Atlassian Confluence Reviews

My team uses this solution for documentation and collaboration.

The solution is very intuitive and provides excellent content management.

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

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

I have been using this solution for about six months.

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

There is an annual license.

Public Cloud

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

I have not personally contacted Atlassian's technical support. It was always routed via the respective IT staff, which I was not involved with.

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.

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.

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.

On-premises

• Document management
• Knowledge base
• Team collaboration
• Security
• User management
• Integration with different tools

• Avoids the need for document versioning
• Centralizes document access
• Provides easy access
• Has an easy search facility
• Allows you to store all documents in one place
• Enables you to share documents
• Allows you to publish articles

• Bulk editing of documents
• Reports
• Content sharing
• Document publishing

I have used it for over three years.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter many scalability issues.

I would give them a rating of 7/10. The technical support was helpful.

The initial setup was fine. More memory may be required, depending upon the size of the attachments.

Pricing is provided on the Atlassian site. You can choose the license depending upon the number of users.

We evaluated SharePoint, XWiki, and MediaWiki.

Confluence is very easy to use and has strong search functionality.

The flexibility and scalability of Confluence.

The structure of spaces, pages and child pages allows an easy way to structure content in a way which suits our business.

Confluence has been our central knowledge platform for several years. All of our agent team use the knowledge base constantly throughout their work.

It takes some thought into how to structure confluence in a way which is intuitive for the team to use.

Search only takes you to a page, not an area of a page.

3 years

We had no issues with deployment.

We had no issues with stability.

Just in respects of how we structure our content. Confluence is perfectly scalable.

Customer Service:

Responsive and to the point. Also extensive knowledge base which is useful for most queries.

Technical Support:

10/10

We implemented in house with (at the time) limited technical expertise.

Hosting yourself allows greater flexibility in terms of extensions and customisation.

Overall, I love the ability to quickly upload and preview documents. The navigation is quite easy and intuitive once you grasp the file hierarchy. I use the template pages often to produce clean consistent spaces for clients.

It allows collaborative functionality across documents, meeting notes and project requirements.

I think the user interface could be more graphically pleasing, as well as establishing permissions across various spaces and user levels a bit clearer.

I have used this for approximately four years.

We have not had stability issues.

We didn’t have scaling issues once our company established its best use of the system and scaled from there.

We have not had to use them.

I used Basecamp previously. However, Confluence just fit our workflows better and at a better price.

Setup was very easy once the we established our goals in using the system.

Nothing more than the time spent previously using Basecamp.

Understand the permissions. We provide a login for clients with access to certain areas. With multiple clients ensuring data security, this was huge for us.

It's relatively easy to use, and has a lot of functionality with regard to formatting wiki articles and embedding content.

The search is pretty terrible. You can search for something that is quite close to text that appears in an article, and nothing will come up. I consistently have a hard time finding the things I care about on our wiki.

Overall it's a fine tool, but I don't think it provides a whole lot of advantages over other similar options. We use it primarily because we also use JIRA, and working with one vendor makes things easier.

My primary use case is for processes in project documentation.

The best feature is document management.

An area for improvement would be the intuitiveness of using the features, especially if you want to customize. In the next release, I would like to see an instant messaging feature for document collaboration.

I've been using this solution for eight years.

The stability has improved and is now good.

This solution is very scalable.

The initial setup is straightforward, though the time it takes depends on the size of the project.

Atlassian is trying to push the license for their online version, but our customers are not ready for that yet. Its licensing is also quite highly-priced.

I would give this solution a rating of eight out of ten.

On-premises