M-Files today
From M-Files' own pages and user guide:
- M-Files ships monthly releases numbered by year and month. Release 26.9 reached cloud customers on September 20, 2026. Development now centers on the new M-Files Desktop.
- It runs as M-Files Cloud on Microsoft Azure, on-premises behind your own firewall, on your own Windows Server virtual machines in a public cloud, or as a hybrid.
- M-Files Aino is its AI assistant: it summarizes documents, answers questions about their contents and suggests metadata. M-Files Hubshare is a portal for sharing documents and working with people outside.
- The current editions are Essentials and Enterprise. Subscriptions are typically billed annually, with named, concurrent and read-only user licenses, sold directly and through authorized partners.
- The company has offices in Tampere, Finland and Austin, Texas.
The idea both share, and where they differ
M-Files says it organizes documents by what they are, not where they are stored, and replaces folders with metadata and relationships. Its views list documents by their metadata, so one contract can appear under the customer, the project and the expiry month at once.
Content Central works on the same principle. Each document has a document type with index fields, and search, permissions, workflow and reports all run on those fields. The difference is that Content Central also gives people familiar folders, built automatically from the fields: Legal, then the client, for example. Staff who think in folders can browse, and nobody has to choose where to save.
The differences that usually decide it are elsewhere:
- Where it runs. Both come hosted or installed on your own servers. M-Files also documents your own cloud virtual machines and hybrid setups; Content Central is either in our cloud or on your servers.
- What is built in. Content Central includes multi-step approvals, electronic signatures and packets. M-Files connects to signature providers such as DocuSign, Adobe Acrobat Sign and Visma Sign.
- How far AI goes. Aino is an assistant inside the vault. Ademero's AI runs through the whole process: CapturePoint 6 reads documents at the scanner, and the Cortexa AI suite connects to Content Central so AI can help decide, look up, route and move information, with private chat for your team and custom AI tools built around your work.
Side by side
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| M-Files | Content Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | M-Files Cloud on Microsoft Azure, on-premises, your own cloud VMs, or hybrid | Your own servers (Windows Server, IIS and SQL Server) or hosted in our cloud; used in a web browser either way |
| How documents are organized | Vaults, object types, classes and properties; views list documents by metadata | Catalogs, document types and index fields; folders and file names built from field values; saved searches |
| Workflow | Workflows model a document’s lifecycle through states | Workflow rules (25 trigger types) plus multi-step approvals with voting rules, deadlines and escalation |
| Versions | Previous versions kept; return to a previous version from the history | Major and minor versions; earlier major versions downloadable |
| AI | Aino: document summaries, answers about contents, metadata suggestions | Cortexa AI suite: private AI connected to Content Central for decisions, lookups and routing, private team chat, and custom AI tools built with our team; CapturePoint 6 reads documents at the scanner |
| Electronic signatures | Integrations with Adobe Acrobat Sign, DocuSign and Visma Sign | Built in: request signatures from anyone with an email address, or sign on approval |
| Microsoft 365 | Works inside Microsoft 365, with Teams, Outlook and SharePoint | Office and Outlook add-in (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Project); email capture from Microsoft 365 |
| People outside | Hubshare portal | Share with an email address with an expiry date; signature requests and fillable forms by email; no portal |
| How it is sold | Essentials and Enterprise editions; annual subscriptions; named, concurrent and read-only licenses | Quoted for your users and setup |
M-Files facts are from M-Files' own site, user guide and product news (see sources). Ask M-Files or your partner about anything that matters to your decision.
Who should stay, who should look
Stay with M-Files if
- You want a hybrid of cloud and on-premises in one system, or to run it on your own cloud virtual machines.
- You collaborate with clients or partners through Hubshare.
- You model more than documents (customers, projects, assets) as objects in the vault.
Content Central fits if
- You want one system with approvals and signatures included, on your own servers or in our cloud.
- You want AI working through your document processes, private to you, with custom AI tools built around how you work.
- Most of your metadata is typed by hand from paper or PDFs, and you want it read at the scanner instead.
- You track sets of documents, such as a loan or an employee file, and need to see what is missing.
- Approved invoices should go to QuickBooks, Sage 50, Sage X3, Workday or Epicor.
Where metadata comes from
A metadata-first system is only as good as its metadata. Someone has to fill in the client, the case number and the document type for every page that arrives. With a few documents a day that is fine. With a scanner running all morning, it becomes the job.
Content Central fills fields without typing in several ways:
- QCards: barcode separator sheets that split a stack and carry the index values for each document.
- Zonal recognition: reads text or barcodes from a fixed spot on a form.
- Email capture: maps sender, subject and date from a Microsoft 365, Gmail or IMAP mailbox to fields.
- Lookups: fill the rest from a database once one value, such as a vendor number, is known.
For mixed stacks, CapturePoint 6 does the reading on the Windows PC next to the scanner: it splits the stack, recognizes each document type, reads the fields and files each document into Content Central with those values matched to its index fields. Anything it is unsure about waits for a person, with the reason shown.
One case file, moved
Take an example law office vault with a class called Court filing and properties for Client, Case number and Filing type. A view groups filings by client. Here is the same case file in Content Central.
- 01
Class to document types
Court filing becomes a set of document types in a Legal catalog: Motion, Notice of Hearing, Affidavit, Certificate of Service and so on, or one type with a Filing type field. Pick whichever matches how people search. - 02
Properties to index fields
Client and Case number become global fields, shared by every legal document type, so one search finds the whole case. - 03
View to a folder rule
The by-client view becomes a folder rule: Legal, then Client. The folder appears as soon as a document carries the client’s name. - 04
Workflow states to approvals
A Draft, Review, Final lifecycle becomes an approval process with a reviewer stage and a partner stage, and a deadline that escalates after a set number of days.
What a move involves
Export
M-Files' Export content produces a content package from a vault, and its replication and archiving feature can archive data as XML or PDF/A. Either gives you files plus their metadata. The package format is M-Files' own, so a conversion step maps it to the descriptor Content Central reads when it captures files with their field values.
Field mapping
List each class with its properties. Text, number and date properties map directly to index fields. Value lists become choice lists; a value list that points at another object (a customer, a project) usually becomes a plain field with that object's name or number, filled from a lookup if the list lives in another system. Multi-select properties map to multi-select fields.
Versions
M-Files keeps previous versions of every object. Its export documentation does not state plainly whether a standard export carries the full history, so confirm it with your M-Files partner before you plan. Most moves bring the current version of each document and keep an archive export for the history.
Permissions
Rebuild access as document-type permissions for groups. Where M-Files limits documents by a property, Content Central can limit them by field value, so a branch or a practice group sees only its own documents.
Where these facts come from
Everything this page says about M-Files comes from these pages, checked on 4 October 2026. Products change; if something here is out of date, the vendor's page wins. Content Central facts come from its own documentation and the Content Central help library.
- M-Files: platform overview
- M-Files user guide: deployment options
- M-Files: editions and pricing page (editions, billing; prices not used)
- M-Files September 2026 product update
- M-Files user guide: using M-Files Aino
- M-Files: artificial intelligence capabilities
- M-Files Hubshare user guide
- M-Files user guide: terms (vaults, views, workflows)
- M-Files user guide: object history
- M-Files: Microsoft integrations
- M-Files: electronic signatures
- M-Files user guide: license management
- M-Files: find a partner
- M-Files user guide: export content
- M-Files user guide: content replication and archiving
- M-Files: about (offices)
M-Files is a trademark of M-Files Oy. Ademero is not affiliated with M-Files Oy.