Legisway vs. Zefort: Do you need a full legal suite or a purpose-built CLM?

Legisway and Zefort are both European contract management systems built for legal and compliance teams, but they’re solving different problems. One is a full legal management suite for in-house legal departments, and the other is a purpose-built contract lifecycle management (CLM) focused on giving you lasting control over contracts.

If you’re trying to figure out which is the right fit, here’s an honest* look at how the two compare.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• A brief overview of Legisway and Zefort
• Who each contract management solution is built for
• A side-by-side feature comparison
• The main reasons in-house legal and compliance teams choose Zefort over Legisway

Overview: Legisway and Zefort at a glance

Let’s dive into what both platforms have in common, and the main differences between the two.

Legisway: Full legal suite for in-house teams

Legisway is part of Wolters Kluwer: a Netherlands-based global information company serving the legal, healthcare, tax, and corporate compliance sectors. It’s not a standalone CLM, but an all-in-one legal management suite designed to run an entire in-house legal department.

Legisway comes in two tiers:

• Legisway Essentials (formerly called effacts) is for smaller in-house legal teams.
• Legisway Enterprise (formerly known as Contrat’tech) is for larger, more complex legal environments. It includes all the functionalities of Essentials, along with advanced legal management capabilities like dynamic workflows, embedded legal expertise, and context-driven data.

Beyond contracts, Legisway is built to manage the full scope of a legal department’s work, including litigation, corporate entities, IP, real estate, and compliance. For teams that need all that in one place, it’s a real advantage. But some reviewers have flagged limitations around flexibility and ease of use:

“Sometimes there are too many clicks to do before getting to the page that you want, also the easy search button is not always specific in its results.”
Gartner reviewer

“Clauses for some types of contracts are not present in the tool and have to be entered manually. It is not possible to customize the print view (i.e. add company logo). In leasing contracts, it is not possible to sort/filter by square meters.”
Gartner reviewer

Zefort: Purpose-built AI contract management platform

Zefort is a European AI CLM, founded in Finland in 2017 and built specifically for compliance-driven organizations. Unlike Legisway, Zefort isn’t just one product inside a larger legal suite – it’s purpose-built for contract management so that legal, compliance, and procurement teams get lasting control over contracts.

Getting started is straightforward, and you can configure the platform yourself without any IT support. You define what your organization needs to track, and Zefort’s AI extracts that data automatically every time a new contract is uploaded. That way, every document becomes structured, searchable, auditable data.

Zefort users who’ve switched from broader platforms put it well:

“We had a comprehensive DMS, but in reality only used a fraction of its features. We wanted to switch to an easier solution, specifically designed for contract management.”
Minna Raitanen, General Counsel at Rovio.

“I’m happy to recommend Zefort’s contract management solution to essentially any company. For us, moving from an all-purpose solution to a dedicated contract management tool was the right call.”
Mari Laurila, Risk Manager, Project Manager for the renewal process, Atria plc

Who is each CLM built for?

Both platforms help organizations manage contracts faster and reduce risk, but they’re built for users with different priorities.

Legisway is best for organizations that need a full legal suite

Legisway is built for in-house legal departments that need structured legal workflows, such as approval chains, playbooks, and clause libraries, as part of a broader legal management ecosystem. It’s a natural choice for teams already using Wolters Kluwer solutions.

Legisway might not be the right fit if contract visibility and control is your core requirement. Because if you don’t need the full legal suite, you might end up paying for features you won’t use.

Zefort is best for compliance-driven organizations that need lasting control

Zefort is built for mid-to-large European organizations where legal, compliance, and procurement teams are the primary users. All contract data is stored and processed on European cloud infrastructure, making it the right fit for teams operating under DORA, NIS2, GDPR, or the EU Data Act.

Zefort might not be for you if you’re looking for a full legal ops suite, or if your core requirements are pre-signature legal drafting, redlining, and negotiation workflows.

Legisway vs. Zefort: Feature comparison

Why companies choose Zefort over Legisway

When organizations choose Zefort, it usually comes down to three things: having a dedicated tool for contract management, AI you can verify, and a data model you own and control yourself.

Purpose-built for contract compliance management

Legisway is an all-in-one legal management suite designed to be part of the larger Wolters Kluwer legal ecosystem. That’s a strength if you need all those features.

But Zefort is built for one thing: giving legal, compliance, and procurement teams full, lasting control over their contracts. There’s no surrounding legal suite to navigate, no modules you won’t use, and no long implementation period.

“With Zefort, we really leveled up our contract management. Managing the entire contract lifecycle is easier and more secure than ever before.”
Sanna Walden, Data Privacy Manager, A-lehdet

AI you can verify

When evaluating AI in any CLM, it’s worth asking: can you verify what the AI is telling you?

Legisway’s conversational AI doesn’t cite sources. But Zefort’s AI chat highlights where in the document it found its answer, so you can trace the response back to the source with your own eyes. This matters for regulated teams who can’t afford to act on an answer they can’t trace.

“Zefort’s AI works perfectly and helps get contracts into the system quickly. It works well with documents in the Dutch language and speeds up our work.”
Inge Carton, Head of Legal, Olympia

Easy to use and built for lasting control

Legisway is configurable, but you need a Legisway consultant’s help to set up custom dashboards. With Zefort, you own the data model and can update it at any time – no developer support or consultant fees needed.

Because you control the data model yourself, you can adapt it as your needs change by adding new fields or adjusting what the AI extracts. Your contract data stays relevant as your business evolves.

“What particularly impressed us about Zefort was its user-friendliness and smooth user management.”
Pekko Linnanmäki, Legal Counsel at Nitor

🔑  Key takeaways

• While Legisway and Zefort may overlap on paper, they’re built for different types of teams and workflows.
• Legisway is the stronger fit if you’re a large enterprise legal department already in the Wolters Kluwer ecosystem and need structured legal workflow management across contracts, entities, and litigation.
• Zefort is best if your priority is giving legal, compliance, and procurement teams lasting control over contracts, with data that stays in Europe, AI you can verify, and a setup you own and update yourself.
• If a purpose-built, compliance-first experience matters more to you than a full legal ops suite, Zefort is right for you.

*Note: This article reflects our best understanding based on publicly available information at the time of writing. Product features, positioning, and offerings may change without notice. The content is intended for internal discussion and comparison purposes only. We recommend verifying details directly with the vendor before making a purchasing decision.