How to Find the Best Enterprise Asset Management Software Platform

The first sign that your organization has outgrown spreadsheets or a legacy system could be a catastrophic breakdown, but it’s more likely the quiet chaos that creeps in between those breakdowns. A maintenance planner is juggling 12 versions of the “master” asset list. A technician can’t find the right work order. Finance knows what was purchased, but not which line consumed those parts.

Enterprise asset management software (EAM) can help you calm the chaos by bringing assets, work, inventory, compliance, and analytics into one system.

In this guide, we’ll demystify EAM, show how it differs from CMMS, and walk you through choosing the best enterprise asset management software for your environment.

What is enterprise asset management software?

Enterprise asset management software coordinates everything it takes to keep physical assets healthy across their lifecycle, from commissioning and daily operation to refurbishment and retirement.

A good EAM unifies:

• A clean asset register (with meters, locations, criticality, and history)
• Work management (requests, approvals, work orders, schedules)
• Materials and purchasing (parts, labor, and time connect to each job)
• Safety and compliance (permits, procedures, signatures)
• And analytics that turn all of the above into decisions you can defend

If a CMMS helps you “do the work,” EAM helps you run the whole program across plants, regions, and auditors.

EAM vs. CMMS vs. ERP

• CMMS is your day-to-day maintenance cockpit: create work orders, schedule PMs, capture notes/photos, close jobs.
• EAM organizes daily maintenance with standards, cost tracking, multi-site oversight, inventory and purchasing, plus audit-ready compliance.
• ERP remains your financial backbone (general ledger, vendors, purchase orders). EAM can integrate tightly with it, so operations and finance tell the same story.

EAM shines for asset-intensive, multi-site, or regulated environments that need enterprise-wide lifecycle control. Choose EAM when you’re prepared for more process change and integrations. (For a deeper primer, see our CMMS vs. EAM explainer.)

Evaluation methodology

The best way to cut through vendor claims is to look at both first-party product info AND real user feedback from neutral marketplaces. We recommend validating vendors against criteria from review sites like Gartner Peer Reviews, Capterra, G2, and Software Advice.

Here are some of the capabilities we recommend noting across vendors as you evaluate:

• Fit for your asset model and hierarchy
• Work management depth (PMs, inspections, condition-based triggers)
• Mobile execution (offline, QR codes, photos/video)
• Inventory and purchasing tied to work
• Compliance (signatures, audit trails)
• Analytics you can actually use 
• Integrations
• Security
• Time-to-value

Core capabilities (and why they matter)

Asset registry and hierarchy: A tidy hierarchy is the difference between data overload and data that helps you make smarter decisions. You want to be able to answer: What’s failing most often? Where does downtime cluster?

Work management: Requests should funnel into work orders with procedures, parts, and labor, and be easily assigned to the right people. Mobile execution keeps techs working even offline, with QR codes to pull up asset info on the spot.

Maintenance strategies: PM calendars prevent known failure modes, and condition-based rules react to what each asset is telling you.

Inventory and procurement: EAM links parts to work so you see true lifecycle cost. Min/max reduces stockouts; purchasing workflows control spend; vendor performance becomes measurable.

Compliance and safety: Digital signatures, lockout/tagout checklists, and time-stamped histories make audits routine instead of stressful.

Analytics: The goal is being able to see cost, risk, and performance, and tie those factors to decisions (e.g., “If we reduce PM frequency on Asset Class A by 10%, what breaks and what do we save?”)

How to choose the best enterprise asset management software

Structure your evaluation (team → shortlist → demos)

• Build an evaluation team (maintenance, operations, finance/IT) to document goals, KPIs, scope, budget, and timeline—then own testing and scoring. (Check out our CMMS/EAM buyer’s guide for questions to expect from your organization’s leadership as you prove the case for EAM.)
• Shortlist 3–5 platforms that match your must-haves.
• Demo rigorously with your data and an asset example.

Questions to ask during EAM demos

Aim for fit, not flash. When evaluating vendors, ask about:

1. Asset model fit: Will your data model handle our assets, and can you model one of our examples live?
2. Frontline usability: Can a tech open, execute, and close a work order on mobile with poor or no connectivity?
3. Strategy coverage: Do you support PMs, inspections, and condition-based maintenance, and can you show a reading automatically triggering a work order?
4. Parts linked to work: How are parts and labor linked to work orders?
5. Integration depth: Please demonstrate ERP and SSO integrations. What’s out-of-the-box vs. custom, and what are typical steps/timelines?
6. Security and compliance: What role-based access controls do you offer, and can you show audit logs and how electronic signatures are enforced?
7. Time-to-value: What does day 30, day 60, and day 90 look like? What templates/accelerators are available?
8. Analytics: Can your dashboards answer our top five questions?
9. Admin effort: What changes can our team manage without vendor services, and how often would we need professional services?
10. Vendor support and training: What training do you offer to help us succeed through implementation and beyond?
11. Total cost of ownership: What’s the all-in cost (licenses, implementation, integrations, training, and data migration)?

EAM vendor scorecard

To use this scorecard, pick your must-haves, assign a level of importance (weight score between 1–5, with 5 being the best) to each row, and bring it to vendor demos. For every vendor, give a score (1–5) based on what you saw. Multiply weight by score to get the weighted score for each item. Then add up the numbers in the weighted score column to rank vendors.

EAM vendor comparisons (informed by 2025 reviews)

MaintainX

What customers like

• Fast frontline adoption and mobile-first execution: Teams say technicians get productive quickly because the app is simple, fast, and usable offline—so work orders don’t stall when connectivity drops. Once back online, data syncs automatically, keeping histories and approvals clean.
• Multi-site coordination: Teams praise how easily MaintainX scales across facilities to standardize maintenance processes, reporting, and communication.
• Parts and purchasing tied to the work. Closing a job updates parts usage and inventory in real time; raising a purchase order from a part record or shortage is straightforward, which helps roll costs up to the asset and site without spreadsheet detours.
• Support that keeps momentum. Reviewers consistently call out responsive onboarding and ongoing help, which reduces time-to-value and shortens the learning curve for new users and admins.

Things to watch out for

• Complex workflows may benefit from guided setup. If you plan conditional routing, multi-site standardization, or deeper integrations, expect to lean on vendor guidance and training materials.
• Not tailored to highly regulated environments: Strong for broad use cases, but teams under strict standards should assess control coverage and validation evidence.

IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS)

What customers like

• Enterprise breadth with strong analytics. Buyers highlight the suite’s ability to bring asset registry, maintenance, monitoring, and predictive insights together.
• Mature mobile and inspection options. Mobile and inspection tools help large field teams capture data consistently without sacrificing depth.
• Flexible deployment at scale. Organizations appreciate the option to run as SaaS or self-managed on OpenShift.

Things to watch out for

• Complexity and learning curve. Reviews frequently note that configuration and administration require time and skilled resources.
• Longer implementations. Compared with lighter cloud platforms, MAS programs commonly require more time to stand up.
• Platform overhead. OpenShift alignment is powerful but adds an operational layer.

Fiix

What customers like

• Configurable and admin-friendly: Users report they can tailor workflows and fields to match processes.
• Solid CMMS/EAM fundamentals: Work orders, PM scheduling, assets, and inventory are straightforward.
• Modern UI: Interface clarity reduces friction for technicians.
  

Things to watch out for

• Feature depth varies: Some reviewers flag limits in certain reports or workflow customization.
• Learning curve for some teams: Groups migrating from legacy tools may need extra time to settle in.
• Mobile app reliability: Customers report issues with the mobile version.
  

UpKeep

What customers like

• Easy to use: Maintenance teams praise straightforward work order and PM tracking.
• Helpful support: Many buyers highlight responsive help during rollout and day-to-day questions.
• Good fit for multi-location basics: Notifications and simple cross-site visibility help dispersed teams stay coordinated.
  

Things to watch out for

• Front-loaded data entry: Reviewers note setup can feel tedious.
• Analytics depth: Out-of-the-box reports feel too shallow.
• Device/parity and change cadence: Some reviews mention iOS/Android differences and frequent updates—verify on the devices your team uses.
  

Limble

What customers like

• Relatively high ease-of-use: Admins and technicians often describe the product as intuitive.
• Guided onboarding: Reviewers appreciate guided setup and accessible training resources that keep projects moving.
• Practical features: Useful touches like linking parts to assets/work orders help keep records accurate with less admin effort

Things to watch out for

• Customization at the edges. Some teams want deeper or more niche configurability; demo your unusual workflows before shortlisting.
• Custom reporting: Managers hit limits with preset dashboards when they require tailored KPIs and multi-metric rollups.
• At very large data volumes, plan your sync approach. A subset of users mention offline/sync considerations.
  

Why MaintainX for modern EAM

MaintainX is a mobile‑first platform that helps enterprises standardize maintenance across sites while staying easy for technicians to use day‑to‑day. The software’s power has consistently earned MaintainX the top EAM ranking in user satisfaction reports.

Teams adopt MaintainX to:

• Move beyond reactive maintenance to minimize asset downtime.
• Connect parts and purchasing to the work being done, so costs roll up at the asset and site level.
• Standardize their asset management structure across locations
• Manage work orders and PMs with an offline‑capable, easy-to-use mobile app
• Track compliance with audit‑ready histories, signatures, and permission controls.
• Keep finance and operations in sync with integrations.
• Support technician productivity and safety with AI tools like anomaly detection, workload-based scheduling, and procedure generation.
• Make smarter decisions with comprehensive reporting on equipment performance trends—with at-a-glance data insights that don’t require an analytics background to interpret.

If you’re moving beyond a basic CMMS or consolidating multiple tools into a single EAM standard, MaintainX emphasizes frontline usability and enterprise governance with excellent support to accelerate your rollout.

See it in action: Check out results our customers have experienced. Then book a walkthrough, and we’ll help you map MaintainX to your team’s specific needs.

Finding the best enterprise asset management software

EAM is how you turn maintenance from a cost center into a competitive advantage. The right enterprise asset management software makes reliability measurable, compliance routine, and decisions defensible. 

Borrow the evaluation process above to cut through the noise, then pilot with a single area to prove value before you scale. Whether you choose a suite or a modern cloud platform, the “best enterprise asset management software” is the one your technicians will actually use and your leaders can trust.