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.
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.
No pushy sales process
Every protocol included
SOC 2 Type II audited
Live in minutes
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.
Kyndryl retired IBM Testcase and 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.
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
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 In Gartner Peer Insights For Managed File Transfer
Files.com is also #1 across every G2 rating for Managed File Transfer, with 4,000+ organizations and 15+ years of operation behind those ratings.
Kyndryl Replaced IBM Testcase FTP and IBM Sterling File Gateway Without Rewriting Batch Jobs
A Kyndryl-owned hostname, fixed IP addresses, and one-for-one path mapping let established z/OS workflows keep running across tightly controlled client environments.
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 ServerFile 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 CollaborationFast 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 TransfersAutomation & 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 AutomationsData 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 & ExtractDesktop 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 ReplacementEvery 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.
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
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
Resources & Training
Clear documentation, training materials, and how-to guides.
- API documentation
- Video tutorials
- How-to guides
- Yearly in-person customer events
“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.
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.
Move Off IBM Sterling
4,000+ organizations run mission-critical file transfer on Files.com instead of legacy MFT. Talk to our team or validate the technology on a 7-day free trial.
No pushy sales process