Confluence Manufacturing Reviews & Insights

Score7.8 out of 10

2,306 Reviews and Ratings

Overview

Synthesised from 47 reviews | Last Published April 23, 2026

This product assessment is based on a synthesis of 47 recent reviews analyzing Atlassian Confluence across multiple dimensions. Confluence primarily functions as a collaborative workspace and documentation tool, often used by teams to centralize knowledge, manage projects, and facilitate communication. One of Confluence's most lauded strengths is its seamless integration with Jira, with 28% of reviewers specifically highlighting this feature. This integration streamlines workflows by linking development tracking, bug reports, and documentation. Confluence is also praised for its ease of use, with 19% of reviewers noting its simple interface for structuring pages and creating documents. Many users, 43% of reviewers, report significant time savings and efficiency gains as a result of using Confluence. Another 34% of reviewers cite improved collaboration, and 32% value it as a centralized knowledge base. However, some reviewers (9%) report challenges with search and usability, indicating that finding information can sometimes be difficult, which can offset some of the platform's efficiency gains. When considering alternatives, Microsoft SharePoint is the most frequently mentioned competitor, appearing in 23% of reviews.

Pros

Seamless integration with Jira, enabling linked workflows between development and documentation.
User-friendly interface, simplifying page structuring and document creation.
Centralized knowledge base, facilitating efficient information sharing and project documentation.
Improved time savings and efficiency, streamlining workflows and reducing meeting overhead.
Enhanced collaboration through multi-user editing and commenting capabilities.

Cons

Search and usability issues can hinder information retrieval.
Some users find it difficult to locate specific information within the platform.

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Confluence Reviews

18 Reviews

ManufacturingAutomotive4Industrial Automation1Pharmaceuticals3Printing1Semiconductors1Consumer Electronics5Computer Hardware2Biotechnology1

An essential collaboration tool

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 4, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Confluence to help document our software development efforts. This includes writing requirements for developers and other team members to use, as well as business analysis documents and other tracking information for our projects. It's an essential tool in our organization for sharing information between teams. We often use it in conjunction with Jira software since both connect well.

Pros

Documentation
Jira integration
Integration with plug-ins for extension

Cons

Occasional UI bugs/issues
Important features requiring paid-for plug-ins
Only admins can create page templates

Likelihood to Recommend

Confluence is an excellent wiki/documentation tool that's useful to any medium to large team. It's most useful to companies using the Atlassian suite of applications (i.e. Jira) since it integrates closely with it. The basic tools are light and simple enough for a smaller team, while organization tool make them flexible enough for large companies.

Pierre-Alexandre Garneau

Business Analyst in Information Technology at Vosker (Consumer Electronics, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

View profile

Atlassian Confluence Review: Feature packed, Promotoes collaboration

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 3, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Atlassian Confluence as our central knowledge management and collaboration platform, supporting various cross culture teams of our company. It serves as a single source of important documentation, project management, and cross-functional collaboration. It also helps us to maintain a historical record of decisions, changes, and processes. It also enables all our real-time collaboration with inline comments, notifications, and @mentions.

Pros

Its integration with Jira for tracking development and the bugs and work linked to detailed Confluence documentation.
We use it extensively for writing Software Product Requirement Documents, feature specs, architecture designs, and retrospectives.
Our company follows compliance very seriously, so it helps in streamlining all documentation for ISO27001/27017 compliance and security-related information.
Its integration with various tools allows us to create flow diagrams which are often required to make client and customer understand the overall flow of interactions across various modules of the design architecture

Cons

Search function can be better like how google search engine delivers the most relevant content first
Add Excel-like formulas, sorting, and filtering directly in Confluence tables.
Auto archiving of old stale pages should be there as a function to free up of space
Things can be hidden from administrator where members can create private pages

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited:
1. If a company needs a single source of truth for product documentation, technical specifications, workflow diagrams, compliance documents
2. If a product team needs to define, refine, and document product requirements with input from engineering, design, and marketing teams.
Less appropriate :
1. Real-time editing is sometimes slow and clunky.

Amit Kumar Sharma

CTO in Engineering at Hubble Connected (Consumer Electronics, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Atlassian Confluence the good and bad

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 3, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Atlassian Confluence as a repository of information that needs to be organized and and kept around for a longer time. It allows use to document teams, products, and processes in ways that allow use to keep things organized. In my opinion, there are certainly painful limitations, but at the same time it also serves a critical function.

Pros

repository of processes grouped by product, team, or program
Gives individual teams a place to hold their relevant documentation
makes it easier to establish the level at which a document should live

Cons

Search function is usually not very helpful
Search is to highly based on how recently updated documents are and not by relevance
the functionality around tables is quite limited, lacking ability to freeze rows or columns

Likelihood to Recommend

It is very well suited to document something that needs to be kept around for a longer period of time. However it isn't really well suited for brainstorming or items that might be just very short term because it can easily start to clutter up a space and make search results looking for other items less effective.

Verified User

Employee in Information Technology (Automotive company, 501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

Document and share knowledge using Confluence.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

February 26, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Atlassian Confluence is used as a knowledge database across many different teams. Each team has its own space to write documentation about local processes. The tool is also used to collaborate on projects and do proper documentation of roles, responsibilities, processes, and tasks. Confluence helps us improve communication, transparency, and performance.

Pros

Templates
Easy to use.
Many functionalities and features.

Cons

Many clicks.
Loading times.

Likelihood to Recommend

Confluence is a well-suited collaboration tool for different teams to document and share information. It's a convenient and helpful collaboration tool designed for creating, organizing, and sharing documentation and content among teams. For flowcharts and similar documentation, input from other tools must be generated and connected to the confluence articles.

Stefanie Klemm

Information Manager at Roche (Pharmaceuticals, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

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Confluence - still the best knwoledge management tool for big companies!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 24, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Atlassian Confluence is widely used in our organizations to enhance collaboration, knowledge sharing, and project management. Confluence allows team members to collaborate in real time. Pages can be edited simultaneously, allowing for live feedback and brainstorming sessions. It helps in maintaining project documentation, including requirements, meeting notes, and status updates. Confluence integrates well with other Atlassian products like Jira, making it easier to link project management and documentation. Teams can seamlessly transition between tasks and documentation, ensuring better alignment.

Pros

Knowledge Management.
Project Documentation.
Collaboration and Communication.

Cons

Complex Navigation.
Editor Usability.
Search Accuracy.

Likelihood to Recommend

Managing requirements, specifications, design documents, and user feedback in one place. Creating a knowledge base for company policies, onboarding processes, and essential resources for new hires. Documenting system architecture, troubleshooting guides, and operational procedures, establishing and maintaining SOP documentation across various departments to ensure compliance and consistency, and building a company wiki that reflects the organization’s culture, values, and employee resources.

Verified User

Consultant in Product Management (Automotive company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Great for collaboration

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 24, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our entire product development team uses Confluence for meeting notes, retrospectives, setting action items, and recording decisions. Product Pods, departments, and the leadership team also use it. In Pods, we do our sprint retrospectives every other week. We also use it for cross-pod meetings. As a department, we use it for our weekly meetings where we set discussion items, record decisions, and action items. We also use it to keep a record of professional development activities we can do.

Pros

Being a central source of truth on meeting discussions and decisions
Keeping documents organized across pods, teams, and departments
Being easily sharable with other teams to preserve context

Cons

I'd like to be able to tag people in whiteboards
Some of the keyboard shortcuts are not intuitive
Pages should update live, not needing to be in edit mode

Likelihood to Recommend

It's great for meeting notes, recording decisions, and setting action items with due dates. These functions allow us to easily see who said what, who committed to what, and whether or not it got done. I really appreciate Confluence's ability to bring transparency to an organization. It you are managing a major project with many moving parts and stakeholders, then Jira may be a better tool.

Verified User

Manager (Pharmaceuticals company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Conflicted on Atlassian Confluence

Rating: 3 out of 10

Incentivized

August 17, 2023

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Atlassian Confluence is the central repository of knowledge. Everything from scripts for new employee setup, to Team organization, and even project progress are all in one place. Personal notes and tips and tricks are also common to find. Because it is the central repository it has been broken up into sections for different parts of the company. This has issues because many of the sections are difficult to figure out what they were called, but beneficial because it is easy to link across departments.

Pros

Maintain historical links even if pages move
Responsive
Good Plugin infrastructure

Cons

In my opinion, permissions model is unpleasant
In my opinion, automation with anything that isn't an Atlassian product extraordinarily difficult
In my experience, it doesn't support current standards very well (Markdown, importing HTML)
In my opinion, search is almost useless

Likelihood to Recommend

In my opinion, Atlassian Confluence is a decent Wiki, but there are a lot of good wikis in the world and for the cost Atlassian Confluence doesn't really have a compelling features other than their tight integration with the other Atlassian tools. Both in my work life and my open source endeavors I have significantly diverse tools, therefore the tight integration is a negative for my interactions. If you have bought into the Atlassian ecosystem Atlassian Confluence is a great choice, otherwise I really don't recommend it.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Consumer Electronics company, 5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

14 years of experience

A wiki for enterprise that isn't Sharepoint!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 27, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use Confluence as our primary document collaboration repository - everything from meeting notes, status updates, how-to documentation, business processes, etc are all stored inside Confluence. This allows for anyone in the company to obtain access to meeting information and policies from a central, easy to navigate system. Every team within the company has their own 'space' within Confluence to format and design how their team operates within Confluence. The amount of data we moved from various Word documents and PDFs has been staggering.

Pros

Document Collaboration
Configurable Notifications for Spaces and Pages (when things get updated or comments added)
Central resource for all documentation within a company

Cons

Costs continue to climb for usage - Atlassian has recently announced dropping support of on-prem solutions and forcing people to adopt their cloud solution
Segregated support - you may have to bounce between Atlassian support personnel and various plugin developers depending on what aspect of Confluence you need assistance with
Limited mobile functionality compared to web-based

Likelihood to Recommend

If you're looking for a wiki solution that is either internal or shared with trusted parties, Confluence is well designed as an enterprise-level product for that project. It shines best as a company wiki and document collaboration tool - allowing multiple users to edit a page in real-time at the same time (similar to Google Docs). Permissions can be set at the page level or space level to further enhance a user's ability to find content relevant to them.

Brandon Patton

Manager, Information Technology in Information Technology at Engineering Innovation (Industrial Automation, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Nice project management software

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 29, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Atlassian Confluence is being used for project management. We are sharing all the project documents and related information within the Atlassian platform. It really helps project participants to understand project scopes and processes. It is being used across the whole company.

Pros

Project documentation
Data organization
Project scope visualization

Cons

It could have a better UI
It could use some AI to organize the data

Likelihood to Recommend

It is well suited when there are multiple big projects going on across the organization. I think it is well suited for medium or large-sized companies. Also, it would be great if there are dedicated resources to manage this software.

Verified User

Manager in Marketing (Automotive company, 501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

The best Collaborative Documentation Tools in the market

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

April 27, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The whole documentation database is currently being hosted within Atlassian Confluence. It is being able to support around 15000+ employees and it seems to have almost around 10 documents on an average being created modified every second. It basically solves the problem of setting up a dedicated team collaborative documentation system for the company, which can itself cost quite some time and human labor and a fortune to scale.

Pros

Scale
Access controls
Integration with third party tools

Cons

Better support for charts and drawings

Likelihood to Recommend

Definitely used this tool in my earlier company and this company as well. As long as your scale is upwards in thousands, this is the product to use.
Delivers a very intuitive way of modifying documents, saving drafts and has a very simple GUI, which can be learned within minutes and can be replicated easily.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Computer Hardware company, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience