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Confluence

Score8.1 out of 10

2,563 Reviews and Ratings

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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.

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Categories & Use Cases

Product Demos

Confluence Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Confluence has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 2,563 ratings of Confluence's features
View all Confluence features

Top Performing Features

  • Integrates with Outlook

    Integrates with Microsoft Outlook to tie in email threads.

    Category average: 8.8

  • Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts

    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts.

    Category average: 6.1

  • Internal knowledgebase

    Users can author or access “How-to” help and reference tips about internal processes.

    Category average: 8.2

Areas for Improvement

  • Chat

    Instant messaging tool allows users to communicate with select other users in real-time threads.

    Category average: 9

  • Integrates with GoToMeeting

    Integrates with GoToMeeting for web conferencing.

    Category average: 8.1

  • Integrates with Google Drive

    Integrates with Google's cloud storage platform, Google Drive.

    Category average: 7.1

Who Buys & Uses Atlassian Confluence

Confluence Reviews

What users are saying about Confluence.
View all Confluence reviews

Pros

  • Seamless integration with Jira for linking documentation to project tasks
  • Intuitive and user-friendly interface for document creation and editing
  • Effective structuring and organization of project-based and technical information

Cons

  • Inaccurate and unintuitive search functionality
  • Complex and overwhelming UI/UX and navigation
  • Limited advanced formatting and layout options

Atlassian Confluence yet to discover more

Incentivized
Krishna KumarView profile
sr. CSA in Customer Service at rackspace (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

At RackSpace, we use Atlassian Confluence for our knowledge article sharing, or you can say knowledge book. We use it on daily basis to update the new process and change which is being implemented every now and then so as to speak we find this tool very useful for maintaining the document for sharing knowledge at one place.

Pros

  • Corporate workspace for sharing knowledge within organisation
  • Real time collaboration
  • Integration
  • Workspace for different teams

Cons

  • Fix hierarchy or structure
  • Use naming conventions
  • Need standard template
  • So many features but not being used by wider audience

Return on Investment

  • Previously, we were using other software, not gonna name it. However it has great benefit over a long period
  • ROI is looking for short-term nothing, however, for long-term. It is time saving. As it take less time creating docs
  • Instant access to SOP and KBs
  • Improved collaboration
  • Better alignment with JIRA for those using it

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Atlassian Jira, Notion, Microsoft SharePoint and ClickUp

Other Software Used

ClickUp, Microsoft SharePoint, Notion

Should you buy Atlassian Confluence?

Incentivized
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

Atlassian Confluence Review: Feature packed, Promotoes collaboration

Incentivized
Amit Kumar SharmaView 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

Great knowledge base tool

Incentivized
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

Atlassian Confluence - Excellent tool for collaboration

Incentivized
Shyamsundarreddy Sammidi MS,MBA,PMP,ITIL,CSM,SAFeView 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

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