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Program Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Business users create business collaboration solutions and web-like interfaces.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to create business collaboration solutions without having an army of IT professionals. We can create web-like interfaces without needing to be an expert in Java, Java scripts, or HTML.

How has it helped my organization?

We use the tool to establish a collaboration space across federal agencies, state agencies, and other public stakeholders. We are able to create a simple workflow and have an electronic record of those activities.

What needs improvement?

The basic improvement needed from my perspective (and it may be more to do with how Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has allowed certain features of Confluence to be used) is the ability to move multiple attachments at a time. I would like to be able to copy a set of pages in Confluence as a template. It would be nice to have better business collaboration examples.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used this product for five years.

Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We had stability issues sometimes, but I am not quite sure where those issues occurred. I don’t know if slowness is occurring on the OMB server end or on my organization's end in terms of network transfer of information. Sometimes the system does not respond as fast as a normal web interface. I am happy, overall, because I understand the power of the collaboration efforts being done. However, I think most people are used to one-way communication when it comes to the internet and they expect the same speed when collaborating from a two-way (or more )perspective.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The system has incredible scalability. I have not used all of the features that OMB provides, but we have an integrated system with:

  • Collaboration & Information Sharing
  • Data Collection
  • Analysis
  • Publications
  • Specialized Applications
  • PaaS
  • Records Management
  • Publishing
  • Business Intelligence
  • Workflow
  • Web Frameworks
  • Common Database
  • Identity and Provisioning

How are customer service and support?

I don’t interact with Atalssian directly, but rather through OMB who interacts with Atalssian. OMB is my technical contact and in terms of my use of the system they are fairly responsive. The system is a federal-wide system, in which participating federal agencies pay a fee ($50-200K) to be a member and use it as a shared service. When there are special initiatives, a federal agency may have to pay a little more. When I say a little more, I mean a little more, not huge amounts of money.
.

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

I used previous systems, such as email, common spaces, CDs, snail mail, and lately, SharePoint (we are still using this as well). These are all painful, unsecure systems and require an IT army.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Before choosing this product, we evaluated SharePoint.

What other advice do I have?

If you want to solve complex problems with a simple solution, then use Confluence and use it to scale to more complicated things as you grow.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2585973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Enhanced team productivity with organized documentation and integration features
Pros and Cons
  • "Confluence is very easy to use and feature-packed."
  • "The discoverability of documents could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use Confluence for our internal documentation work and to plan new features, design documents, and knowledge transfer documents. Most of the documentation work is done using Confluence

We have a separate Confluence space for our team, with public articles about our projects and how to set up our repositories, available for anyone to access. 

Additionally, we maintain private content within the team's Confluence space.

How has it helped my organization?

Confluence has significantly improved the productivity of our team. Previously, finding information required asking someone or searching through improperly organized resources. Now, all onboarding documents, knowledge transfer documents, and documents regarding features are within our Confluence space, making it easy to find information as needed.

What is most valuable?

Confluence is very easy to use and feature-packed. It allows us to design well-organized documents and offers valuable add-ons. Its integration capabilities enable direct linking of pull requests and certain issues across spaces, facilitating easy navigation and enhanced collaborative work.

What needs improvement?

The discoverability of documents could be improved. In scenarios where documents are managed by another department or we are looking for specific documents, the process could be enhanced for easier discovery.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with Confluence for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Confluence is stable, and we haven't experienced any disruptions with their service.

How are customer service and support?

We have not escalated any questions to technical support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

Before Confluence, we predominantly used SharePoint and Microsoft products. We decided to switch to Confluence as we were already using Jira and Bitbucket, making the transition to Confluence seamless with other Atlassian products.

What other advice do I have?

Properly use the features available in Confluence, such as site spaces and other functionalities.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Atlassian Confluence
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Atlassian Confluence. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Cuneyt-Gurses - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud architect at DTech Cloud
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Provides strong collaboration features and enables role-based access management
Pros and Cons
  • "Document collaboration is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
  • "Indentation and other basic word processing styles must be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Confluence is an important tool for collaboration.

What is most valuable?

We can implement macros in documents. It is useful for document development. We can collaborate with others. The user management and role-based access management depend on Jira. All Atlassian products rely on Jira on-premise. We can also delete the number of users who can access our documents. Document collaboration is the most valuable aspect of the solution.

What needs improvement?

Indentation and other basic word processing styles must be improved. However, it is limited to editing HTML.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is stable.

How was the initial setup?

The tool can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The setup is straightforward. We have to follow several steps for Linux, but the setup for Windows is quite basic.

What about the implementation team?

I did the deployment myself.

What other advice do I have?

I strongly recommend the product. There is no need for scalability. The product’s collaboration features are very strong. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Director of IT product at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Useful for project documentation and use case stories, but the dashboards could be better
Pros and Cons
  • "Pricing is not a problem."
  • "The dashboards should be improved."

What is most valuable?

The business analysts use Atlassian Confluence for project documentation and use case stories. I use it primarily for dashboards and KPIs that are set for programs. Most people are comfortable using Atlassian Confluence.

What needs improvement?

This solution should have customized dashboards that could be built by the user and connect to the data and filtering mechanisms to create dashboards. It will be great for any C-level executive to monitor their KPIs rather than depend on somebody else to create them. So, the dashboards should be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about ten years. It is mainly deployed on cloud.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We don't have any issues with stability. We have about 200 users of Atlassian Confluence.

How are customer service and support?

We don't have any experience with technical support.

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

We have used Zoho, Salesforce, Bamboo and Trello. They almost all work the same because I've seen things done differently. Whether you do project management or documentation, you can choose a solution that's friendly for developers and easy to understand and pick up quickly. I would not say one is better than the other, and each solution has its abilities. Atlassian Confluence seems stable, and we don't have a problem. When dealing with compliance, some of our projects need people and PCI nest compliance, so we also have to look at tools hosted in the manner in which they comply with these standards. IBM products meet some of those requirements.

How was the initial setup?

All things in Atlassian Confluence are set up on cloud. The clients have their administration teams, and they extend an account for our developers, our PAs, and our managers on these platforms. So we don't set up anything. The administration team sets up the Jira accounts on cloud. GitLab and GitHub are set up on-premises while keeping the code version internally. Setup is not a major issue because most of these things are very simple, and you have instructions.

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

I rate the price an eight out of ten, with ten being a good price and one being a high price. Pricing is not a problem, and you might have other products with lower rates. For bigger companies, price is not a problem because there is always a budget, and the clients fund it. However, if the price gets cheaper, it will be better for users.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1929324 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Architecture at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Excellent search option, easy to use, and all around good collaboration tool
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a good collaboration tool."
  • "I would like to see more macros provided by the company included in the license."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for collaboration, team communication, documentation portal, and sometimes project-related content. We keep the details of the project and related documents.

How has it helped my organization?

It is a good collaboration tool. You share the document content and also its history through Atlassian Confluence so that you can trace its development. Also, you can add comments to the project-related items in order to track the history. It has JIRA integration in a way that you can combine the project-related dashboards into one space. This increases the communication between the teams. It is a good way to record know-how basis. You can use it as a know-how base for newcomers to be initiated more easily to the items provided.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to use and create new page content. It has macros and some stamp dates for your projects. If you would like to make something new that you have not done before, it is usually easy to find out on the internet. There is a lot of information available and the search function is excellent. You can search in different spaces and get answers for items you want to find easily.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see more macros provided by the company. Currently, those macros require extra cost. Additional free capability for those types of integration or components would be helpful in the existing license.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Atlassian Confluence for almost four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable. I have not seen any virus interruption or issue related to the stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would say that Atlassian Confluence is scalable we have more than one thousand users.

How are customer service and support?

Currently, I have not contacted technical support.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it through a third party.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We went with Atlassian Confluence because JIRA had the same type of usage.

What other advice do I have?

If you need to create some teamwork spaces it is very good. I would rate Atlassian Confluence a nine out of ten.

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
Sundaresen Rungasamy - PeerSpot reviewer
SAFe SPC Coach and Consultant, South EMEA Agile at Valiantys
Consultant
Easy to use, reliable, and different options available
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence it's very easy to use and there are different options."
  • "We have to use other applications that make Atlassian Confluence more customized for what you want. They should improve by adding the ability to make more customizations."

What is our primary use case?

We use Atlassian Confluence for creating different pages, and projects on it.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence it's very easy to use and there are different options. 

What needs improvement?

We have to use other applications that make Atlassian Confluence more customized for what you want. They should improve by adding the ability to make more customizations.

In a future release, they could add easy reporting. For example, EZPi can be deployed easily into 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Atlassian Confluence within the last 12 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?

We have not had a problem scaling up Atlassian Confluence.

We have approximately 300 people using the solution in my company. We all use it on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

I have not used the support from Atlassian Confluence. It is an easy tool to use. You do not need a lot of help, but you do need some training.

How was the initial setup?

The setup of Atlassian Confluence can be difficult and other times easy because if you want to implement something, you need to have your process figured out. You have to understand exactly for what purpose you want to use something. Once you understand that, you have to know how you're going to use it. Not only immediately, but also in the future. Once you have this map, then you will be able to use a tool properly. Otherwise, you will be doing trial and error for a while.

If you want to get Atlassian Confluence up and running, the time is depending on whether you want something simple or customized. However, it can be done within a week and have everything running.

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

There is a license needed to use Atlassian Confluence.

What other advice do I have?

We are using Atlassian Confluence because we mainly implement Atlassian tools for customers. It is helpful for us to use them to understand our customers' needs if there is a problem.

It is important to know what the client wants to use this solution for. After knowing what they want to use it for I would advise them to use it or not.

I rate Atlassian Confluence a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Walter Ribeiro Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Mprojects Soluções Em Informática LTDA
Real User
Top 10
Easy to use and efficiently organizes data
Pros and Cons
  • "For me, the most valuable feature is its high performance. It's crucial for us in the bank, as we handle a massive number of transactions every day."
  • "I have a couple of different pipelines that I work with. However, I'd like to see them displayed differently on the same dashboard. So, I would like to have a unified dashboard to view the different pipelines."

What is our primary use case?

I use Confluence to organize my data. In the case of Confluence, I use it to handle various transactions in the bank. We have multiple channels in the bank. The bank I work for is one of the largest in Brazil.

How has it helped my organization?

I manage five different channels in the bank. I receive messages, put them in a pipeline, and then process the data in various ways. After that, I distribute the processed data through different channels. I also have other tasks related to client management.

For example, I have to connect my legacy systems with new solutions, and Confluence helps me with that. I use different connectors to transfer data from legacy systems to new core solutions.

What is most valuable?

For me, the most valuable feature is its high performance. It's crucial for us in the bank, as we handle a massive number of transactions every day. It's very efficient and saves a lot of time.

Additionally, the ease of use and the availability of different connectors are important. They help me connect with various databases and facilitate integrations with different solutions.

What needs improvement?

I have a couple of different pipelines that I work with. However, I'd like to see them displayed differently on the same dashboard. So, I would like to have a unified dashboard to view the different pipelines.

In my case, the governance aspect is the most important. It doesn't work well with a huge company, and it's not as effective as it could be for software developers.

Moreover, there is an area of improvement in the governance functionality within Confluence, especially for large companies like ours, to have a more sophisticated governance solution associated with Confluence.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for six months. I am using both Confluence SaaS solutions. I have access to various versions of the software.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability high. 

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support team was not so good. In Brazil, the technical support for Confluence is not very good because the team is small. We are still trying to improve, but there are a lot of open permissions on the internet. However, Confluence is a very important tool and has good features. So, it's important to have better support because it can make it easier for users to work with Confluence. Currently, it's not as close as other brands, which makes it hard to propose new ideas or get prompt assistance. There are a lot of opportunities to make it more user-friendly.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex.

What was our ROI?

In my opinion, it's worth the investment. I saw an ROI in a short time.

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

The pricing is good. In my opinion, there are no better alternatives.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten 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
Dusanka Mladenovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Easy content writing and publishing with good integration
Pros and Cons
  • "With Confluence, everything is in one place, so it's easy to find documentation."
  • "Some elements of the user interface could be more user-friendly, including embedding diagrams."

What is our primary use case?

I use Confluence for project documentation and team collaboration.

How has it helped my organization?

With Confluence, everything is in one place, so it's easy to find documentation. This means we don't need to use other tools, like SharePoint.

What is most valuable?

Confluence's best features are very easy content writing and publishing. It also has good integration with other Atlassian products, Jira in particular.

What needs improvement?

Some elements of the user interface could be more user-friendly, including embedding diagrams. In the next release, I'd like to see better integration with diagramming tools or software architecture.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Confluence for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Confluence is stable and dependable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Confluence's scalability is good and can handle many parallel users.

How are customer service and support?

Atlassian's technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy and happened in the background.

What about the implementation team?

We used an Atlassian support company for the initial deployment.

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

Confluence charges an extra fee for analytics.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Confluence to other users because it's easy to use and integrates well with other documentation tools. I would give Confluence a rating of eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user