Files.com vs. IBM Sterling

Modern File Orchestration, Live In Days — Not 12 To 18 Months

Files.com is the modern alternative to IBM Sterling. 4,000+ companies run their file transfer on it instead, including Equifax, Cognizant, Michelin, TowneBank, and Banner Health. They were live in days, not the 12 to 18 months a Sterling rollout takes.

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4,000+ organizations rely on Files.com every day

Real companies. Real file flows. Real results.

IBM Sterling Was The Gold Standard A Generation Ago

IBM Sterling was built in another era, against on-prem mainframes and partner onboarding measured in quarters. In its day, it was an excellent product. The problem is that too many enterprises are still running it today.

A Sterling customer today is dealing with crumbling infrastructure, seven-figure licensing, and consulting bills that never stop. Most also staff a so-called Center of Excellence whose whole job is keeping Sterling running.

And it isn’t one product. To do one job, IBM makes you license three: Sterling File Gateway, B2B Integrator, and Control Center. Each one is paid for, deployed, and maintained on its own.

Files.com does the same job as one cloud-native file orchestration platform we run for you: SFTP, FTPS, FTP, WebDAV, AS2 and EDI, Automations, transformation, the on-premise Agent, and the REST API. One product, one bill, and our team runs the migration.

A global IT infrastructure services provider retired IBM Sterling File Gateway for Files.com without rewriting hundreds of fixed-path z/OS batch jobs, reaching mainframes with no direct internet access and clients whose firewalls stay closed.

Global IT Infrastructure Services Provider

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Why The Architecture Is The Entire Decision

Sterling makes you run the software. You license it, you stand it up over a year or more, you staff a Center of Excellence to operate it, and you pay IBM or a partner to deploy and upgrade it.

Files.com does the opposite. We built the platform for the cloud, and we run it, patch it, and keep it secure. Your team logs in and the file transfer works. There is a self-serve 7-day trial if your IT team wants to validate the technology first.

That is the entire decision: do you want to run this software, or do you want to use it?

Where Files.com Wins

One Platform, Not Three Products

SFTP, Automations, Inboxes, AS2 and EDI, the on-premise Agent, and the REST API in one product. Sterling makes you buy three: File Gateway, B2B Integrator, and Control Center.

Live In Days, Not 12 To 18 Months

Files.com is cloud-native and deployed by us. A first workload moves in days, not the year-plus a Sterling integration takes to stand up.

No Consulting Tax, No Center Of Excellence

Files.com’s Customer Engineering team runs the migration and operates the platform. There is no dedicated Sterling team to staff and no IBM professional-services line items to fund.

Published Pricing

Files.com publishes its pricing. Sterling is quote-driven, seven-figure, and negotiated deal by deal.

Transformation Built In, DataWeave-Compatible

Files TransformScript uses DataWeave-compatible syntax, with File Extraction as declarative metadata, all in one platform. Sterling separates this across its Map Editor, Application Integrator, and Process Modeler.

#1 Across Every G2 Rating For Managed File Transfer

Those ratings come from the IT teams of 4,000+ organizations running the platform in production across 15+ years.

An IT Services Provider Replaced Its Former Parent's FTP Service and IBM Sterling File Gateway Without Rewriting Batch Jobs

A hostname under the provider's own name, fixed IP addresses, and one-for-one path mapping let established z/OS workflows keep running across tightly controlled client environments.

Read The Story

One Platform To Replace Your Whole File Stack

Every capability legacy MFT licenses as a module, plus the ones it never had — on one platform, with published pricing.

Cloud SFTP, FTP & MFT Server

Dedicated, fully managed SFTP, FTPS, and FTP endpoints, with every protocol your partners already use. No servers to patch and no DMZ to maintain.Replaces IBM Sterling, GoAnywhere, MOVEit, Axway, AWS Transfer Family

See Cloud SFTP Server

File Sharing & Collaboration

Branded portals, secure share links, and request inboxes, plus co-editing for Office documents. Partners and customers get access with no account and nothing to install.Replaces Box, Dropbox, ShareFile, Egnyte

See Collaboration

Fast File Transfer & Acceleration

Move files up to 5 TB at full speed over any distance, with chunked, resumable transfers on standard protocols and custom UDP acceleration in the Agent.Replaces IBM Aspera, Signiant

See Fast Transfers

Automation & Workflows

Trigger on a file arriving, a schedule, or an event, then route, convert, and notify, with retries and alerts built in. The reliable replacement for the scripts and cron jobs nobody wants to own.Replaces fragile custom scripts and cron jobs

See Automations

Data Transformation & Format Conversion

Reshape files inline as they move: convert formats and pull fields out of EDI, HL7, XML, JSON, and CSV, so downstream systems get exactly what they expect.Replaces hand-built parsing and conversion scripts

See Transform & Extract

Desktop Drive & File Server Replacement

Native apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android mount your cloud storage as a local drive, so you can retire aging file servers and NAS without changing how people work.Replaces NetApp, Nasuni, aging NAS, Windows file servers

See File Server Replacement

Every capability runs on one platform — SOC 2 Type II certified, HIPAA BAA available, with a complete audit trail on every action.

Security And Compliance, Built In

Files.com has run for 15+ years with zero breaches. The controls your auditors ask about are standard here, not add-ons.

SOC 2 Type II

Independently audited, every year.

FedRAMP Certified

Certified under FedRAMP 20x at Class A, with Class B in progress.

HIPAA & GDPR

BAA and DPA available, with EU and regional data residency.

Encrypted End To End

AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2 and 1.3 in transit.

SSO, SCIM & MFA

SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, MFA, and granular role-based access.

Complete Audit Trail

Every action logged immutably and streamed to your SIEM.

See Our Compliance Center

Every Support Request Reaches A Senior Engineer

No Level 1 runaround, no script, no callback queue. When something breaks, you reach a seasoned file transfer expert who can actually fix it.

All-Engineer Support Desk

Talk to file transfer experts who understand how you work.

Replies in under an hour
Talk straight to engineers
We watch for problems
We own the escalation

See How Support Works

Onboarding Services

A dedicated Customer Engineer and a step-by-step plan — most teams are live within five business days.

Migration planning
Help on go-live day
Workflow tuning
Training for your team

See How Onboarding Works

Resources & Training

Clear documentation, training materials, and how-to guides.

API documentation
Video tutorials
How-to guides
Yearly in-person customer events

View Our Documentation

“Files.com's strengths are simplicity, ease of use, and the cloud connectors. We don't have to invent custom infrastructure for every partner.”

Tommy Chapley

Senior Software Engineer, Equifax

“Files.com is versatile — it can manage many different situations from a single platform. We've consolidated multiple tools onto it.”

Regis Litre

Chief Information Officer, Rag & Bone

“Files.com is robust and scales to a large enterprise. We get multiple files per minute, per second — and we're a 24/7 organization, so everything has to always be up.”

Nelson Miranda

Sr. Systems Engineer, Spirit Airlines

Files.com Vs. IBM Sterling FAQ

What buyers ask most when comparing Files.com to IBM Sterling.

Yes. Files.com customers who replace Sterling cite cost reductions of 70% or more. Files.com publishes its pricing; Sterling is quote-driven and seven-figure, and the consulting bills never stop. If you have a Sterling renewal quote in hand, bring it. Contact Sales, and Files.com will not be undersold.

It runs as a phased project our team handles with you, not a rip-out. Files.com lands one workload at a time alongside your existing Sterling deployment, with the legacy path live as a fallback, and the first workload typically moves in days. The full retirement happens on your timeline, usually at the contract renewal. See how the switch works.

Yes. Files.com is one platform covering SFTP / FTPS / FTP / WebDAV, AS2 and EDI partner management, Automations, transformation, and monitoring under one license. A full Sterling deployment splits that across three separately licensed products.

Yes. Certificates, MDNs, partner-specific routing rules, retries, and audit trails for AS2 / EDI partner exchange are all configured in the platform, with Partner Channels adding per-partner and per-channel analytics.

No. Sterling supports AS/400 and iSeries natively and speaks PeSIT; Files.com does not. Files.com connects to those environments over standard protocols (SFTP, FTPS, FTP, WebDAV, AS2) and the on-premise Agent, rather than via a native AS/400 or PeSIT integration.

When a workload requires what Files.com doesn’t do: native AS/400 support, deep PeSIT, CJIS and FIPS 140 requirements, or the accumulated depth of the Sterling B2B Integrator map library. Sterling has those; Files.com doesn’t. FedRAMP is not on that list: Files.com is FedRAMP Certified under the current 20x program, with the Class B upgrade in progress. For partner exchange, EDI, and file workflows outside those requirements, Files.com does the job cloud-native, in days, for a fraction of the cost.

The Decision

If a workload genuinely needs native AS/400 support, deep PeSIT, or CJIS and FIPS 140 compliance, choose IBM Sterling. FedRAMP is not one of them: Files.com is FedRAMP Certified under the current 20x program.

For everything else, choose Files.com. You run the same partner exchange and EDI on one cloud-native platform, live in days instead of a year-plus, at a published price that’s a fraction of a seven-figure Sterling stack, with no Center of Excellence to staff and our team running the migration. Nothing gets torn out before its replacement has proven itself.

Sterling is a legacy tax. Files.com is freedom.