Atlassian Confluence vs. Slack

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Confluence
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Confluence is a collaboration and content sharing platform used primarily by customers who are already using Atlassian's Jira project tracking product. The product appeals particularly to IT users.
$6.40
per month per user
Slack
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Slack is a group messaging or team collaboration app that aims to simplify communication for businesses. Features include open discussions, private groups, and direct messaging, as well as deep contextual search and message archiving, and file sharing. Slack integrates with a number of other tools, such as MailChimp, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Slack was acquired by Salesforce in December 2020. The product is free to use, and also has paid plans with more features and greater controls. The…
$8.75
per month per user
Pricing
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Free for 10 Users
Standard
$6.40
per month per user
Premium
$12.30
per month per user
Data Center
220,000.00
40,001+ Users - Annually
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Free
$0
Pro
$7.25*
per month per user
Business+
$12.50*
per month per user
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConfluenceSlack
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices shown here reflect prices for deployments with 100 users or less. The prices decrease wien the user base surpasses 100.*Per active user, per month, when paying once a year. Pro is $8.75 USD per active user when paying month to month. Business+ is $15.00 USD per active user when paying month to month.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
Considered Both Products
Confluence
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We choose Atlassian Confluence because it is the reference for managing a SAAS wiki service. And having such a solution in our company to manage the knowledge and especially the knowledge transfer is crucial.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
It's good if you're using Atlassian products, the other ones provide different connections and better UX for documentation in different ways.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We find Atlassian better for its ease of use, real time editing, integration with Jira for bug tracking, stores our security compliance documents in structured way, it is feature rich and have lots of capabilities.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I did not select Atlassian Confluence — it was already there.
I wouldn't pick it If I had the choice.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence is better suited for documenting and acting as a repository for information than the more immediate what is currently being worked on things that are better suited for in Jira. In my opinion, Atlassian Confluence certainly has it's short comings but it is …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We used to use a Wiki site, but that was locally hosted, and when the server was powered off, you could not access it. Moving to Confluence in the cloud is much easier. Also, the interface is much easier to use and expand.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Organisations might have chosen to Procure Atlassian Confluence because JIRA is integral to software development. Notion or Google Docs do not work seamlessly with JIRA. Also, Atlassian Confluence has a much higher perceived seriousness about a document as compared to Google …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I prefer Notion, but the company’s policy doesn’t allow its use, so we rely on Atlassian Confluence instead
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence is more intuitive than MS SharePoint, however, SharePoint has some reach features because of the MS integration with its tools stack.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Confluence smashes competitors out of the ballpark. There is no compromise for quality and great product design with Atlassian
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence is better than all Google Drive, Dropbox as we can just store files in them without specific versioning, but with Atlassian Confluence file is stored in versions.
It is easily integrated with other softwares like Jira so one can keep track on all the …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
It's quite famous and consistency and alignment are what we're after with using Confluence and all of Atlassian's products. This has helped us to be more transparent with out product and development teams as well.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
There are complementary and we are in fact using both of them in out organisation. We are using Google Drive for advanced real-time cooperation when creating documents, since Google Drive can handle this in a more streamlined and easier way than Confluence. Still, Confluence …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I think the only comparable product is Google docs. Google docs is a much simpler product, however, it doesn't have all of the features that confluence has. I think if confluence improved their UI to make it a little better, it can really improve.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I have used other tools that allow for documentation and housing of other business-related documents but none that I used had the same integration or general ability to add and edit information. I am also a general user so I don't know how easy/difficult the backend is, but …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
To keep the user stories together, we used the Microsoft Office tools. It took a lot of time to search for the relevant stories, so we moved to Atlassian Confluence which is now saving a lot of time.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
SharePoint is great, I use it and I love it. Confluence is a lot like SharePoint with a more modern look and a fancy suit. If you have the skills for implementation, it is great and developers will enjoy it more.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Although similar in the way in which they can be used, Atlassian provides great archival and search features, as well as editing capabilities that set it apart. Security through 2-step verification is an important feature often overlooked, being tested now in beta. Overall it …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
With this tool, everyone is in the same place. You and your teams will have the information that is usually lost in email inboxes as well as shared network drives. Data become much easier to find, use, and update with Atlassian Confluence.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
For our needs, Confluence absolutely blew both SharePoint and Google Docs out of the water. We were able to get more granular security than with SharePoint while maintaining the collaborative tool sets found in both SharePoint and Google Docs. Additionally, the integration into …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
The Knowledge Base was something we created. We found Confluence to be a superior tool. The fact that Atlassian is constantly working to make it better continues to be a bonus.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We really only use Confluence because we use JIRA and Hipchat and it seemed to work well within the suite of Atlassian products. I would personally prefer a custom made internal website for our organization plus the integration of google docs/hangouts (or the use of something …
Slack
Chose Slack
I think obviously Slack is much much better than Google Chat, in my previous organisation, we used to communicate everything via Google Chat or email or Google meet, it was difficult to manage because those application combined had less options and features than Slack.
Chose Slack
Slack: It's easy to strike up a chat right away with one-click calls or huddles. By simply pressing the call button, both users are involved without the need to arrange a meeting. Microsoft Teams: With calendar invites, time slot choices, and numerous confirmation processes, …
Chose Slack
The UI is difficult to understand and also to find a particular chat it is difficult to search in Teams. Also Slack has cool features like Slack Workflows and To do lists and Slack Canvas which makes life more easier. Slack apps to integrate existing app and also I use Slack to …
Chose Slack
Slack complements our current technology stack. We use Microsoft products for most tasks, but we have found Teams and Slack to be more user-friendly and reliable than Microsoft Teams. It is easy to manage and add/remove users. It is easy to search and find answers to questions …
Chose Slack
My company selected Slack and my previous company too. As Enterprise architect this tool is perfect to me. It goes straight to the point, it's fast, it's light and clear on the purpose. You can prepare your message without anoying others. You can format your text with enough …
Chose Slack
Having used these 3 software, I believe Slack covers a much wider use case scenario, the user onboarding experience is seamless, the platform is very user friendly and intuitive, very well organized as compared to the other competing software that's out there in the market. …
Chose Slack
While teams is better for conference calls and telephony, Slack surpasses it with it's ease of use, integration possibilities and search capabilities. Having one place where all your collaboration takes place, together with notifications and alerts from all other portals is …
Chose Slack
Slack is much more modern and sleek compared to both Webex Chat and Microsoft Teams. Slack is specific for what the purpose is, and it doesn't over engineer too many other features.
Chose Slack
I think Slack is very straight to the point and a tool you can't live without. It is where you find light, info, share and build results as a team player.
Chose Slack
- MS teams Vs Slack - Slack athread View is incredible - API integration helps with our product - Multiple Domains Login is seemless - Google Chat Vs Slack - google is too messy. Great for chatting and productivity as individual tools. But as integrated productivity …
Chose Slack
Provides the huddle feature, sending attachments and get integrated with the meetings scheduled.
Chose Slack
I would say slack outperforms Microsoft Teams in many areas. The big one would be ease of use and user interface. I strongly prefer Slack's interface and the ease to switch between conversations and calls very quickly. Slack also seems to run a lot better on Mac computers, …
Chose Slack
Easy to setup and use compared to other similar products.

Screen sharing makes the discussions a lot more effective.
Chose Slack
Slack is more user-friendly than Microsoft Teams, at least in my opinion. Microsoft Teams integrates natively with Office 365 tools. Microsoft Teams has a limit of five users on paid plans unless you buy more licenses, whereas Slack allows unlimited external collaboration with …
Chose Slack
We used Spark Instant Messenger before and Slack blew them out the water with a wealth of features we hadn't used before. We didn't need to be on the VPN to communicate and we could do video calls and make our own groups. Everything was better with Slack, as it kind of merges …
Chose Slack
We felt Slack [had] more community friendly tools to share thoughts and an individual view to achieve better and bigger goals. It is also easier to browse and search compared to our previous HipChat tools. It encourages more IT people to get involved in ongoing discussions.
Chose Slack
Having had to use Skype/Lync in a former life as a Fortune 100 contractor, I can say that Slack's ease-of-use, customizability, and solid integrations with online tools puts it far ahead. It's nice to not be beholden to the Microsoft Stack for every little thing, as well. …
Chose Slack
Slack blows Skype out of the water. It is a new, quicker and more efficient instant messaging tool. The capabilities are continuously being updated and can be configured to protect your organization. Slack emojis bring color to your messages and help you feel closer to the …
Chose Slack
Slack is a bit more simplistic than the other pieces of software, but creates more meaningful conversations. The other programs create more of a forum based platform, than a social network like Slack. Slack encourages everyone to get involved with the conversation as opposed to …
Chose Slack
Slack is definitely the marketplace leader for chat / digital communication. Overall Slack has done a very good job of making communication and collaboration easy and non-disruptive. The biggest feature that sets Slack apart from the other tools is the clean interface and …
Features
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
5.5
111 Ratings
34% below category average
Slack
8.2
479 Ratings
6% above category average
Task Management6.289 Ratings8.2310 Ratings
Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings6.961 Ratings
Scheduling7.221 Ratings7.9259 Ratings
Workflow Automation4.060 Ratings8.4284 Ratings
Mobile Access4.384 Ratings9.4460 Ratings
Search6.0109 Ratings8.7463 Ratings
Visual planning tools2.988 Ratings8.0187 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
6.9
111 Ratings
14% below category average
Slack
8.8
488 Ratings
10% above category average
Chat6.415 Ratings9.8488 Ratings
Notifications5.5109 Ratings9.1484 Ratings
Discussions3.8103 Ratings9.5473 Ratings
Surveys7.015 Ratings8.1302 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase7.9103 Ratings7.7300 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting6.03 Ratings8.9110 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts9.37 Ratings8.7182 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook9.610 Ratings8.9120 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
6.0
111 Ratings
27% below category average
Slack
8.7
461 Ratings
10% above category average
Versioning6.394 Ratings8.3229 Ratings
Video files4.471 Ratings8.8412 Ratings
Audio files4.065 Ratings9.0403 Ratings
Document collaboration6.6106 Ratings8.4318 Ratings
Access control8.0104 Ratings8.4305 Ratings
Advanced security features7.280 Ratings8.5264 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive5.947 Ratings9.0211 Ratings
Device sync5.850 Ratings9.1339 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
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Troop Messenger
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User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(128 ratings)
9.4
(488 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(19 ratings)
10.0
(23 ratings)
Usability
6.8
(15 ratings)
9.2
(103 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(25 ratings)
9.9
(66 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(4 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Atlassian ConfluenceSlack
Likelihood to Recommend
Atlassian
I would recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies that want to have internal documentation and minimum governance processes to ensure documentation is useful and doesn't have a lot of duplicated and non-updated content. I wouldn't recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies with a low budget since this product might be a little costly (especially with add-ons).
Read full review
Salesforce
If you population likes technology, then I would recommend Slack. It is more difficult to implement if not everyone is on Slack or knows how to use it. Slack was used well by some employees who loved it. Slack allowed them to plan annual events and get feedback and ideas from those involved in the event
Read full review
Pros
Atlassian
  • Cross product linking - If you use other Atlassian products then Atlassian Confluence is a no-brainer for your source of documentation, knowledge management etc. You can show previews of the linked asset natively E.g. showing a preview of a JIRA ticket in a Atlassian Confluence page.
  • Simple editing - Though the features available may not be super complex right now, this does come with the benefit of making it easy to edit and create documents. Some documentation editors can be overwhelming, Atlassian Confluence is simple and intuitive.
  • Native marketplace - If you want to install add-ons to your Atlassian Confluence space it's really easy. Admins can explore the Atlassian marketplace natively and install them to your instance in a few clicks. You can customise your Atlassian Confluence instance in many different ways using add-ons.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Huddles Run smoothly without any interferences.
  • Smooth individual calls quick and easy without any interruptions.
  • seamless notifications across multiple devices
  • The ability to easily tag a team member to urgently attend to a specific escalation.
  • Slack being user friendly and able to integrate easily with other platforms and apps.
  • How to easily open up different channels for different escalations and needs.
  • a safe direct messaging option.
Read full review
Cons
Atlassian
  • UI Design is very simplistic and basic could make use of more visually interesting colour choices, layout choices, etc.
  • Under the 'Content' menu, it defaults to having a landing page for all L1 and L2 category pages. Meaning as long as the broader content category has a sub-category, it still creates a separate landing page. In my team's case, this often creates blank pages, as we only fill out the page at the lowest sub-category (L3).
  • Hyperlinks are traditionally shown as blue, however, this results into very monotonously blue pages in cases where a lot of information is being linked.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Would love a better integration with GitHub. For example, notifications when your PR is updated, when review is requested, @-mention in comments, etc.
  • Improved "Later" tab, for example the ability to create to-do lists or making the "Later" tab into a more powerful to-do list (annotate items with notes)
  • More powerful integrations, e.g. Google Calendar could render a calendar view within Slack, rather than sending the daily schedule
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Atlassian
I am confident that Atlassian can come with additional and innovative macros and functions to add value to Confluence. In 6 months, Atlassian transformed a good collaborative tools into a more comprehensive system that can help manage projects and processes, as well as "talk" with other Atlassian products like Jira. We are in fact learning more about Jira to evaluate a possible fit to complement our tool box.
Read full review
Salesforce
To be more transparent, I give 10 because Slack serves our collaboration needs. It provide us a good platform for team communication relaying important update within the company, it has even mobile app where you can install in your phone to monitor any updates within that team that needs your immediate attention and intervention.
Read full review
Usability
Atlassian
Great for organizing knowledge in a hierarchical format. Seamless for engineering and product teams managing software development. Helps in formatting pages effectively, reducing manual work. Tracks changes well and allows for easy rollbacks. Granular controls for who can view/edit pages. Search function is not great which needs improvement. Hire some google engineers
Read full review
Salesforce
Slack is one of the easiest platforms to use! It is very aesthetically pleasing and you can arrange the chats and other features the way you personally like it. They kept it pretty simple for people who aren’t looking to do anything more than streamlining communication, but they definitely have options for folks to build out the Workspace more.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Atlassian
I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
Read full review
Salesforce
Yes, the app works 24/7. I don't even recall having any period that we could not use since the implementation. Even the maintenance periods are barely noticeable and our work is not impacted by it when it happens.
Read full review
Performance
Atlassian
We never worked against the tide while using Confluence. Everything loads considerably fast, even media components like videos (hosted on the platform or embed external videos from Youtube, for example). We are not using heavy media components a lot, but in the rare occasion we happen to use one we have no problems whatsoever.
Read full review
Salesforce
Slack is a soft app, we don't have many issues with it. I recall one or two people complaining about something during our usage period, but I didn't have a bad experience. When the app is slow, usually the problem is with my computer or my internet. The app works just fine.
Read full review
Support Rating
Atlassian
This rating is specifically for Atlassian's self-help documentation on their website. Often times, it is not robust enough to cover a complex usage of one of their features. Frequently, you can find an answer on the web, but not from Atlassian. Instead, it is usually at a power user group elsewhere on the net.
Read full review
Salesforce
Whenever I've had to troubleshoot an issue with Slack (which, to be honest, has not happened very often), their online documentation has been easy to locate, easy to understand, and effective in resolving my issue. Slack's ever-growing popularity also means that there's a large community of practice out there that can be depended upon.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Atlassian
Overall, I am very satisfied with the initial implementation (and the subsequent upgrades and implementations made over the years).
This product has never rose to the level of being an major issue at an executive level. It has quietly and valiantly done it's job for our company!
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Salesforce
I was not part of the implementation team, but I recall being 100% happy and excited to learn and use a new tool. I'm still am to be honest.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Atlassian
We chose Atlassian Confluence over SharePoint because it's much more user-friendly and intuitive. Atlassian Confluence makes collaboration and knowledge sharing easier with its simpler interface and better search. While SharePoint can be powerful, it often feels clunky and complex, making it harder for our team to actually use it.
Read full review
Salesforce
Having had a lot of experience with Google Chat and Teams, Slack is far and away the better option. In comparison to Teams, Slack is much cleaner with a far more user friendly AI, Teams is far too clunky and feels tiresome to use, whereas it is super easy to pick up Slack and be able to configure it do exactly what you need. Whilst I don't find a massive difference between the usability and UI of Google Chat to Slack. Slack's range of features far outweighs Google Chat. The ease of external connections, workflows, file sharing, external connections for notifications (Make, Zapier etc), plus the huge range of apps you can connect to enhance your workspace is incredible. Google Chat does benefit from directly integrating into your Google Suite so you can get access to automatic status updates based on calendar activity, which would be nice for Slack to have
Read full review
Scalability
Atlassian
This tool is very adaptable. So much so we use it for three completely separate projects, in three very different ways.
Read full review
Salesforce
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Atlassian
  • The AI feature which lets me find relevant documents while reading one document is really beneficial.
  • Centralising of knowledge systems is one of the key differentiators for large organisations.
  • As long as folks keep using Google Docs and Atlassian Confluence, there is going to be a challenge in building a continuum.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Use of Slack has enabled us to stay aligned with sales and ensure accurate forecasting.
  • The product has reduced delays in decisions making and helps us to improve on transparency in our departments.
  • Slack has eliminated the use if emails as it allows direct messaging. This has ensured real-time communication.
Read full review
ScreenShots