SHSelfHostIndex

Alfresco Community Edition vs OpenKM Community

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted document management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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AL Alfresco Community Edition Enterprise content and document management platform VS OP OpenKM Community Archived Enterprise document management and content platform
FeatureAlfresco Community EditionOpenKM Community
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score70 · Good15 · At risk
StatusActively maintainedArchived
CategoryDocument ManagementDocument Management
LicenseLGPL-3.0GPL-2.0
LanguageJavaJava
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM4,096 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 230★ 849
First released20052006
ReplacesSharePoint, DocumentumDocuWare, SharePoint

What are Alfresco Community Edition and OpenKM Community?

Alfresco Community Edition

Alfresco Community Edition is an open-source enterprise content management platform handling documents, records, and business processes. It supports versioning, metadata, full-text search, and BPM-driven workflows.

  • Full-text search
  • Records management
  • BPM workflows
  • Rich metadata

OpenKM Community

OpenKM is an enterprise content management system with a community edition for storing and managing documents and records. It offers workflows, metadata, OCR, and granular security controls.

  • Workflow automation
  • Metadata and records management
  • OCR and full-text search
  • Fine-grained security

Alfresco Community Edition vs OpenKM Community: key differences

The biggest difference is maintenance: OpenKM Community's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Alfresco Community Edition is actively maintained. Both projects are written in Java. Licensing differs — LGPL-3.0 for Alfresco Community Edition versus GPL-2.0 for OpenKM Community. OpenKM Community is the lighter option, starting around 2,048 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Alfresco Community Edition. OpenKM Community has the considerably larger community, at 849 GitHub stars versus 230.

Why pick each one

Choose Alfresco Community Edition if…

  • Enterprise grade features
  • Strong API

Watch out for

  • Resource hungry
  • Complex to operate
Alfresco Community Edition details

Choose OpenKM Community if…

  • Comprehensive enterprise features
  • Mature platform

Watch out for

  • Heavy resource use
  • Complex administration
OpenKM Community details

Frequently asked questions

Is Alfresco Community Edition or OpenKM Community better?

Neither is universally better. OpenKM Community has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Alfresco Community Edition and OpenKM Community free and open-source?

Yes. Alfresco Community Edition is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and OpenKM Community under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Alfresco Community Edition and OpenKM Community with Docker?

Alfresco Community Edition: yes. OpenKM Community: yes.

Which is lighter on resources, Alfresco Community Edition or OpenKM Community?

OpenKM Community has the smaller minimum footprint at 2,048 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Alfresco Community Edition. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.

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