Atlassian Confluence Reviews and Pricing - page 10 | PeerSpot

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Managing Consultant - Enterprise Architecture at Wipro Technologies

Nov 26, 2019

Easy to use and provides targeted access to relevant information

Pros and Cons

"The most valuable features are hyper-linking, the Drawing Tool, and enhanced tables."

"The standard table capability is substandard and virtually unusable."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use for this solution is EA documentation.

How has it helped my organization?

Confluence has helped us through its ease of use and access to relevant information in a targeted way.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are hyper-linking, the Drawing Tool, and enhanced tables.

What needs improvement?

The standard table capability is substandard and virtually unusable. However with the "Advanced Tables for Confluence" from Bob Swift, this problem was solved. The standard table functionality does not have enough functionality to document things clearly starting with colors. The other tool which is extremely useful is IO Draw although it is expensive. With these two extensions, I was able to really maximize my use of Confluence.

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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Director of Operations at Armada Cloud

Nov 30, 2016

Great tool for document control - try it for QMS

What is most valuable?

Built in revision history and document management makes this ideal for companies without a dedicated document controller, and makes life significantly easier for document controllers who are using paper-based systems.

I've used Confluence as a Quality Management System at several companies; traditional QMS’s need pretty dedicated management by a document controller to make sure revision history is maintained, changes go through an adequate approval process, and only the latest approved versions of documents are being used. Confluence essentially handles all of that, which means companies without the means for a dedicated document controller can still implement a QMS, and/or companies with a document controller benefit from the added efficiencies.

How has it helped my organization?

Really speeds up creation and approval of policies and procedures and provides a centralized area for users to access current versions of documents.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes has issues with cron jobs crashing - need to check more recent versions to see if this has been resolved.

I'd also love to see integrated project management with Gantt charts, but I'm a sucker for Gantt charts.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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VP, Enterprise PMO at a wireless company with 51-200 employees

Jul 8, 2015

We've been able to implement a 'control center' in Confluence using JIRA integration, but reporting on content usage info and patterns is completely missing.

What is most valuable?

Easy to use
Flexible
Smooth integration with JIRA

How has it helped my organization?

This is our corporate wiki, all departments use it for process and knowledge management. We implemented a 'control center' in Confluence using the JIRA integration for both Change Control and Incident Management.

What needs improvement?

Reporting on content usage info and patterns is completely missing and would be a great addition. On-demand is especially limited due to the significantly reduced number of plug ins available. Reassignment of content ownership would also be a nice feature.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for three years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

It's an on-demand service.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There's been a few outages, but nothing significant.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's an on-demand service.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

It's not needed often, but they are responsive when issues are reported.

Technical Support:

It's not needed often, and when they are, there's a good integration of reported issues to the backlog.

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

At a previous job we were beginning to use SharePoint, I am not an expert.

How was the initial setup?

Confluence setup is very straightforward, but an absence of formal training availability caused it to take longer than it should have to become productive.

What about the implementation team?

It was done in-house.

What was our ROI?

I don't have a specific number for it, but I consider it to be extensive, given the low cost and widespread use of this tool.

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

We are using the on-demand version and our pricing is fixed.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend you consider a managed hosting arrangement instead of on-demand, because of the limitations. I would also recommend a clear plan be developed for content structure and ownership.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Tai Hyo Kim - PeerSpot reviewer

Chief Executive Officer at Formal Works Inc.

Jun 12, 2022

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.

it_user574110 - PeerSpot reviewer

Senior Technical Writer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Feb 26, 2017

Information is kept up to date. I think that customization and text styling could be improved.

What is most valuable?

I appreciate:

Web access.
Collaboration.
Export to PDF.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped our organization as follows:

Information is kept up to date.
Accessible anywhere.
Editable by everyone.
Secure.
Exportable.

What needs improvement?

I think that customization and text styling could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it for 2.5 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not had any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not had any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give them 8 out of 10. But first and second level support are email only!

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

We did not use a previous solution.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup with the cloud version is super easy but the server is only slightly more complex depending on your firewall, SSO, etc.

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

Licensing is in blocks of seats, so you need to decide what the maximum number of users might be before pricing it out. There is the option of anonymous users, which, while a security issue, does reduce the licensing cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have evaluated MediaWiki, Kentico, SharePoint and WordPress.

What other advice do I have?

Definitely try before you buy to make sure it aligns with your expectation of what a collaboration system should be like.
Post any and all questions to the Confluence forum (https://answers.atlassian.com/).
Not all add-ons are available for Confluence Cloud, so customization is further limited.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user11370 - PeerSpot reviewer

Director of Operations at a cloud solution provider with 51-200 employees

Oct 27, 2013

Confluence 5 brings a fresh UI

Only just recently did I share our experience with migrating our internal custom KB system to Atlassian Confluence. We’ve been using it for a significant period of time, and our team are making good use of the Confluence wiki. Our team is using it for project planning, documentation, setup guides, known issues, bug tracking, reports and more.

I also personally run my own starter edition wiki for my own personal use, plus I can generally trial new plugins and new releases quicker on my own personal wiki.

I also recently wrote an article about the Evernote plugin and during my research I was aware that Confluence 5 was close to being released. Then just recently I got an email from Atlassian announcing the release of Confluence 5, I quickly added a task to get my personal wiki upgraded to Confluence 5 ASAP, so I could check out the new features.

The email Atlassian sent out made it clear that a new user interface had been rolled in to this release, so I was interested to see what had changed.

Today I am just going to take you through a quick introduction to some of the new features in Confluence 5.

UI Improvements

One of the main focus’s of this upgrade was an overhaul of the user interface (the look and feel). On first login after the upgrade you can not miss that changes. I was greeted with the new ui and a welcome message with a link to a video about the new confluence ui.

blog-conf-1

There is always going to be some issues when changing that UI mainly for the end users. I think the video is a great touch to bring people up to speed.

Worth noting is if you read through the Upgrade Notes for this release, Atlassian have taken the time to create a whole section on how to prepare your end users. This is a great touch. As with all new things, sometimes change can be scary.

Atlassian have provided video’s and notes on these big changes. Giving you (the person in charge of upgrading / training) the content necessary to educate your team. Planning for Confluence 5 - https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Planning+for+Confluence+5

Create Button

Previously with prior releases of Confluence if you wanted to add a new page, blog post etc, you browsed to the particular space, then selected the Add button and chose your options.

This has now been replace with a single “Create” button in the top banner. From here you can create a new blank page, page from template, blog post etc and choose what space / page to put it under.

blog-conf-2

I think this is a great idea. A one stop location for getting your creating content. Simpler and more efficient.

New Side Bar

Confluence 5 has introduced a side bar when you are browsing spaces or pages. The side bar can be customized to include shortcuts to your favorite or frequently used space’s or page.

It also provide a navigation for child pages depending on what space / page you are viewing.

blog-conf-3

So when I am browsing my setup notes space, you can see that it provides quick access to some of the pages that are available.

They have moved the space options to the side bar as well instead of cluttering up the top bar, this is a positive move to reduce the clutter in the top bar. This side bar has replaced the older “Browse” men option.

Editor Improvements

Although I have not heavily tested this yet, when editing a page I noticed the load time once you hit “Edit” has improve dramatically.

Atlassian have got some serious speed improvements for the Editor in Confluence 5. The editor has also experienced some UI changes to maximise screen space.

Conclusion

Though this is early days getting familiar with Confluence 5, I have no major complaints just yet. The new UI is fresh and so far easy to use. The speed improvements are noticeable and my current favorite plugin (Evernote Plugin) still works in Confluence 5.

I have one little gripe so far though, Confluence 5 introduces “round” space logos. So if you are upgrading an existing Confluence install, you may need to review your logo’s for spaces, as they may get a little ruined or look a bit funny after they have been “rounded”. Not sure why Atlassian chose the round logo approach, it is a minor issue though, but some logos do not fit in a round shape, so would of been good to “choose” the shape.

From reading through the Confluence 5 release notes, there are a large number of other changes. If you are curious to see them all here are some useful links,

Planning for Confluence 5 - https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Planning+for+Confluence+5
Confluence 5 Release Notes - https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+5.0+Release+Notes
Confluence 5 Upgrade Notes - https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+5.0+Upgrade+Notes
Confluence Whats New Page - https://www.atlassian.com/en/software/confluence/whats-new/confluence-50

Now I have to start planning the upgrade of our Crucial Confluence Wiki, so the team can benefit from this new release.

I would love to hear from anyone who has upgraded already. Feel free to share your thoughts on the new release.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Report as inappropriate

Jan 11, 2014

I used Confluence 5 and I enjoyed its new features. From my point of view, the best feature is the intuitive space sidebar, which appears on every page and is intended to display the most likely content users want to access. The aim is to reduce the need for searching and to help orientate users. I also like the real-time updates, which are pulled into the page automatically rather than requiring a page refresh, and the responsive design, which adjusts to the size of the browser. Let's not forget about the new global header, which provides speedy access to other Atlassian apps, spaces, calendars ans settings.

it_user11370 - PeerSpot reviewer

Director of Operations at a cloud solution provider with 51-200 employees

Oct 14, 2013

Our shift to Confluence

For a long, long, long, long, long time Crucial has operated a custom made web based internal knowledge base / documentation area which has fallen well out of date. Though web based and coded in PHP we have since out grown its simplicity.

Our team regularly felt the pain of trying to locate, update or add information.

Finally we hit a point where we had to take action, so we put the word out to our team to come up with some possible third party options to replace our internal kb area.

We received replies with a number of suitable options.

At this point we realized that we really needed to sit down and come up with our requirements. We could then use the requirements to help compare the solutions and make a final decision.

The team bumped heads and came up with a relativity straight forward list of features and requirements.

Our replacement wiki needed,

Excellent search functionality.
Permissions at a per page basis.
Easy to use layout.
To be easy to find information in.
Search uploaded documents (nice to have)
Ability to upload files such as PDF, Images, Zips.
Ability to move pages, articles around and change names.
Ability set descriptive titles / names.
WSIWYG editor for creating pages / documents.
Version Control for a document / page.
Able to structure information and modify layout of system.
Local install (not a hosted solution)

Some of those options were quite basic, but essential to how we wanted to run our wiki.

We then went through the process of comparing all the viable Wiki solutions against our list of requirements.

Tiki Wiki

TikiWiki ticked a lot of the boxes that made up our criteria. Good search, permissions, upload files, version control, and the expected WSIWYG editor. However what turned us off this solution was the look and feel.We strongly believe the wiki should be easy on the eyes, and the layout should be a breeze to work with. Many of our testers did not find it met those needs.

KBPublisher

KB Publisher was another great option. It met most of our needs, with a great search function, positive comments about how easy it was to use and all the usual features you would expect from a wiki solution.

BrainKeeper

Straight away we ruled this out because brain keeper was not able to be locally installed, you had to use it hosted on their infrastructure. While this is not necessarily a bad thing depending on your budget, we prefer to keep our wiki locally run.We still went through the testing process however, and found this solution to be very feature rich. One disappointing note was it had a page version control, but you couldn’t revert to a previous version, just see the changes.

MindTouch

MindTouch was an interesting offering. From a feature set perspective it had a large list of features, a good portion we had no use for. We considered this a disadvantage as it meant there was a lot of bloat or unnecessary functionality.We came to the decision that this was not a suitable option as the layout was not user friendly which we believe was as a result of the large list of features.

We then got on with testing Atlassian Confluence. Immediately the feedback from our testers was very positive. Great layout, easy to use, ticked all our feature requirements and a search function that was exactly what we were after!

Confluence had all the bits we needed plus more! A recurring comment was on the WSIWYG editor used when creating pages / documents, the editor in Confluence is amazing. With drag and drop ability for adding images and documents, as well as easy to use shortcuts.

Further to our decision Confluence has an excellent documentation area for users and admins alike. Along with that Atlassian offer an interactive and video based training area called Atlassian University.

Personally I have worked with Confluence in previous roles, and already had made my mind up, but to avoid to much bias we still let the team vote and give feedback.

Confluence was chosen as our new wiki replacement!

6 months later…..

We’ve been running Confluence now for about 6 months. We are on the end part of a migration to migrate all our old articles from our legacy system and could not be happier! We took our time moving the articles across because we wanted to verify each article and make sure it was worth moving!

Since going live with Confluence we have started using it quite heavily for our project documentation, internal tech support documentation and a large number of our team members are making great use of the persona spaces for their own notes, documents and general shenanigans.

At the time of deployment we went live with Confluence 4.1 and it was great, since then Confluence has now gone to Confluence 4.3 which has added a couple of features worth noting, including a WSIWYG editor for the Global Templates area.

We are looking forward to Confluence 5 and some of the new UI changes they are bringing in!

If you have any questions about why we moved to Confluence, or wondering about our experience in using Confluence so far, please feel free to leave a comment.

Disclaimer: The company I work for is partners with several vendors

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Sebastian Lawrence

Solutions Delivery Lead at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Oct 8, 2020

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.

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