#1 most frequent
United States of America
44.6%15,768 installations of 35,386
What is Confluence?
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.
Categories & Use Cases
Product Demos
Top Performing Features
Integrates with Outlook
Integrates with Microsoft Outlook to tie in email threads.
Category average: 9.3
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts.
Category average: 6.2
Access control
Users can control access to (shared) files, including different levels of access such as view-only or permission to edit.
Category average: 8
Areas for Improvement
Discussions
Users can join groups or message boards for forum-style collaboration.
Category average: 8.2
Audio files
Supports audio file types, such as .mp3, .mp4, and .wav
Category average: 7.8
Visual planning tools
Includes visual tools such as pinboards, mind-maps, or charts for collaborative brainstorming and/or workflow planning.
Category average: 6.3
Who Buys & Uses Atlassian Confluence
#1 most frequent
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
27.5%9,726 installations of 35,376
“When used company-wide you can find the information yourself rather than having to bother somebody for it.”
#2 most frequent
Information
15.8%5,594 installations of 35,376
“Permissions management. Controlling permissions and access of internal users who need custom access.”
#3 most frequent
Finance and Insurance
10.9%3,849 installations of 35,376
#2 most frequent
Germany
8.2%2,905 installations of 35,386
#3 most frequent
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
5.7%2,030 installations of 35,386
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.
Cons
- Search and usability issues can hinder information retrieval.
- Some users find it difficult to locate specific information within the platform.
Good enough, but likely better options available depending on your needs
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Atlassian Confluence is used pretty piecemeal at my organization. Many of the more technical teams store all of their processes, policies, and even some code in Atlassian Confluence and use Jira for project management as well. On the other hand, less technical teams use other programs that are more tailored to their niche (i.e. Customer Success, People, Finance).
Pros
- Space organization
- Permissions management
- Document collaboration
Cons
- Browser extension for quicker access to content
- Live collaboration
Return on Investment
- Efficient to use in conjunction with Jira
- Needed to be replaced for Sales/Marketing/CS teams because of tedious nature of updating and finding content
- We now have somewhat redundant programs because of needs not met by Atlassian Confluence (i.e. embedded content in Salesforce)
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Coda, Microsoft SharePoint, Spekit, Highspot and Asana
Other Software Used
Microsoft Planner, LinkedIn Learning (Lynda.com), Motivosity, Seismic Learning, WorkRamp, Microsoft Project
Should you buy Atlassian Confluence?
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our org uses Atlassian Confluence for document storage and company wide announcements. We used to have only some teams on Atlassian Confluence but found that this tool is much better than others on the market so decided to move the entire org over about a year ago. Since then, we have upgraded to the premium version as well and integrated Smart courses along with it. So far it's been good for having 1 centralized place to store all of the company's items. We are also looking into opening the space up for external guest use as well as we are a SaaS organization.
Pros
- Able to integrate with JSM
- Can customize user permissions
- Is able to allow guest access without exposing other spaces within our org
Cons
- Integrations with Atlassian Confluence can sometimes be slow, such as Smart Courses
- Limited formating structuring
- Limited customizations
Return on Investment
- Saved us about $20k usd a year as we migrated from Simpplr to Atlassian Confluence for company wide document collaboration storage
- Saved us about another $6k usd a year from migration one of our teams from Notion to this
- Able to not have to purchase extra platforms for allowing guest access such as onboarding clients
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Notion, Asana and Miro
Other Software Used
Jira Service Management
Atlassian Confluence Review: Feature packed, Promotoes collaboration
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
Return on Investment
- We totally rely on this tool since a decade now and despite being so much transition in our company it has served us well in those transitions
- Many times, during security audits we are asked to showcase our readiness for various compliance points and confluence helps us a lot in maintaining that
- Talking about Confluence in front of clients and customers gives us an upper hand that we are up to date with latest trend and technologies and tools for our RnD planning and management
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft SharePoint and Google Drive
Other Software Used
Microsoft SharePoint, Slack, Google Drive
Great knowledge base tool
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Confluence mainly as a knowledge base and a place where long-term follow-ups are documented. We have several teams with each their own section in Confluence where they document user manuals, ongoing development, release information, etc. We use this as an internal tool with access limitations so nobody can see information they shouldn't have access to.
Pros
- Easy to use interface to structure pages.
- Access management can be very tailored.
- Integration of external links/documents.
Cons
- You need to watch over the structure of the content yourself. if not you can get information added anywhere so nobody can find it.
- Top search field is hard to set to only search a section of pages.
- You really need to think your structure through before starting. a guide when setting up at the start could help in that perspective.
Return on Investment
- Way more structured way to gather our procedures than before.
- When used company-wide you can find the information yourself rather than having to bother somebody for it.
Usability
Other Software Used
Slack, Google Meet, Google Drive, Atlassian Jira
Atlassian Confluence - Excellent tool for collaboration
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Atlassian Confluence is used in our company to document requirements , test cases and used a repository. In addition all the test results are saved in Atlassian Confluence. We also use create templates in Atlassian Confluence and create Intake for other teams who can fill info and will be used as starting point to start development. This is also our repository to add design documents, mapping specs, maintain team rosters , weekly status reports etc
Pros
- Easy to create documents for example - Project requirements , test cases
- Easy to manage all project documents including team Rosters, design docs etc
- Easy to share project team links with team
- Easy to create Architectural diagrams
- Easy to create work flows, algorithms
Cons
- Wish we can easily manage formatting( fonts)
- Limit on size of the docs/recording that we can save
- Wish the administration is easy -not say easy to give Edit/add access to others
Return on Investment
- Easy to create requirements and get approvals from team. See time for documentation going down( by at least 20%) per project
- It takes lot of time and not user friendly when it document requires formatting with font size, tables etc.
- Very helpful for creating deployment documents, because we can include related JIRA ID's
Usability
Alternatives Considered
TopTeam
Other Software Used
Atlassian Jira, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Excel
