Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
Delivery Lead at Cyma
Real User
Good notifications, great third-party add-ons and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The integration's very good. You still have integration with lots of third party products, and it's very good."
  • "This is kind of by design, however, the lack of control in terms of editing the page to make it look the way you want it to look is an issue. It would be nice if there was more flexibility there."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use it as a knowledge management tool for all of our consultants, which are architects.

What is most valuable?

The whole solution is really great. I appreciate the ability to create content, link content, and then search for that content when I need to. 

I love all of the add-ons the solution offers. You get the base product, and then you can plug in a ton of third-party apps. There's a whole ecosystem of third-party products you can add in if there are any features that may be missing on Confluence itself. That's really great. 

There are very good notifications and links. You can subscribe to a page, and whenever that page gets edited, you're notified of a change on that page.

I suppose just the whole structure and organization is what I really like about Confluence. You have at least 500 odd pages. The way it's structured, again, to speed up the ability to find stuff, is phenomenal. 

The self-service capabilities are helpful. Anyone can create content. We do, in fact. It's not one person running lots and lots of pages of content, it's everyone. You can self-service, update, and change things yourself, which is good. It's a great collaboration endeavor. We are a team of 15 people and we'll leverage the content we've created previously. The ability to collaborate on the content is quite critical to us.

The integration's very good. You still have integration with lots of third party products, and it's very good. 

What needs improvement?

We've used a lot of time in correcting our knowledge in this product. Can't really think of a negative feature of the product.

This is kind of by design, however, the lack of control in terms of editing the page to make it look the way you want it to look is an issue. It would be nice if there was more flexibility there.

It's only a very constrained format you can use. You cannot change the font and you can't really make them smaller. It is by design, but it doesn't like people playing with those aspects. It's probably gone a bit too far. The inability to format the layout of a page is an issue for us.

The logic for searching for pages is a bit off. I assumed it would be very smart in terms of looking at the content on your page and looking at what people clicked on. I assumed it would be like Google in that it would know what people clicked on previously when they were looking for this keyword, what page do they click on, et cetera. It doesn't. I found some detailed explanation of exactly how the search works and it's quite disappointing. It's very basic. Search largely depends on the title of your actual document. It doesn't look at the words in the document, and doesn't look at the search history, in terms of how people pick pages.

It turns out that the searching algorithms are very basic. When I assumed the product was bad, it was actually due to the fact that most of the knowledge management tools have very smart searching logic. This one doesn't. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for probably less than a year. It hasn't been too long.

Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is reliable. I haven't seen a single bug or issue with the product. It's very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about 15 users on the solution currently.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

As a company, we use Microsoft Teams. A lot of our customers say, "Oh, I know, we've got the same features in Microsoft Teams." However, that really isn't the case. Usually, if you're in a Microsoft shop, you would try and use all the Microsoft products. This is one space where Microsoft Teams doesn't cut it. We're using the Confluence instead.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very, very good. It's not complex it all. It's very straightforward and they make it very easy.

The entire setup isn't an intricate process. We didn't have to pour over documentation to try and figure things out. We just followed our instincts and it worked out quite well.

What about the implementation team?

We handled the implementation ourselves. We didn't need any assistance from consultants or integrators.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

For us, it's free to use. We don't pay any licensing.

What other advice do I have?

We don't have a business relationship with Atlassian. We're just customers.

We're using the latest version of the solution.

This solution is highly recommended. If you're looking for a product in this space, this is the best. We had another really good tool, however, we find Confluence does the same and a whole lot more. I'd say in the knowledge management space, as far as we've been doing our business, and our job is to find tools for organizations, I'm convinced that this is the top product in this space.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. My one issue is the search capabilities. Otherwise, it's pretty perfect.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user735225 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Enterprise Analyst Developer at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Centralisation and searchability of documents even on a smartphone, are advantages

What is most valuable?

Availability of documents hosted in confluence very easily. You only need a browser, so even on a smartphone it is available.

How has it helped my organization?

Centralisation of knowledge, easily searchable.

What needs improvement?

Being robust when dealing with complex pages, eating too much CPU, badly designed plugins.

For how long have I used the solution?

Nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, if users upload/convert from complex Office documents or upload too many attachments.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not yet.

How are customer service and technical support?

It depends on the issue and the support agent handling the case. Sometimes it is super good, sometimes super lame.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No previous wiki solution.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is easy‎. The Atlassian documentation is good. Just make sure to read the requirements description.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

No advice, pricing is publicly available.

What other advice do I have?

  • Do not install too many plugins, and choose them well, since some are heavy or broken.
  • Do not allow attachment uploads that are too big.
  • Install JavaMelody for easier monitoring‎.
  • PostgreSQL is a good DB choice for all Atlassian products.
  • Use fast HDD disk for faster search results.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sofia Alves - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Consultant at Axians
Consultant
Beneficial file access, reliable, but intuitive user interface needed
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence is the ability to access your files from anywhere."
  • "Atlassian Confluence should improve the interface, it needs to be more user-friendly. It is easy to use, but it could be more intuitive."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Atlassian Confluence as a repository for files.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence is the ability to access your files from anywhere.

What needs improvement?

Atlassian Confluence should improve the interface, it needs to be more user-friendly. It is easy to use, but it could be more intuitive.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Atlassian Confluence for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Atlassian Confluence is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found Atlassian Confluence to be scalable.

We had approximately 25 people using this solution in my organization.

How are customer service and support?

I have not used the support from Atlassian Confluence.

How was the initial setup?

Atlassian Confluence was relatively simple to set up. The time it took was only a few minutes.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others before using this solution is to look at some tutorials or do a quick workshop to understand how the platform works. They can use a Google search and YouTube to find information.

I rate Atlassian Confluence a six out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
We're able to create and organize our self-written documentation efficiently, although it's written in, and therefore has the overhead and issues of, Java.

What is most valuable?

Categories, document editing and creation, the great permission system, awesome plugin management.

How has it helped my organization?

Confluence allows creating new documentation very fast. This allowed us to organize our self-written documentation in a very efficient way.

What needs improvement?

There are two things which annoy us the most:

(a) It is written in Java and therefore comes with all the overhead and issues of Java applications.

(b) It doesn't allow editing documents with multiple users at the same time.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for almost two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment can be painful when you have to deal with different Java versions or keystores. The rest is very simple since there is a very good install and upgrade wizard.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No, Confluence turned out to be very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No, not yet.

How are customer service and technical support?

I didn't get in touch with Atlassian yet. But they have an awesome wiki and Q&A section.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I was using several open source wiki systems, all of them lacked the great ACL and plugin system of Confluence.

How was the initial setup?

It was straight forward.

What about the implementation team?

I implemented it myself.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The more users you have, the more money you will spend. Make sure to give only those users access who really need it.

What other advice do I have?

Make sure to run backups by dumping the database and saving the Confluence home on nightly basis.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Technical Test Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
This became the primary location where all knowledge documents and other documentation were recorded and held, but JIRA and Confluence connectivity needs to be stabilized.

What is most valuable?

1. Its ability to display data from an excel sheet attached to the page. A simple one line code can do this.

2. Allows markers in the page so that they can be referenced in other pages thereby avoiding duplication.

3. Allows creation of random tables when needed for representation.

4. Allows document attachments to be visible as a link whose display text can be user-defined.

How has it helped my organization?

This became the primary location where all knowledge documents and other documentation were recorded and held. Its ability to allow creation of child pages helped to nest topics within topics

What needs improvement?

1. When excel sheets are added for being displayed, it skips document formats and does not recognize merged cells.

2. Supports only MS office 97-2003 formats. Should also support 2010 formats as its a overhead to convert everytime.

3. JIRA and Confluence connectivity needs to be stabilized. We've faced embarrassing situations with stakeholders when the Confluence pages could not pull the list of JIRAs to be referenced on the page.

For how long have I used the solution?

5 years

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment was handled by the client's infrastructure team. I'm unable to comment on this.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes. JIRA to confluence connectivity was a nagging issue. To circumvent this, we started using JIRA dumps into excel and uploading them to the Confluence page.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

None

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

I'm unable to comment on this.

Technical Support:

I'm unable to comment on this.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Confluence was already used as the primary tool for reporting and documentation.

However, there have been Sharepoint based solutions for holding documents and their version which I did not find as user-friendly as Confluence.

The other option, of course, is to maintain your documents in a configuration management tool like Visual Safe Source.

How was the initial setup?

Deployment and setup was handled by the client's infrastructure team. I'm unable to comment on this

What about the implementation team?

Deployment was handled by the client's infrastructure team. I'm unable to comment on this.

What was our ROI?

I'm unable to comment on this.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not particularly evaluate other tools, but when compared with VSS and Sharepoint based solutions, Confluence would be an easy choice. This depends on what exactly is your purpose of using this tool. My views are based on its use as a tool for documentation and a QA's perspective on it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Tai Hyo Kim - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at Formal Works Inc.
Real User
It's easy to use and integrate with other solutions, but user management could be easier
Pros and Cons
  • "Confluence is easy to use and integrate with other solutions, including social media platforms."
  • "Managing user permissions and credentials could be easier."

What is our primary use case?

We have a standalone, server-based version. Confluence is installed onsite. Nowadays, they don't provide any standalone versions anymore. They just provide the cloud versions for subscription.

What is most valuable?

Confluence is easy to use and integrate with other solutions, including social media platforms. 

What needs improvement?

Managing user permissions and credentials could be easier. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Confluence for about five or six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Confluence has average stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Confluence's scalability is okay, but you have some performance problems when you're working with too many people. 

How are customer service and support?

We have many engineers, so we don't need to contact Atlassian support. 

How was the initial setup?

Deploying Confluence is complex. It requires deploying many other libraries. We don't pay for maintenance anymore. We just maintain the solution ourselves. 

What about the implementation team?

We buy the solutions through the internet and install them ourselves.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

They provide both subscription models, but I don't manage the licensing for our company, so I don't know what it costs. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate Atlassian Confluence seven out of 10. I think the on-premise solution we have isn't good for novices. If you don't have a lot of experience, you should try the cloud solution. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solutions Delivery Lead at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Easy to create documents and charts, and the technical support is pretty good
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the ease of creating documentation, as well as charts."
  • "Space maintenance could be made a little more user-friendly."

What is our primary use case?

I used Confluence mostly for the wiki and documentation.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the ease of creating documentation, as well as charts.

What needs improvement?

Space maintenance could be made a little more user-friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Atlassian Confluence for at least six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There are no bugs or glitches that I'm aware of.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This product is scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Atlassian technical support is pretty good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I am currently using the cloud version, but previously, I used to use the on-premises deployment model.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy, and not complex at all.

What about the implementation team?

We have an in-house team to take of maintenance.

What other advice do I have?

Confluence is a good product and I recommend it. My only complaint is that certain things, such as space management, can be made easier.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user211962 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Central Applications at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Far fewer office files are now sent around - the availability of information has helped our organization function better

What is most valuable?

Configurability, modern web application, and the large community.

How has it helped my organization?

Thorough tracking and logging of actions (Nothing gets lost), far fewer office files sent around by collaborating online, instant availability of information.

What needs improvement?

  • A lot of bugs already reported to Atlassian are not addressed.
  • Avatars must be square.
  • Status lozenges must offer more than three colors.

For how long have I used the solution?

5 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes. Both applications do not recover from loss of database server connection. Even if DB server is back online, applications need a restart.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Up to now it performs ok. We are at 300,000 issues. Getting the impression that it will get tight now.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

As an Enterprise Customer the service is not sufficient. Our concerns are not being addressed. Active visits at our site would be appreciated to explain our issues.

Technical Support:

Did not need it yet.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We switched because it was the better product for a lesser price.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

In-house team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

At the time it was $8000 one off and $4000 yearly maintenance. Atlassian forced to switch to Enterprise licenses which doubled the cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Mantis.

What other advice do I have?

Be prepared that functionality of today might be changed or removed or charged separately without being asked. Bugs can be reported but are often not addressed for years. Atlassian may make major design decisions not considering their customers needs and requirements.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Atlassian Confluence Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Atlassian Confluence Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.