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Atlassian Confluence vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Atlassian Confluence
Ranking in Knowledge Management Software
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (2nd), Enterprise Social Software (2nd)
Zendesk
Ranking in Knowledge Management Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (5th), CRM (21st), Help Desk Software (11th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (9th), Sales Force Automation (7th), Reporting (13th), Community Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Knowledge Management Software category, the mindshare of Atlassian Confluence is 25.3%, up from 24.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 18.7%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Knowledge Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

Massimo Banzi - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 1, 2022
Flexible, efficient, allows the concurrent development of documentation and lets you add comments offline
An area for improvement in Atlassian Confluence is encouraging more vital interaction among the project members or users involved. I was researching a tool, but I forgot the exact name of the tool, and that tool could be used for better interactions offline among users on a specific topic, development, or discussion. I want that feature to be present in Atlassian Confluence. If there's a possibility to integrate Atlassian Confluence, Jira, and that other tool, that will make Atlassian Confluence better. My team had problems accessing Atlassian Confluence a couple of times, but I wonder if that was due to a network, server, or tool issue. I have to say that I've been working with Atlassian Confluence for years, and it has been improving its functionalities, so I feel that as a tool, it's working very well, but some features could still be improved. For example, the search engine should allow you to define some keywords you could use when searching, though I wonder if it's staff-related or setup-related, or lacking in the search engine function itself. I also want artificial intelligence added to Atlassian Confluence where you're working on a specific issue or argument, and Atlassian Confluence, through its AI, can propose some improvements based on what has been done on the same topic by different teams or different projects within the same infrastructure, similar to an internal reference, which can be helpful. Through AI, it would also be great if Atlassian Confluence could advise you on what has been done outside your specific project, and maybe there's the possibility of an installation where you have several projects installed and working together. Another feature that would be good to have in the next release of Atlassian Confluence is the tool recognizing a keyword or two that's fully developed in project B, which you can use in project A, for example.
Ahmed Nassar - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 17, 2023
Stable tool, making it reliable for handling tasks but difficult initial setup
It has a huge problem regarding the price. The price increases every year. Every year, they raise the price of the licenses, which makes a lot of limitations, and you have to pay more. So that's some conditions. Actually, most of the companies that use Zendesk need a customer experience or customer care department. However, Zendesk only works with chatbox or emailing services, but it can also use Genesys, VoIP, or voice sensors. Additionally, Zendesk needs the administration panels to be easier because it's a very complex panel. You need to search for a lot of things to do, like a small job. So you have to do a lot of setup regarding the integration, and it's a little bit challenging to integrate any software in the vendor.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution helped us to see where we were going wrong and where we were doing good, and that helped us to make proper decisions"
"It is a good collaboration tool."
"It's extremely intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence is the ability to access your files from anywhere."
"The customization that Confluence offers is one of its most useful features. You can customise it based on the specific project you are working on. It also supports multiple languages."
"As for valuable features, the team management features help us to share information very easily."
"We have found limiting permissions and history very valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence it's very easy to use and there are different options."
"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."
"The stability has been very good."
"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."
"It has good management, the ability to sign tickets based on content, the multi-channel support, the self service portal, the integration with Salesforce, the setup process, and the product features as we are currently using them."
"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."
"I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
 

Cons

"The UI is good but bland. It could be updated a bit to make it more modern and interesting to look at."
"I think the couple of improvement areas would be around Markdown support and support for adding code."
"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."
"We would like there to be more advanced data manipulation features available in this solution, such as creating more complex charts, and a column freezing option."
"Atlassian Confluence is not really a community-friendly solution."
"I would like Confluence to include the ability to draw flowcharts and diagrams."
"I'd like to see some improved reporting on usage."
"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."
"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."
"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."
"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."
"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a very expensive solution."
"The price of the on-premises data center version is too expensive."
"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."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive, meaning its price falls somewhere in the mid-range zone."
"We have to pay licensing fees."
"There is an annual license."
"Confluence charges an extra fee for analytics."
"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 are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"The price is very competitive."
"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
72%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
Computer Software Company
22%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
The product is neither cheap nor expensive, meaning its price falls somewhere in the mid-range zone. I am not sure about the price of the product, but I know that the pricing-related information is...
What needs improvement with Atlassian Confluence?
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...
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive. One of the reasons for shifting from Zendesk to Talkdesk was cost efficiency.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Sometimes, the calls do not record, and your conversation is cut midway. When you want to do a call calibration, you realize that the call is incomplete. Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could ...
 

Also Known As

Confluence
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, NASA, Netflix, Adobe, Bonobos, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Atlassian Confluence vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.