Dynamic Excellence in Information, LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Instant document lookup - No paper files to mail which saves in all areas of postage, truck delivery, physical storage warehouse space, printing, etc
No longer losing important documents - Previously with paper files things would go missing and those could be costly reports/assessments.
Ability to secure documents and provide access to only those who should be allowed to see that content

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Programmer Analyst

Edmonton Public SchoolsPrimary/Secondary Education, 5001-10,000 employees

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Increased efficiency in time management
Assists the company in not missing termination dates of vendors we do not wish to continue business.
Allows an easy analysis of all active vendors and customers.

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Legal Assistant

OTT CommunicationsTelecommunications, 51-200 employees

View all 3 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

Rating Summary

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

Alfresco Content Services

SmartSearch

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