Atlassian Confluence Reviews

Editing is convenient. We often have to edit manuals for different projects of the same software. These projects have only small differences in features.

In the past, only documentation engineers could edit the software manuals. Now, both developers and documentation engineers can edit manuals and share opinions.

It is not as professional as FrameMaker. Confluence is light and very convenient, but it is difficult to reuse the same content and its format is not as flexible as FrameMaker.

We have been using the solution for three years.

We did not encounter any issues with stability but we have not been using it as often as FrameMaker.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

We seldom used the technical support.

The setup is more complex and the developers helped to set up the environment.

Confluence is convenient and cheaper but not so professional. FrameMaker is for documentation departments in a large company and Confluence is for small teams or companies.

Ask the vendor to set up your environment if you buy Confluence.

The most valuable feature is the ability to create business collaboration solutions without having an army of IT professionals. We can create web-like interfaces without needing to be an expert in Java, Java scripts, or HTML.

We use the tool to establish a collaboration space across federal agencies, state agencies, and other public stakeholders. We are able to create a simple workflow and have an electronic record of those activities.

The basic improvement needed from my perspective (and it may be more to do with how Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has allowed certain features of Confluence to be used) is the ability to move multiple attachments at a time. I would like to be able to copy a set of pages in Confluence as a template. It would be nice to have better business collaboration examples.

We have used this product for five years.

We had stability issues sometimes, but I am not quite sure where those issues occurred. I don’t know if slowness is occurring on the OMB server end or on my organization's end in terms of network transfer of information. Sometimes the system does not respond as fast as a normal web interface. I am happy, overall, because I understand the power of the collaboration efforts being done. However, I think most people are used to one-way communication when it comes to the internet and they expect the same speed when collaborating from a two-way (or more )perspective.

The system has incredible scalability. I have not used all of the features that OMB provides, but we have an integrated system with:

• Collaboration & Information Sharing
• Data Collection
• Analysis
• Publications
• Specialized Applications
• PaaS
• Records Management
• Publishing
• Business Intelligence
• Workflow
• Web Frameworks
• Common Database
• Identity and Provisioning

I don’t interact with Atalssian directly, but rather through OMB who interacts with Atalssian. OMB is my technical contact and in terms of my use of the system they are fairly responsive. The system is a federal-wide system, in which participating federal agencies pay a fee ($50-200K) to be a member and use it as a shared service. When there are special initiatives, a federal agency may have to pay a little more. When I say a little more, I mean a little more, not huge amounts of money.
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I used previous systems, such as email, common spaces, CDs, snail mail, and lately, SharePoint (we are still using this as well). These are all painful, unsecure systems and require an IT army.

Before choosing this product, we evaluated SharePoint.

If you want to solve complex problems with a simple solution, then use Confluence and use it to scale to more complicated things as you grow.

I like the macros (formatting, PDF, images, etc.), tags, tables (with autonumber), @user for citing another user, comments, and the access control in content using groups and users.

Meetings are registered in Confluence, allowing easy access on what had been discussed and the to-do lists. Information, knowledge and users of many areas are integrated in one place.

I would like to see the ability for each user to config his own home page,

We’ve been using Confluence for 3 years.

We rarely encountered issues with stability. But when it happens, generally Atlassian is pro-active and send infos about any issues encountered and how it's beeing handle by support team.

No issues with scalability.

I have never used technical support.

I never used a different solution.

Initial setup was kind of straightforward. We learned how to use it as the issues/necessities appeared.

In-house.

It´s affordable.

No.

I advise to start small, then go for the whole company. We started in IT and then expanded to the company using IT as an example.

The following features are valuable:

• The Wiki nature of the product: Collaborative creation of content with version history and easy change tracking.
• Knowledge sharing: Captures and provides visibility on decisions and conversations, enables early feedback, fosters situational awareness (watchers, notifications, comments, dashboard, etc.).
• Connects people through content and fosters a collaboration culture.
• Easy learning curve and powerful search through content.
• The cloud version accelerates the adoption of product improvements.

This has helped our organization in the following ways:

• Enables conversations and meeting outcomes to be visible and evolve faster.
• Opens collaboration and empowers everybody to contribute in knowledge construction.
• Accelerates the learning curve of new hires by giving them a platform for self-learning and understanding conversation dynamics.
• Helps groups do asynchronous work, reducing meetings overload, and improving productivity.
• Enables distributed teams to have a common virtual place for knowledge sharing and history.

I would like to see the solution do the following:

• Provide analytics on content usage to help foster adoption. Currently, the statistics have to be requested and are very basic in the cloud version.
• Help in the organization of the content (i.e., help identify "dead nodes", build different perspectives and categorization automatically with a type of page mapping and navigation other than a hierarchical tree.)
• Improve concurrent collaborative editing. (A relatively new feature has already been proven and is evolving in other products such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office Online.)
• Help in the consumption of updates according to personalized interest.

I have been using this solution since 2012 in different implementations, settings, and versions. I have been using it with the cloud version since 2015.

In the past maintenance windows could create some availability issues if overlapping with activity periods, but they have been consistently improving performance. You can experience slow response times, images not updated properly, sometimes unavailability messages. A status page is provided to monitor ondemand server ( http://bit.ly/ondemand-status ). Additionally setting the server time zone properly can also help avoid interference with your peak hours of activity ( http://bit.ly/ondemand-mainten... )

We have not had any scalability issues.

The technical support is very good.

I have used MediaWiki and SharePoint before.

In comparison with MediaWiki, Confluence is easy to use, more user-friendly, and is rich with social/collaboration features. It has a relatively low cost, and integrates better with other Atlassian tools such as JIRA, Bitbucket, and Bamboo.

In comparison with SharePoint, Confluence has a Wiki native design and social features, so it’s easy to collaborate on content creation. I like to compare it to a "whiteboard", whereas SharePoint feels more like a "library". Although SharePoint has improved a lot in the last few years, its pattern of use are still more like a "repository", rather than "collaborative editing".

Google Docs is the king of collaborative editing, but Confluence enables better structure for a team, with knowledge-centered design.

The installation was straightforward. It was easy to start, easy to setup with low administration involvement, as long as you have an "open by default" policy around content.

Complexity comes into play to drive evolution, content curation, usage, and adoption analytics. When you don’t have enough information on usage easily available, setting up some guidelines can help drive consistent patterns of usage. You need people to help guide that process and keep the organization of the content coherent.

Pricing and licensing are also straightforward. Keep an eye on plugins and additions that should be balanced with the benefits and usage patterns they provide.

We looked into MediaWiki, SharePoint, and Jive.

Think about your needs and goals. Test-drive it with a team of people in a real scenario.

• Quick and easy editing/creating of web based content
• Content is easy to format and easy to share: You simply type and save in a web browser
• Atlassian is an AWESOME company
• Confluence is the BEST wiki on the market

• It gives our company a single place to document run books, procedures, and knowledge base articles
• It's quick and easy to edit
• It seamlessly integrates with other tools we use, like JIRA

• Some versions have annoying bugs from time to time. Doesn't all software?
• The interface and functionality is different for users used to legacy content management systems like SharePoint. However, spending a few minutes with Confluence and its intuitive interface will have them creating content quickly.

I also manage a SharePoint team, so I'm not biased. It’s just my opinion based on what I see.

I've used and administered Confluence for the past three years, over five versions. I am about to upgrade to the sixth version.

With earlier versions, such as 5.4.4, we did have stability issues. After upgrading, we've been stable and fast.

Stability issues were caused by an increased user load, i.e., scalability.

Technical support gets a rating of 5/5. We pay for Premier support. It covers ALL Atlassian products. If these products are in any way important to your company, it's worth the cost.

We were using TWiki. We needed an enterprise ready tool instead of freeware.

The setup was straightforward and perfectly documented. Atlassian gives you a step-by-step guide. You would expect nothing less from a documentation platform.

Atlassian is dirt cheap when it comes to enterprise software. I would suggest limiting the number of plugins (a.k.a., add-ons), as they are an extra cost and many times you're dealing with third-party vendors.

At the very least, use the ones that say "Atlassian Verified" and "Supported".

We did not evaluate anything else that I know of.

• Hire someone with experience using Atlassian tools, if possible
• Don't implement organically
• Have a PLAN for how you want your information structured

• Provides wiki features such as file collaboration.
• Allows us to get feedback from user to approve or edit the documents we create and use daily.
• Allows employees to share relevant information within internal Confluence spaces.
• Allows developers to organize their specifications and record their design decisions.

We can share solutions for various problems between people who work in the company. The next logical step is to use Confluence to manage support documentation. Documentation is a focus of our company for development.

All of the departments need improvement.

I’ve been using this tool for two years.

We have not had any stability issues.

We have not had any scalability issues.

Technical support is good.

We were using Microsoft SharePoint. We switched because it didn't have wiki features.

The setup was easy.

We looked at SharePoint.

Be active in the development of the knowledge management features in your company.

• Document management
• Knowledge base
• Team collaboration
• Security
• User management
• Integration with different tools

• Avoids the need for document versioning
• Centralizes document access
• Provides easy access
• Has an easy search facility
• Allows you to store all documents in one place
• Enables you to share documents
• Allows you to publish articles

• Bulk editing of documents
• Reports
• Content sharing
• Document publishing

I have used it for over three years.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter many scalability issues.

I would give them a rating of 7/10. The technical support was helpful.

The initial setup was fine. More memory may be required, depending upon the size of the attachments.

Pricing is provided on the Atlassian site. You can choose the license depending upon the number of users.

We evaluated SharePoint, XWiki, and MediaWiki.

Confluence is very easy to use and has strong search functionality.

I appreciate:

• Web access.
• Collaboration.
• Export to PDF.

It has helped our organization as follows:

• Information is kept up to date.
• Accessible anywhere.
• Editable by everyone.
• Secure.
• Exportable.

I think that customization and text styling could be improved.

I have used it for 2.5 years.

I have not had any stability issues.

I have not had any scalability issues.

I would give them 8 out of 10. But first and second level support are email only!

We did not use a previous solution.

Initial setup with the cloud version is super easy but the server is only slightly more complex depending on your firewall, SSO, etc.

Licensing is in blocks of seats, so you need to decide what the maximum number of users might be before pricing it out. There is the option of anonymous users, which, while a security issue, does reduce the licensing cost.

We have evaluated MediaWiki, Kentico, SharePoint and WordPress.

• Definitely try before you buy to make sure it aligns with your expectation of what a collaboration system should be like.
• Post any and all questions to the Confluence forum (https://answers.atlassian.com/).
• Not all add-ons are available for Confluence Cloud, so customization is further limited.