Alfresco vs Nextcloud

September 26, 2023 | Author: Michael Stromann
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Alfresco
Alfresco is a Free enterprise content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Alfresco includes a content repository, an out-of-the-box web portal framework for managing and using standard portal content, a CIFS interface that provides file system compatibility on Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, a web content management system capable of virtualizing webapps and static sites via Apache Tomcat, Lucene indexing, and Activiti workflow. The Alfresco system is developed using Java technology.
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Nextcloud
Nextcloud is the most deployed on-premises file share and collaboration platform​. Access & collaborate across your devices.
Alfresco and Nextcloud are two popular open-source content collaboration platforms that offer file sharing, document management, and collaboration features. While they share some similarities, there are key differences between the two.

Alfresco is a robust enterprise content management (ECM) system designed for large organizations. It offers comprehensive features for managing documents, workflows, and records. Alfresco provides advanced capabilities like enterprise search, version control, metadata management, and integration with various business systems. It is known for its scalability and extensibility, making it suitable for complex enterprise environments.

Nextcloud, on the other hand, is a more user-centric and community-driven platform. It focuses on providing secure file sharing and collaboration capabilities, both within organizations and with external users. Nextcloud offers features like file syncing, real-time collaboration, calendar integration, and a wide range of third-party app integrations. It is known for its user-friendly interface and emphasis on privacy and data sovereignty.

See also: Top 10 ECM software
Alfresco vs Nextcloud in our news:

2020. Hyland to acquire Alfresco



Hyland, a provider of content services, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco, a leading open-source ECM platform. Founded in 2005 by John Newton (co-founder of Documentum) and John Powell (former COO of Business Objects), Alfresco has established itself as a prominent player in the open-source ECM space. Based in Boston, Alfresco specializes in developing a cloud-native digital business platform that offers content services solutions to connect, manage, and safeguard critical information for organizations. Following the completion of the transaction, the entire Alfresco business is expected to be integrated into Hyland Software, Inc. This acquisition aligns with Hyland's vision of becoming a global leader in content services, expanding its presence worldwide and welcoming additional customers, partners, and highly experienced employees. Incorporating Alfresco's solutions enriches Hyland's portfolio of content services offerings and opens up new avenues for collaboration with the open-source community, driving product innovation.


2016. Alfresco is available as a managed service on AWS



Alfresco, a renowned provider of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) software, has recently unveiled the early release of its platform as a managed service, now hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This development enables users to conveniently access the platform as a single-tenant managed service within an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) environment. Furthermore, Alfresco is taking steps to streamline cloud deployment for customers who self-manage their AWS infrastructure, making it more accessible and hassle-free.


2016. Alfresco integrates its ECM and BPM



Alfresco has unveiled a significant integration between its enterprise content management (ECM) platform, Alfresco One, and its Business Process Management (BPM) platform, Activiti. This marks the culmination of years of concerted efforts to bring the two platforms closer together, effectively enhancing the functionality of both in managing business content and processes. With this announcement, Alfresco enters the competitive Process and Collaboration Management (PCM) market, providing enterprises with a comprehensive suite of offerings encompassing content management and content-driven processes. The integration seamlessly combines BPM, ECM, records management, and includes integrations with capture and e-signature vendors, delivering a holistic solution for enterprises in need of robust process and collaboration management capabilities.


2015. Alfresco enhanced integration of its ECM and BPM systems



Alfresco is enriching its ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and BPM (Business Process Management) platforms, namely Alfresco One and Activiti, through the introduction of new modules for analytics and media management, as well as enhanced BPM capabilities. These newly released components bring additional functionality to the platforms and foster closer integration between BPM and ECM. The enhancements build upon Alfresco's open-source BPM offering, which had already been adopted by many enterprises as a standalone BPM engine in their applications. Now, as an enterprise version, Activiti v1.0 offers seamless integration with Alfresco Share, Alfresco's collaborative tool. In addition, Alfresco has unveiled an Analytics Module, which can be integrated with any of the Alfresco products, providing valuable insights and reporting capabilities regarding content, processes, and events related to individuals.


2014. Alfresco raises $45M to fight with EMC and Microsoft



UK-based Alfresco, a startup specializing in open-source enterprise content management, has secured Series D funding of $45 million. This investment exceeds the cumulative amount raised in all of its previous funding rounds combined. Alfresco is in competition with established services like EMC Documentum and Microsoft SharePoint, providing solutions for large organizations to effectively manage their diverse document storage across both cloud and on-premises environments. It offers features such as version control and compliance requirements across various devices, including mobile and PC. With the new funding, Alfresco plans to accelerate its business operations by enhancing sales and marketing efforts and expanding its range of cloud-based services. This expansion may result in direct competition with popular platforms such as Dropbox, Box, and Huddle.


2011. Alfresco created collaboration system for SMB



Alfresco's content management and collaboration system gained its big popularity thanks to the low pricing and availability of free open-source edition. But still it's pretty complicated solution that doesn't fit small business. But now Alfresco decided to fix this issue and released Alfresco Team which is designed for content collaboration in departments and small companies. It reminds Sharepoint Team Site or Box.net, but more functional and cheap. Users can create sites (workspaces) with different pages - document libraries, calendars, wiki, task lists, blogs, forums. Alfteso Team's functionality includes social tools (comments, ratings, Like buttons), activity streams, web-viewer (which lets you view even videos and audio files), mobile versions for iPhone and iPad, workflow-engine (implemented on Alfresco BPM), document converter (eg doc -> pdf). ***


2010. Alfresco launched free BPM engine



Alfresco loves to make problems for IT giants by its altruistic approach to business. For several years, this company is exerting pressure on ECM market leaders (Microsoft, IBM, Open Text, EMC, Oracle) by providing high-quality free/cheap open-source system Alfresco ECM. And now, the company decided to build communism in another, related IT field - BPM (Business Process Management). The new Alfresco product - Activiti is absolutely free, open-source BPM system, distributed under Apache License 2.0. To develop this system Alfresco (traditionally) enticed executives from competing project JBoss jBPM - Tom Baeyens and Joram Barrez. They were helped by the SpringSource (VMWare) developers. In result they built light-weight, fast and free product that is intended to revolutionize the BPM market. ***


2010. Document Management goes 2.0: Alfresco vs SharePoint



Document management systems (DMS) and related to them Enterprise Content Management systems (ECM) like all other IT solutions are gradually embracing Enterprise 2.0 technologies. This is a difficult move for them. Because DMS and ECM - are quite old and conservative technologies/systems and it's always difficult to change for old school. Besides the main DMS and ECM users are large companies and it's very difficult to upgrade them to the next level. Nevertheless, the progress goes on. Let's take a look on how the Enterprise 2.0 technologies are implemented in DMS and ECM nowadays: ***


2010. Alfresco Enterprise 3.3 - CMIS support, integration with Drupal, Outlook and Google Docs



Alfresco has recently unveiled the latest version of its commercial open-source ECM system, Alfresco Enterprise 3.3. The key highlight of this update is its integration capabilities with other content systems via the CMIS interface. Alfresco is the pioneering ECM vendor to offer complete support for CMIS in its product. With CMIS, business applications can seamlessly access content stored in the Alfresco database. The new version introduces integration with Drupal, Outlook, and Google Docs, following Alfresco's previous integration efforts with IBM products such as Lotus Notes, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Quickr, and Lotus Connections. Alongside the expanded integration opportunities, Alfresco 3.3 presents an enhanced web interface for its collaborative tool, Alfresco Share. This interface boasts improvements in the access control system, record management, custom lists (similar to SharePoint, such as tasks, activities, and companies), and a Google-like search query syntax. Additionally, we would like to highlight the new Alfresco Web Editor, which enables non-technical staff to create and edit pages with ease.


2009. Alfresco to provide cloud ECM

rephrase in one paragraph: Alfresco, open source ECM provider, announced a partnership with ParaScale, a cloud storage software provider, to offer Alfresco "Content as a Service". In enterprise deployments of ECM solutions, the traditional model is separate hardware for front-end and back-end (multiple this model based on usage requirements). It's the model that Alfresco would typically recommend to its clients. ParaScale looks to change that model. The Alfresco, ParaScale partnership enables the Alfresco Enterprise CMS to reside on the same servers that support the cloud infrastructure. This includes all aspects of the Alfresco platform (front-end and content repositories). The Alfresco software can be installed on one or more of the Storage Nodes on the ParaScale Platform. You can start your cloud storage solution small and grow it as required without a great deal of changes. You simply add a new Storage Node and make the required clustering configuration changes in Alfresco (okay, there's a little more than that, but it's not complicated).

Author: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com