Content creation and sharing, collaboration
CEO with 51-200 employees
Reduces redundant communication. Working with 3rd party content can be improved.
What is most valuable?
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
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 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 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
RPA Business Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
It has tremendously improved our organisational culture
What is our primary use case?
Implementing Confluence in documenting functional specifical documents and preparing RTMs, product requirements.
How has it helped my organization?
It has tremendously improved our organisational culture, as it is a more streamlined way of handling customer issues/responses/queries and for documenting.
What is most valuable?
Integration with JIRA, draw.io, Creately, and other mockups tools is a boon to Confluence's usage in handling complex problems.
What needs improvement?
Confluence textual editor could be improved and integrated with MS Word for easy usage and better formatting of documents.
For how long have I used the solution?
Still implementing.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is indeed a stable and error-free application, as it is a mature application running for decades.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It can be easily scaled up to different levels if used wisely.
How are customer service and technical support?
Quick support with an easy resolution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
N/A.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
In-house.
What was our ROI?
N/A.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
- It's easy to set up, as it gives a quick guide for the same process.
- Costing and pricing may vary depending on usage.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
N/A.
What other advice do I have?
N/A.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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.
Project Manager & Application Engineer at a tech 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.
Project Manager with 501-1,000 employees
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.
Systems/Applications Specialist with 201-500 employees
I like that we don't need to wait until a document is 100% ready, we can start with a draft and develop in progress.
What is most valuable?
- Easy import and creation of new documents
- Notifications of the updated content
- Version history changes
- Cross team changing
How has it helped my organization?
Before using Confluence we have had the documentation spread across multiple shared drives and emails. Confluence gave us a chance to re-arrange the documents into a single repository and group the information logically in home page(s). I have called our home page a one-stop-shop for all team related links. Furthermore, other teams have created their own home pages and we are able to access each other spaces, sharing knowledge and know-how. When we do project work we can share the progress and develop documentation on the go while everyone has access to the latest version in real time. Talking about this, the thing I love about Confluence is that every document becomes a living document and we don't need to wait until it is 100% ready, but start with a draft and develop in progress.
What needs improvement?
Surprisingly enough the text editor is very limited in its functionality and given the fact that so many forum platforms and web sites have mastered this tool I believe Atlassian have no excuse to keep it this way. It lacks basics such as text highlighting, and adjusting the text size and working with tables is a nightmare. Text formatting and working with numbers and bullet points is time consuming. I would like to see more plugins and additional functionality such as embedding of other pages, drop down menus, insert buttons, and page templates.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used it for over two years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
No issues faced with deployment.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The software has been running as expected. We have faced an issue where the hard disk ran out of space and the application continued working, putting all the changes in the memory. We have identified this fact after a server restart and as a result the changes made in the last few weeks were lost (the current RAM setups are huge enough to store plenty of text based information). I believe a simple space utilisations could be implemented in the app to warn or stop it from working if there is no space. In my opinion, the impact of losing the work is bigger than having the app down until fixed.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As above plus the available users are based on license.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
I find the customer sevice limited.
Technical Support:Technically speaking they have just enough resources to confirm bugs and lack of functionality but no people to follow on fixing and improving.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
First of its kind in this environment.
How was the initial setup?
Straightforward install and setup.
What about the implementation team?
Implemented in-house. Quick and painless.
What was our ROI?
Confluence has saved time in finding information, reduced the on-boarding time, improved provisioning of repeatable scripted operational process, provided a central point for knowledge sharing and supplied better retention of Intellectual Property.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Not sure about the initial cost but the application itself needs little computing and some disk space.
What other advice do I have?
Go fast, cheap and dirty when creating new documents and improve in progress - this tool concentrates on the sharing, arranging and collaboration part but doesn't aim too high about how the content looks like. If you are after some serious functionality such as a table of contents, body styles and track changes I would recommend using Word and attach as a doc file. Index your content in home pages and sub-home pages for better logical arrangement of the information and fast navigation. Research additional modules like Confluence Questions. You can use the spaces for team building management like having a section for photos from events, out of work activities or sharing industry related links.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Customer Communication Specialist at a media company with 51-200 employees
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.
Works at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
CEO & CPO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Confluence is a great solution for early-stage documentation and communication.
Pros and Cons
- "With respect to our experiences with Confluence, we haven't had any issues."
- "It would be interesting if they had graphical templates that allowed typical agile ceremonies to be documented better."
What is our primary use case?
We mainly used Jira for backlog management within IT development landscapes. We used Confluence for early-stage documentation and communication within and across teams.
Since we worked mostly with large enterprises, they typically install and host any server-based solutions on their own.
What is most valuable?
The interesting thing is the connector between Jira and Confluence (it works wiki-like and provides a deep-connection with links between both systems). The alternative is to run for early-stage backlog-items in immature state a separate wiki-instance that would not feature the proper linkage of backlog-entries automatically.
What needs improvement?
With respect to Confluence, it would be interesting if they had graphical templates that allowed typical agile ceremonies to be documented better. For example, one of the agile cadences that we regularly run is risk roaming. Confluence, as of now, doesn't provide any kind of graphical support for creating a two-by-two portfolio matrix design or even something similar. Basically, Confluence is heavily text-based. Some of my customers have actually started to tweak the system a bit and implement workarounds. On the screen, you can make it look as if it is a two-by-two portfolio; however, if there were templates provided, that would be great. The basic graphical templates that are used regularly in management would be fine. It would be great to see them supported in the future.
In regards to Jira, it would be nice if they had two-dimensional features for backlog support. At the moment, backlog management is always a flat, one-dimensional list but our customers actually prefer having the opportunity to have that read out in a graphical fashion as well. That way, there's so much more overview and they can cluster smaller backlog items that come as a bunch. It just provides much more clarity.
Jira still seems to have issues on modelling Kanban-systems - as far as I know it still doesn't support the so-called "commitment point" (i.e. creating a non-romovable time-stamp when moving a ticket onto a board) helpful in creating transparency about start- and end-time of performing an activity — similar to signing a document in writing.
Think of it this way: if you take an item into a boardroom, it must be noted and signed. It should be done in pencil where the data could be erased later on, rather, it should be stamped — basically, you are not losing the data again. That is still an issue with these systems. That's one of the reasons why many teams who want to run Kanban methodology don't want to use Jira. They tend to use other software, which is able to do these sorts of things.
For how long have I used the solution?
Until 2018, I was employed with an applier of Atlassian solutions. Within that context, I used Confluence for a year. I have used Jira 2012—2018 as an end-user myself. From then onwards, I was more of a consultant to other companies implementing and using similar solutions. In short, if you count only end-usage, then it's 6 years with Jira and one year with Confluence.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
With respect to our experiences with Confluence, we haven't had any issues; however, we definitely have had issues within the Jira environment back in 2014.
Scalability issues should have been fixed by now - they arose back in 2010-2014 at one of the largest enterprise implementations for multi-1.000s of concurrent users on the system, causing the system to operate very slow - I would expect that by 2020 this is treated accordingly to make the system scale without loss of performance.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not personally contacted Atlassian's technical support. It was always routed via the respective IT staff, which I was not involved with.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved with technical administration or the implementation procedure from an IT infrastructure team perspective. For this reason, I can't speak for individual customers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The problem with the pricing model is not so much the price for the Atlassian basic software itself; the issues I have with the pricing are in respect to the add-ons. The problem with add-on pricing is that it typically is always calculated based on the amount of basic Confluence or Jira licenses. Since some of the add-ons will only get used by a very limited number of users, having to pay for the full implementation (for all the people using Confluence or Jira), seems like an unfair pricing model. It also prohibits the usage of certain add-ons, too. Certain add-ons from a functionality-perspective are much more exclusive to only a few users. That pricing model should be reviewed and potentially edited or amended to make it more flexible.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight. If they added the graphical templates, I would give them a higher rating.
To me, as an end-user, the topical templates are pretty basic. Under the current conditions, since COVID-19, our teams have tried to become more virtual in their collaboration model. The collaboration model that we had installed before, face-to-face, couldn't be transferred, which is kind of a pity because the graphical features are missing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
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Updated: November 2024
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