Oracle Aconex runs a whole construction project inside Oracle's common data environment — the document register, contractual mail, workflows, models, cost, tenders and site processes, shared across every organisation working on the job.
Its review module is the closest thing to Xenmark any of these products has. You click Add Issue in the viewer, pin it in place on the drawing, and attach markups to the issue — a structure much like Xenmark's. The difference is not the review. It is everything built around it, and what that is for.
Aconex is built to hold a complete project record across organisations, with a neutral collaboration model and an unalterable audit trail. Nothing can be deleted or altered outside versioning, no organisation — not even the project owner — can see another's data unless it is sent, and any organisation can request an archive of its own data at any time. Xenmark does not attempt that. Choose Xenmark when the job is a standalone drawing review rather than a project-wide common data environment.
Oracle publishes no Aconex prices and directs buyers to request a demo. Xenmark prices are on the pricing page and the Free plan runs a whole review. A sales-led buying process is normal at this scale; it is still a different way to buy.
Aconex preserves the broader project record in an unalterable audit trail. Xenmark's deliverable is narrower: stable numbered comments that stay consistent between the drawing, the replies and the export.
Aconex is set up per project, across organisations, for the life of the job. Xenmark opens on a drawing set that has already been issued and closes when the comments have gone back.
Every Oracle Aconex claim below is taken from Oracle Aconex's own published material and was last checked on 25 August 2026. Software changes; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
| Xenmark | Aconex | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting a review | ||
| Can the person running the review start free? | Yes — the Free plan runs one active review at a time, start to finish | No public free tier is listed, and no price either. Oracle directs buyers to request a demo. Aconex is sold as a platform for a whole project, not signed up to for one drawing set. |
| Do external reviewers need a paid subscription? | No — the people you invite read, reply and download the exports without paying | It depends on the licensing metric. Oracle publishes them: Hosted Named User, or project value. Under Hosted Named User licensing, Aconex Guest Users count as Hosted Named Users against the quantity bought. Price amounts are not published. |
| Available platforms | Any modern browser — nothing to install, and the people you invite join from a link | Browser, with mobile apps and an Outlook integration |
| How the review is structured | ||
| What the review is built from | A numbered comment. Anything drawn on the page belongs to that comment rather than standing on its own. | An issue, pinned in place on the document, with markups attached to it — the same shape as ours. An issue can also be raised without a pin, though it cannot be converted to a pinned one later. |
| Replies | Threaded under the comment, each attributed and dated, with image attachments, and carried into the register | Yes — issues are assigned to the originator to respond to, automatically or by the process owner, and reviewers can respond to each other's markups |
| Status workflow | Open, In progress and Closed — three fixed states, and the status travels into the Excel register | Yes, and configurable — issue statuses and issue fields are set up per project, alongside review rules, review outcomes and a QA outcome step |
| Comment numbering | Numbers are stable — delete comment 5 and the gap stays, so a number is never reused | Issues are logged, assigned and tracked to a status. Nothing in Aconex can be deleted at all, so the question of a number surviving a deletion arises differently. |
| One issue, several drawing locations | One comment can own several markers while keeping one number and one reply thread | Partly. One issue has a pinned location and can carry several markups. |
| Activity history | Every action timestamped and attributed to the person who made it | An unalterable audit trail is what Aconex is sold on — records cannot be deleted, and cannot be altered outside the built-in versioning. |
| Revision handling | Comments stay tied to the revision they were raised against, in one workflow | Strict version control. One document register where revisions automatically supersede earlier versions, with previous versions viewable, restorable and comparable. |
| Measuring and markup | ||
| Measuring on the drawing | Length, polylength, perimeter and area, calibrated to the page scale | Distance, perimeter and area in the Online Viewer, alongside a full annotation set — free text with spellcheck, callouts, clouds, polygons, polylines and freehand |
| Setting the drawing scale | Pick a standard scale, type your own, name the sheet size, or calibrate from a distance you already know | Measurements work against a drawing scale, and scale is carried as a document field. |
| Building your own reusable symbols | Check, cross, attention, arrow and cloud — five fixed review symbols, not a custom library | Yes — custom rubber stamps, image stamps, and markup styles remembered between documents. Note that a Document Processes review excludes stamps, signatures, file attachments and file comparison. |
| Measuring quantities for pricing a job | Not included — measurements are there to explain a comment, not to cost work | Not offered from the drawing. Aconex has a separate cost control module, but it is not a takeoff tool. |
| What comes out of the review | ||
| What you send back | The two documents come out ready to send — there is nothing to set up first, because the review was structured that way from the start | A marked-up document plus a recorded review outcome. Marked-up files are kept in the register as historical versions, and issues go back to their originators to answer. |
| Comment plan PDF | The drawing with each comment numbered and shown where it applies | The marked-up drawing itself. After a parallel review, Consolidate Markups merges every reviewer's markups into one file, and markups download as PDF or as a zip. It is the drawing with the markings on it rather than a numbered comment plan. |
| Spreadsheet output | An Excel file listing every comment, numbered to match the PDF | Yes — review comments accumulate in a separate issues register that Oracle says can be managed and exported, and Insights builds custom document reports. |
| Measurements in the export | Drawn on the comment plan PDF where they were placed, and listed on their own sheet in the Excel file, kept separate from the comments | Measurement is a markup tool, so measurements travel on the marked-up drawing rather than as a schedule of their own |
| What you keep when the project ends | A single zip file — every revision's exports, the attachments and the full activity log, downloaded and stored on your side | An archive of your own data, on request, at any time — during the project or at the end of it. Oracle states your data remains yours and access cannot be withdrawn without notice. |
| Branded reports | Your company logo and text on both deliverables, inherited from Company Settings — Plus and Pro | Different. A Dynamic Stamp marks a review outcome onto the drawing with the reviewer's name, the organisation's logo and admin-set disclaimer text — though stamps are excluded from a Document Processes review. |
| What else each one does | ||
| Batch operations across many PDFs | Not included — a review works on one drawing set at a time | Yes — deliverable packages, transmittals and supplier document management move whole document sets through a project |
| Comparing two drawings against each other | Not included — differences get raised as comments by the people reviewing | Yes — File Comparison in the Online Viewer compares versions of a document, though it is one of the tools excluded inside a Document Processes review |
| Working offline | Browser only, so you need a connection | Yes, on mobile, for content already viewed while online — issues can be created and mail written offline, syncing when you reconnect. Their own caveat: comments and the pinned drawing are not downloaded, and the cache clears over time. |
| Storing documents long term | Not what it is for. You download the exports and keep them wherever your project records already live. | This is what Aconex is for — a single document register as the project record, plus dedicated project archives. |
| CAD integrations and creating PDFs from CAD | None — a review starts from a PDF that has already been produced | No authoring. Model coordination is design-neutral — supported model files are imported and opened in Aconex without additional software. |
| Connecting to a document management system | No integrations yet — the closing archive is a single zip you file wherever your records already live | Aconex is itself the document management system. It provides process and document management as part of Oracle's common data environment, with a published API and an Outlook integration rather than a connector into someone else's register. |
Oracle does not publish Aconex prices and directs buyers to request a demo, so the only honest comparison is of how each product is sold. Not publishing prices is ordinary for a platform sold on a project-wide basis through a sales conversation — a difference in how you buy, not evidence of expense. Xenmark prices are published, include VAT, and are read from our pricing page at build time.
| Xenmark | Aconex | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per project capacity, monthly | Per Hosted Named User, or per project value — the metrics are published, the amounts are not |
| Entry point | Free — one active review, start to finish | Request a demo. No published price and no published free tier. |
| To run a review yourself | Free | Not published — and the project has to be set up on Aconex first, which is an organisational decision rather than an individual one |
| Paid range | €14.99 – €59.99 / month | Not published |
| Invited reviewers | Free — no per-user charge; 5–30 project members depending on plan | Depends on the licensing metric. Under Hosted Named User licensing, counted — Oracle states that Aconex Guest Users are considered Hosted Named Users, so invited reviewers draw on the quantity bought. Under project-value licensing the metric is different. Amounts are not published. |
| Tax basis | Including VAT | Not stated — no prices published |
Xenmark — read from live plan data at build time, 28 August 2026, so it cannot drift from our pricing page. Oracle Aconex — module structure and licensing metrics checked 25 August 2026 on Oracle's own pages. Public price amounts are not published, so no figures are shown.
Oracle does not publish Aconex prices and directs buyers to request a demo. What is published is the module set — documents and document processes, mail and workflows, models, packages and test plans, cost, field and tenders — checked 25 August 2026.
No free tier is published. Aconex is deployed for a project, and the participating organisations then work inside that project environment. Xenmark runs a complete review on the Free plan.
It depends on how the order is licensed, and Oracle does publish the metrics even though it does not publish amounts. Under Hosted Named User licensing there is a maximum number of users on the order, and Oracle states plainly that Aconex Guest Users are considered Hosted Named Users — so an invited reviewer draws on the quantity bought. The alternative metric is based on project value rather than headcount. Xenmark never charges for invited reviewers on any plan.
Unknowable from public information, because Oracle publishes no prices. What can be said is that Xenmark's prices are visible before you commit and start at zero, and that Aconex is bought for a whole project rather than for one review.
Both, and the markup is strong. The Online Viewer runs in any modern browser with no plugin, and offers free text, callouts, clouds, polygons, freehand, custom and dynamic stamps, and distance, perimeter and area measurement. In a Document Processes review you pin an issue on the drawing and attach markups to it.
Custom document reports can be built and exported from the Insights module. Aconex keeps the markings on the drawing and the decisions in the audit trail. Xenmark produces the plan and the register as standard, numbered to each other.
Yes for drawing review; no as a replacement for the platform. If the job is marking up an issued drawing set and returning numbered comments, Xenmark does that and you can start today. If you rely on Aconex as the contractual project record across several organisations, Xenmark replaces none of it.
Whenever the project record has to stand up later — multiple organisations, a contested timeline, formal document control, or a client who requires a common data environment for the job.
We sell Xenmark, so this is not an independent review. We have tried to describe Oracle Aconex accurately, and every Oracle Aconex claim on this page rests on Oracle Aconex's own published documentation, named below. Capabilities and pricing change. Oracle Aconex feature information was last checked against that documentation on 25 August 2026, and the pricing on 25 August 2026.
Oracle's Aconex product page is named rather than linked — their site is where Oracle sells, and it publishes no pricing page. Their documentation is linked, because it is the evidence for what is claimed here.
The Free plan takes a real drawing set end to end. No card, no time limit.
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