Atlassian Confluence vs HCL Connections comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Atlassian Confluence
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
2nd
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Knowledge Management Software (1st)
HCL Connections
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
6th
Ranking in Enterprise Social Software
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) category, the market share of Atlassian Confluence is 12.1% and it decreased by 48.4% compared to the previous year. The market share of HCL Connections is 6.1% and it increased by 197.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
Unique Categories:
Enterprise Social Software
10.7%
Knowledge Management Software
17.6%
 

Featured Reviews

RR
May 24, 2023
A solution with a good interface and a straightforward setup phase that offers scalability and stability
We use the database for documentation and requirement gathering. So, we document those and create plans or backlogs I have actually not used the solution much. I have only used the solution to create pages, and I also used it to document certain requirements. The interface is good.…
WE
Mar 27, 2017
Provides potent document sharing with good integration with the Microsoft desktop and smartphones.
The product has a pretty flat structure for communities; they are in principle a long list. This gets easily overcrowded and lacks structure/guidance. Tagging is strong, but this may deserve a little bit more. The platform allows to create communities for collaboration. This is a central feature and very good. It also has a low barrier and is easy. In a large organization, the number of communities increases swiftly. This is like a manila folder containing important information. One after the other with a title page. How is this organized? In a large pile? This did not work in libraries and there are concepts to deal with this. Connections has only the concept of a large pile. There is obviously good search, but that does not solve the issue as the results depend on words and tagging. Web pages have the idea about meta data to feed the search engines and this is called SEO as a service offering. This does not work, if communities are not forced to tag our use common titles. I would prefer if the community element would allow (out of the box) a high degree of structure to allow a navigation. This is similar to the question, if one searches on the internet via Google 'full text search' or an 'editor list' like Yahoo used to have. Connections is the Google way and it needs to have a Yahoo directory-like component. After all, it is an enterprise tool and enterprises have a structure with the need of structured information.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product has a valuable feature for quick verification of documents."
"The best feature is the automatic tagging of information in documents. The automatic algorithm highlights irrelevant information that conflict with the actual documents."
"It has a very intuitive user interface, which every user able to manage the basic functionality of a PC will be able to work with and produce quite satisfactory results."
"The templates are a valuable feature. You can make templates. There is a space inside where you can create pages. When you use the template, the page auto-generates text and images. You do not have to think about the structure of your page as well, which I think is a very good thing for a user. Because usually when you're in front of a blank page, it can be a bit dreadful to know where to start."
"It's extremely intuitive."
"Great shareable and co-editing features."
"Easy to share information and the integration with JIRA is good."
"It seems highly scalable. There are 500 end users using this solution."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the Activity flow that is used to catch new activities."
 

Cons

"Atlassian Confluence should improve the interface, it needs to be more user-friendly. It is easy to use, but it could be more intuitive."
"When you are creating a table in Confluence, there is no tool to export it into Excel sheet for quick references. We can only export it as an a PDF file, but not into an editable file."
"The cost of the solution is too high."
"It lacks ease of integration."
"The product is considered expensive."
"We would like there to be more advanced data manipulation features available in this solution, such as creating more complex charts, and a column freezing option."
"Atlassian Confluence is not really a community-friendly solution."
"There could be an option to collaborate with other users while editing the documents."
"The support is an area where the product can improve...If you are having an issue on a Monday, the support personnel will contact you next Monday."
"The inclusion of a file plugin for Windows Explorer would make it easier to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Maybe we're only using 10% of it, but we have to pay for everything."
"The price of the on-premises data center version is too expensive."
"We have a site license for Atlassian Confluence and there are some limitations on external users."
"Licenses are quite expensive"
"The Confluence pricing is good. The only challenge we have experienced is with Jira and the add ons we use that need to be paid for separately."
"There is an annual license."
"In my opinion, it's worth the investment"
"Confluence charges an extra fee for analytics."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
66%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Atlassian Confluence?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from its document-controlling feature. In Atlassian Confluence, controlled documents cannot be edited by anyone else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian Confluence?
The product is neither cheap nor expensive, meaning its price falls somewhere in the mid-range zone. I am not sure about the price of the product, but I know that the pricing-related information is...
What needs improvement with Atlassian Confluence?
I would say that Atlassian Confluence's old versions consume too much memory, making it an area where optimization is required from an improvement perspective. There are some issues with the templa...
What do you like most about HCL Connections?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with HCL Connections?
The support is an area where the product can improve. My company faces some support-related issues because whenever we create or generate a ticket, it takes two days for the product's support team ...
What is your primary use case for HCL Connections?
I use HCL Connections for marketing purposes. The IBM product in our company already provides us with direct links to the marketing and HR sides.
 

Also Known As

Confluence
IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, NASA, Netflix, Adobe, Bonobos, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Yamato Financial Co. Ltd., University of Zurich, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., Telus, Rabobank, Christian Brothers Services, Grupo Financiero Banorte, The Loft Group, Dow Water & Process Solutions, JGC Corporation, College of Medicine, Swansea University, solvito GmbH, Loft Group, Hamm-Reno Group GmbH, Geno SA
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian Confluence vs. HCL Connections and other solutions. Updated: June 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.