Operations · Documents
VanVed vs M-Files
for Documents
Why businesses choose VanVed over M-Files
For a mid-sized business this is a document store that is already attached to the HR, CRM, fleet and asset records it serves, with expiry reminders and a full audit trail, at no extra licence cost — against a quote-only ECM that typically lands somewhere north of $30 a seat and needs a project to deploy.
Capability by capability
Every row below is what our 2026 research found — including the rows we lose.
| Capability | VanVed | M-Files |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Included with the platform | Quote-only, per user per year; entry seats are reported around $30–$65/user/mo |
| Filing model | Folders, categories, free-text tags and a link to one business record | Metadata-driven — documents are classified by properties, not by where they sit |
| Version history | Every upload becomes a numbered version with an uploader and a change description | Full version control with check-in/check-out |
| Check-out locking | None — two people can upload conflicting versions | Check-out prevents concurrent edits |
| Permissions | Three levels per document — all staff, admins only, or a named list of users | Permissions derived automatically from the document's own metadata |
| Audit trail | Append-only log of every view, download and change, visible in the app | Full audit trail with compliance reporting |
| Retention and records management | None — expiry is a dashboard only, nothing is ever archived or purged on a policy | Retention schedules and records management with compliance certifications |
| AI classification | No AI touches documents — no auto-tagging, no extraction | Aino is included across cloud tiers; Enterprise agents auto-extract metadata and classify |
Where M-Files is ahead of us today
M-Files is a compliance-grade ECM and this is not close. There is no check-out, so two people editing the same document produce two conflicting versions with nothing to warn them. Permissions are three coarse levels rather than anything derived from the document itself. There is no retention or records policy at all — the expiry date shows on a dashboard and then nothing happens — and no AI to classify or extract metadata from what gets uploaded.
We publish this because a comparison that only flatters us is worth nothing to you. If one of these gaps is the thing you actually need, M-Files may well be the better buy.
What VanVed's Documents module does
- Versioning
Keep every version of a document, not just the latest one.
- Confidentiality controls
Mark documents confidential so only the right people can see them.
- Expiry reminders
Get reminded before a document — a licence, an ID, a certificate — expires.
- Folders & trash
Organize documents into folders, with a trash for anything deleted by mistake.