Decide whether you're buying EAM or a CMMS before you compare vendors
The fifteen tools here split into two families that solve different problems. IBM Maximo, Hexagon HxGN EAM, SAP EAM, IFS Cloud and Oracle Fusion Cloud Maintenance are enterprise asset management suites: they track asset hierarchies, financial depreciation and lifecycle cost across a whole company, usually because they're wired into an ERP. Fiix, Limble, MaintainX, UpKeep, eMaint and Brightly Asset Essentials are CMMS tools built around the maintenance department's daily work: PM schedules, work orders, spare parts. If your plant manager just needs fewer missed inspections, an EAM suite is over-scoped and will take longer to configure than the problem is worth. If your finance team needs asset depreciation schedules tied to the general ledger, a CMMS won't get you there without an integration project.
Match deployment to what your IT team can actually support
Nine of the fifteen listings here are cloud-only (IFS Ultimo, Oracle Fusion, Fiix, Limble, MaintainX, UpKeep, eMaint, Brightly, Tractian); six are hybrid (Maximo, Hexagon, SAP EAM, IFS Cloud, AVEVA, Prometheus Group). A hybrid deployment usually means there's an on-prem or edge component talking to historian or SCADA data, which is a different maintenance burden than a pure SaaS login. If you don't have staff to patch a server room, cross the hybrid options off first and ask the cloud vendors what happens to your data if the plant loses internet.
Work out who administers the system day to day
A CMMS aimed at mid-market plants (IFS Ultimo, Fiix, UpKeep, eMaint, Brightly, Tractian) is usually configured by a maintenance planner, not an IT department. An enterprise EAM tied to SAP or an ERP backbone (SAP EAM, IFS Cloud, Prometheus Group layered on SAP or Maximo) typically needs a systems administrator who understands the ERP's data model. Ask each vendor, during the demo, who on your staff would own the account after go-live, because the answer changes your total cost of ownership more than the license fee does.
Check what it has to talk to before signing
Production floor asset management software is judged on its neighbors: the ERP, the label printer, the historian, the CMM. Prometheus Group is explicit about sitting on top of SAP and Maximo rather than replacing them; SAP EAM and IFS Cloud claim native ERP integration because they are the ERP. eMaint is tied to Fluke instrumentation for condition monitoring. If your plant already runs SAP, that context should move SAP EAM and Prometheus Group up your list; if you run something else, ask pointed questions about connector maturity rather than trusting the word "integration" on a slide.
TODO(editor): verify how many of the 15 vendors here actually publish an integration list (ERP names, PLC/SCADA protocols) versus just claiming "integrates with your systems."
Price the rollout, not just the license
Only three vendors in this set publish a rate at all, and none of the three publish an implementation or configuration cost. Quote-only pricing (the other twelve) usually means the number depends on seat count, module selection and services hours, none of which show up until a sales call. Before you shortlist on price alone, ask every quote-only vendor for total first-year cost including implementation, not just the recurring license.
TODO(editor): confirm free-plan seat limits and feature caps for Fiix and MaintainX before stating them as a genuine no-cost option.
TODO(editor): verify which of the hybrid-deployment vendors still ship an on-premise-only build versus offering hybrid as an option on top of a cloud core.
