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it_user432606 - PeerSpot reviewer
Documentation Department Manager with 10,001+ employees
MSP
With this solution both developers and documentation engineers can edit manuals and share opinions.

What is most valuable?

Editing is convenient. We often have to edit manuals for different projects of the same software. These projects have only small differences in features.

How has it helped my organization?

In the past, only documentation engineers could edit the software manuals. Now, both developers and documentation engineers can edit manuals and share opinions.

What needs improvement?

It is not as professional as FrameMaker. Confluence is light and very convenient, but it is difficult to reuse the same content and its format is not as flexible as FrameMaker.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for three years.

Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with stability but we have not been using it as often as FrameMaker.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and support?

We seldom used the technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is more complex and the developers helped to set up the environment.

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

Confluence is convenient and cheaper but not so professional. FrameMaker is for documentation departments in a large company and Confluence is for small teams or companies.

What other advice do I have?

Ask the vendor to set up your environment if you buy Confluence.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user607749 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user607749Manager, Live Production at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User

yes

it_user165711 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Reduces redundant communication. Working with 3rd party content can be improved.

What is most valuable?

Content creation and sharing, collaboration

How has it helped my organization?

Reduced redundant communication and overall better communication among knowledge workers

What needs improvement?

Working with 3rd party content i.e. MS office, PDF files, email integration

For how long have I used the solution?

6 years

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Social adoption - it is always tricky to change current way-of-doing things you are bringing a new culture of collaboration and working with information.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Haven't had any issues with stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Haven't had any issues with scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

9/10

Technical Support:

9/10

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

Filesystem and email, we switched because it was not a effective way of collaborating in teams.

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward

What about the implementation team?

In-house

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

Initial 50K USD, cloud-based infrastructure cost + maintenance = 30k / year

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes - all wiki and collaboration platforms available

What other advice do I have?

Just do it, it will give you quick benefits and will change the overall atmosphere when doing things together in one place. Here's an example of ours:

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We're an Atlassian Confluence expert partner
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Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
February 2025
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1119327 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Intuitive solution with great content management though I would like the ability to import pictures
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very intuitive and provides excellent content management."
  • "In the next release, I would like to have the ability to import pictures."

What is our primary use case?

My team uses this solution for documentation and collaboration.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution is very intuitive and provides excellent content management.

What is most valuable?

You can easily switch between tools through hyperlinks. It is also well integrated with Jira.

What needs improvement?

In the next release, I would like to have the ability to import pictures.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about six months.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable, we currently have about two hundred users who are senior employees within our IT department.

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

There is an annual license.

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
reviewer1320141 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Analyst at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
A one-stop shop for all project documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "It is just the fact that it is a one-stop shop for all project documentation. It is compared to storing things in files and directories and stuff like that. It provides the overall usability and accessibility of many projects and documents in one area."
  • "It would be good if they can continue working towards making documentation and editing as quick and easy as possible. It has got a lot of capability, but I don't know how to use it. I don't find some of the things that intuitive. Sometimes, it doesn't seem obvious to me how to use it, but it is like learning any new tool. You actually need to get trained on the tool to get maximum out of it."

What is our primary use case?

We have got our own private Confluence set up. In our department, we use Jira and Confluence a lot. These are our in-house go-to tools for managing the agile ways of working. We sort of follow a bit of both models: traditional and agile. We follow the traditional waterfall model outside of Confluence and Jira, so that's more like requirements, specifications, and documents. There's another team, with which I haven't been that involved, that writes user stories and allocates tasks in Jira. They use it quite heavily.

We use Jira more for agile type processing, like for Kanban boards and all that sort of stuff and allocating work tasks and two-week sprints. It supports the actual agile process. Jira is much more focused on the process of delivery.

What is most valuable?

It is just the fact that it is a one-stop shop for all project documentation. It is compared to storing things in files and directories and stuff like that. It provides the overall usability and accessibility of many projects and documents in one area. 

What needs improvement?

It would be good if they can continue working towards making documentation and editing as quick and easy as possible. 

It has got a lot of capability, but I don't know how to use it. I don't find some of the things that intuitive. Sometimes, it doesn't seem obvious to me how to use it, but it is like learning any new tool. You actually need to get trained on the tool to get maximum out of it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for the last two to three years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have our own engineers.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Atlassian Confluence an eight out of ten. It provides everything for our use cases.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user577887 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager & Application Engineer at a tech vendor
Vendor
It is one repository for all the information and is easily searchable.

What is most valuable?

It is easy and simple to implement. Some of the valuable features are its ability to customize via add-ons and the collaborative environment.

How has it helped my organization?

For many of my clients, we use Confluence as a shared collaborative knowledge management tool. It helps them as it is one repository for all the information and is easily searchable .

What needs improvement?

Rich text could always be better but it is nice to have.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this product for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not encountered any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not encountered any scalability issues, i.e., if you have enough IT resources.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give the technical support a 8/10 rating.

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

My customers were previously using a different solution. The reason they switched is because Confluence is a simple wiki-based solution, compared to the other wiki tools.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

You should do it. It is so simple and can give so much added value rapidly.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are Atlassian business partners.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Project Manager with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
You can move pages around and it integrates with JIRA.

What is most valuable?

The valuable features are:

  • It is easy to use.
  • It is easy for newcomers to start using it.
  • It has the “what you see is what you get” functionality of MS Word.
  • It is easy to move pages around. There is no excuse for not doing documentation just because you do not know where to add it.
  • It has good integration with JIRA. You can really do great things with the two products.

What needs improvement?

The license part is too flexible.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution since 2008.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There have not been any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There have not been many scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would give technical support a rating of 9 out of 10.

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

We used SharePoint a long time ago, and we will never go back to it.

How was the initial setup?

The installation can be quite complex. You need to know what you are doing in order to install it on your own. The cloud version is very easy to install.

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

You need to buy a full license for your entire organization, even though you only need a plugin for two people.

What other advice do I have?

There needs to be an owner of the installation, in terms of the system and the infrastructure.

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
PeerSpot user
Customer Communication Specialist at a media company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Easy to use, but tough time importing Word.

Valuable Features:

It is very easy to use and setup. The Word import works well (except for styling issues). Users can collaborate and you can allow certain users to see certain content dynamically. Many plugins are offered. The most useful one is to generate PDF on the fly. You also have send this page, print, etc. If you do not require log ins (only allow anonymous users), I would highly recommend Confluence.

Room for Improvement:

I had a tough time importing Word and allowing use of an external style sheet (and not import hard coded). Also, the pricing module needs to be adjusted. We want all our customers to be able to view Confluence as anonymous users. However, all our customers require a log in to our platform. And, to integrate with Confluence would require user licenses for every one of our users (over 10,000). It is not affordable.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user