Confluence

Score7.8 out of 10

2,306 Reviews and Ratings

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

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

Discussions
Users can join groups or message boards for forum-style collaboration.
Category average: 8.3
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

#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

27.4%

9,728 installations of 35,446

“When used company-wide you can find the information yourself rather than having to bother somebody for it.”
— Customer Support team leader, Trimble Transport & Logistics (10,001+ employees)

#2 most frequent

Information

15.8%

5,594 installations of 35,446

“Permissions management. Controlling permissions and access of internal users who need custom access.”
— Marketing Automation Manager, MassMutual (10,001+ employees)

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

10.9%

3,857 installations of 35,446

Brandon Stokes View profile

Global Revenue Enablement Manager in Sales at Proximus Global (1001-5000 employees employees)

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

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees employees)

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

Amit Kumar Sharma View profile

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

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

WANNES OOSTERLYNCK

Customer Support team leader in Customer Service at Trimble Transport & Logistics (10,001+ employees employees)

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

Shyamsundarreddy Sammidi MS,MBA,PMP,ITIL,CSM,SAFe View profile

Project Manager in Information Technology at Davita Inc. (5001-10,000 employees employees)

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

Socialtext (discontinued)

Microsoft Viva Engage

Confluence

What is Confluence?

Categories & Use Cases

Confluence Key Features

Top Performing Features

Integrates with Outlook

Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts

Access control

Areas for Improvement

Discussions

Audio files

Visual planning tools

Most Frequent Users

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Information

Finance and Insurance

Confluence Reviews

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Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Confluence Alternatives