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Alfresco vs Atlassian Confluence comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (9th), Document Management Software (4th)
Atlassian Confluence
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (2nd), Enterprise Social Software (2nd), Knowledge Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Alfresco and Atlassian Confluence aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Alfresco is designed for Enterprise Content Management and holds a mindshare of 7.7%, down 8.2% compared to last year.
Atlassian Confluence, on the other hand, focuses on Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals), holds 15.1% mindshare, down 19.6% since last year.
Enterprise Content Management
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

Karthi Keyan - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlining document management with enhanced digitalization features needed
We used Alfresco as a document management system for automating and digitizing manual forms. Those were the main use cases The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes has improved our organization. The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with…
Rabindra K Maharana - PeerSpot reviewer
Editing features improve document accessibility
There is a holiday calendar, however, I need to install an app or add something to it. The add-on feature is not readily available or well-documented. Guidance on this should be available in a forum. Recently, I used a feature in another tool—perhaps GitHub—where it helped prepare a chart. It involved listing resources, like having fifteen people in the X team, ten in the Y team, and seven in the Z team. It created a bar chart showing these numbers. This chart used AI to offer users the option to create it based on the data. It was then created on a separate page and made available.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with the scanning solution, the ability to search, and the capability to store and index to capture metadata."
"Document repository."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"The trial stages, the ability to connect it to Jira, and the ability to export in PDF are all good capabilities."
"I love the reports and the Confluence board."
"This solution allowed us to easily input details beyond just text, such as creating basic data charts to monitor team performance."
"It has a very intuitive user interface, which every user able to manage the basic functionality of a PC will be able to work with and produce quite satisfactory results."
"I rate this solution a nine out of ten."
"Many people enjoy its zero learning-curve.​"
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"What's most valuable to me in Atlassian Confluence is that it allows the concurrent development of documentation. I also like how you can add comments offline and implement changes directly on the document."
 

Cons

"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"The user interface could be improved."
"There is room for improvement in maybe the tree structure for articles. If you have a lot of articles, it becomes difficult to navigate."
"When we import the data in Confluence from Word or any other document, the formatting is not correct."
"The software does not currently have any kind of AI integration. Given that many platforms are now incorporating AI, I believe Confluence should also consider AI integration."
"There is no concept of peer review or a draft mode - whatever you write is live."
"An area for improvement in Atlassian Confluence is encouraging more vital interaction among the project members or users involved. I was researching a tool that could be used for better interactions offline among users on a specific topic or discussion. That feature would make Atlassian Confluence better."
"Some macros can be technical, and they are better managed on the Confluence cloud rather than on-premises. For example, when you add an image on the cloud, you can resize it just by using the mouse. This is not the case on-premises yet. You have to write pixels of the size of the image sometimes. Some of the very old macros are still there, and some of them are technical. It can be hard for users if they are not from an IT background to understand how to use them quickly."
"Confluence cannot replace Microsoft Word at the moment, so even though it can be used as a document management system, it is not meant for document creation, which adds a lot of limitations to it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"The license for Alfresco is expensive - not the maximum, but close. There are also extra costs once you start building integrations, as implementation seems to be very costly."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"In my opinion, it's worth the investment"
"To my knowledge, Atlassian Confluence had a pricing approach which is a commercial open-source solution, so that if you are a company, you had to pay an amount. This fee was not huge compared to other traditional solutions, and it was free for personal use or if you were an individual."
"There is an annual license."
"We have a site license for Atlassian Confluence and there are some limitations on external users."
"The price of the on-premises data center version is too expensive."
"Maybe we're only using 10% of it, but we have to pay for everything."
"There is a license needed to use Atlassian Confluence."
"There are some cases where you can go on Confluence as a public site without a license, but you will not have all of the features. You can also have a Confluence site that does not require a license just to read the articles. When you have Jira Service Management attached to Confluence, then you can go through the portal of Jira Service Management and read the Confluence articles without the license. This is good because when you are in an ITSM environment, you have many customers, and you do not want them to have to pay just to read articles. Regarding the use of the full features of Confluence, there is a license cost, and it depends on how many users you want."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
10%
Educational Organization
71%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects. There is often a transition from the community version to the licensed version, which incurs migration costs. ...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk. Clients, especially large enterprises such as banks, are concerned about documen...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
Mostly, the primary use case is to store documents related to transactions in our company. These documents could be signed documents, invoices, purchase orders, etc. While transaction records are s...
What do you like most about Atlassian Confluence?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from its document-controlling feature. In Atlassian Confluence, controlled documents cannot be edited by anyone else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian Confluence?
With Atlassian, the costs are reasonable. Although higher than before when we used multiple platforms and licenses, having a collaborative platform like this is advantageous. It streamlines license...
What needs improvement with Atlassian Confluence?
There is a holiday calendar, however, I need to install an app or add something to it. The add-on feature is not readily available or well-documented. Guidance on this should be available in a foru...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Confluence
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, NASA, Netflix, Adobe, Bonobos, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
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