Atlassian Confluence Reviews

• 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.

It is easy and simple to implement. Some of the valuable features are its ability to customize via add-ons and the collaborative environment.

For many of my clients, we use Confluence as a shared collaborative knowledge management tool. It helps them as it is one repository for all the information and is easily searchable .

Rich text could always be better but it is nice to have.

I have used this product for two years.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues, i.e., if you have enough IT resources.

I would give the technical support a 8/10 rating.

My customers were previously using a different solution. The reason they switched is because Confluence is a simple wiki-based solution, compared to the other wiki tools.

The setup was straightforward.

You should do it. It is so simple and can give so much added value rapidly.

The most valuable features are the collaboration and sharing of information.
The ability to crowdsource the gathering of information and have anyone edit and correct it instantly.

Quite simply, information is king. We have been able to share effectively and reduce our reliance on the usual Word docs and shared drives.

The WYSIWYG editor is great, but there are some problems with formatting. Tables and fonts are not always rendered correctly, especially when CCS is used to customize them. It is useful to understand Wiki Markup language to get around these problems.

The use of CSS can be a challenge, making customization difficult for new starters who have little experience of creating/editing CSS.

We have used this solution since the very early versions created in 2003 (or thereabouts).

There have been no major stability issues. There have been a few outages, but nothing which suggests that the product/version is inherently unstable.

I’m not aware of any scalability issues, but then I’m a “user” of the service and I no longer run an instance.

My questions have always been around the use of the product. It’s more effective to ask the community via the on-line forum, or to reach out via other websites. In most cases, a general search for answers via Google tends to provide answers.

I’ve played with MediaWiki, but not in detail and therefore I can’t compare it with Confluence.

I installed version 4 from scratch. That was very straightforward. I connected it to Postgres (PostgreSQL), and that was trouble free and straightforward.

I haven't had the need to install more recent versions or manage installations that service a large number of concurrent users.

This is a good product which beds itself into the enterprise very quickly. It soon becomes indispensable. It is worth getting a limited, license-free version first.

• Search: It is simple to search for documentation throughout Confluence from the search bar.
• Audit History: Collaboration is brilliant with a full audit history on the changes made by the users involved, as well as the ability to visually compare the differences.
• Simple Navigation: It is simple to create or edit a page with a similar look and feel to any word processor-type app.
• Templates: Used for standardizing and guiding users regarding what type of information should be captured within different spaces or page structures.
• Action Items: Makes it quick to set reminders for yourself or another user, with a due date for the required activity.

• It has improved collaboration, transparency, and documentation quality among teams.
• It has started us on the journey of knowledge management, not leaving valuable IP in peoples’ heads.
• It has enabled us to publish ubiquitous language and link standard definitions to words used in documents.
• It has enabled us to link templates to JIRA workflows in the management of our business processes.
• It has drastically improved the discipline around meetings and arising actions.

I would like to see the following improvements:

• When comparing page changes, you are only able to select 2 pages. While this is useful, it has proven to be a slight limitation when many people are editing a document. Having said this, we work around it by selecting the last “approved version” and the latest version. The downside is that we are unable to then see who made the change and when they made it without going to that specific history version are comparing it to the version just prior to it.
• Page approval: there is a feature whereby you are able to require page approval, but it can only be applied at a space level (with the ability to apply certain exclusions). The exclusion capability is not intuitive and therefore does not always work as expected. In addition, there is usually a specific parent and child set within a space that we would want to set approval requirements on. The approval plugin also keeps adding “Unapproved” blocks to the top of the page whenever an edit occurs. These continue to build up despite the fact that there has not been a status change (i.e. the page has not yet been approved, so one “Unapproved” block would be sufficient).

I have used Confluence for approximately three years.

We had an issue where the activity feed stopped working due to a locked cache file. This has not repeated itself.

We currently have approximately 200 users and have not experienced any difference in performance from when we had 10 users.

We haven’t used technical support.

Our previous solution was a combination of our file system, local hard drives, and an internally developed document management system.

We implemented Confluence because we needed a place to collaborate around software design and design specifications that was integrated with JIRA.

• Setup was fairly straightforward
• Some configuration is required to integrate with LDAP for authentication, if that is your chosen route
• Some configuration is required if you integrate with other Atlassian products
• The installation guide covers everything

Make use of the evaluation option if you are unsure. Another option is to start small and test whether Confluence is for you.

A 10-user license is only $10. Be aware of the costs if you plan on rolling it out to your organization, as it does start to add up.

Try to do license changes on your anniversary month, as there is no pro-rata benefit.

We didn’t evaluate alternatives. The implementation was driven by our Java development team and their requirement for a place to collaborate and plan development work.

Employ lean thinking and learn by doing! Have a rough idea of what you need to achieve and get a working framework in place. Experiment and see what works for you. It is simple to move pages after the fact, so don’t worry about being too pedantic in the beginning. Keep permissions simple and use groups as much as possible.

Overall, I love the ability to quickly upload and preview documents. The navigation is quite easy and intuitive once you grasp the file hierarchy. I use the template pages often to produce clean consistent spaces for clients.

It allows collaborative functionality across documents, meeting notes and project requirements.

I think the user interface could be more graphically pleasing, as well as establishing permissions across various spaces and user levels a bit clearer.

I have used this for approximately four years.

We have not had stability issues.

We didn’t have scaling issues once our company established its best use of the system and scaled from there.

We have not had to use them.

I used Basecamp previously. However, Confluence just fit our workflows better and at a better price.

Setup was very easy once the we established our goals in using the system.

Nothing more than the time spent previously using Basecamp.

Understand the permissions. We provide a login for clients with access to certain areas. With multiple clients ensuring data security, this was huge for us.