Atlassian Confluence Reviews

There are two use cases for using Confluence wiki:

• Team notes
• Software documentation.

Wiki is a simple tool for developers to write and record team decisions explaining the product that they are creating. 

The best features are the following:

• Automated TOC
• Horizontal tabbing option
• Expanding drop down lists
• Easy image integration
• Access to the underlying HTML
• The list of macros in the drop down.

There is no concept of peer review or a draft mode - whatever you write is live. What typically happens is that the navigation bar becomes frighteningly large and difficult to read unless someone takes the reigns and curbs the knee jerk reaction to keep creating new branches in wiki's hierarchical tree.

No issues.

No issues.

Never tried to contact them. There is a lot of info on the web about Confluence wiki if you need help.

Wiki has been used for a long time at my company. Many people enjoy its zero learning-curve.

In-house.

Wiki is a good solution for non-tech writers. It is easy to learn and has a number of good features. The writing does not live beside the code, like GitHub Markdown does, nor does the wiki editor contain advanced editing features, like MindTouch, Oxygen, and other DITA editors. However, its simplicity encourages non-writers to document what they are doing.

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.

We provide this solution to customers and also use it in our company. It's often used as an intranet and then for collaboration or communication. It enables you to have project spaces or team internal spaces and different types of documentation. We are platinum partners with Atlassian and I'm a principal consultant. 

I think the structuring of information into spaces and the search functionality are really powerful features. The solution is user-friendly and anyone can comment or write documentation related to a customer's project. The main value is that Confluence makes communication easier. It has a very unique feature in that it has a marketplace of apps which means you can extend Confluence by installing apps into it and make it work differently.

I'd like to see easier integration.

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

The stability is very good. 

The solution is scalable, we have around 600 users. We'll probably expand usage to new areas. 

Customer support has deteriorated because the company has grown so much. They can't provide the same level of service. We provide consultancy services so it works to our benefit.

Positive

I've also used Sharepoint and in comparing the two, Confluence makes communication much easier. SharePoint is more difficult to use and a complex solution.

The initial setup requires some planning. To get Confluence up and running took a day but it took close to a year before everyone felt comfortable with the solution. Following the initial setup, it required user management and security settings. And then build the data structure or space structure and install plugins. Following that there is a training process for users. We deployed internally because we have experience providing that type of consultancy to other companies. Half of the companies we deploy to use some external help and half do it by themselves. It takes longer if you do it without assistance.

Maintenance requires less than one man month per year because you don't have to install updates. But still there's some maintenance, cleaning up data and fixing the permits and things like that.

The ROI is both in terms of time as well as financial. 

Confluence used to be really affordable but they've been increasing their prices. It's not super expensive but more expensive than it used to be. We pay an annual licensing fee which includes some essential plugins. 

Spend some time planning the structure and how you're going to use Confluence and provide some initial training. It makes the deployment easier.

I rate this solution nine out of 10.

My primary use case is for documentation.

The most valuable feature is the accessibility from different sites for different colleagues and the search option. 

I would like to see the text editor upgraded from its current limited abilities.

I have been using Atlassian Confluence for the past ten years.

When it comes to stability I have not seen the solution go down in the past couple of years so it is good.

When it comes to scalability you can add as many documents and sites as you like. We currently have around two thousand users 

I can recommend Atlassian Confluence for any company that requires document management and documenting ongoing processes, Of course, it is not a very intuitive or very comprehensive management tool because you cannot track the requirement object changes with it, but you can use it for general documentation purposes. I would rate Atlassian Confluence an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case is for documentation. We used to maintain other documents in another location, but we moved to Confluence. We use it for the design documentation perspective, not for the analytics perspective. 

The most valuable feature is its design documentation abilities. 

Some aspects of the drawing perspective could be improved. When we upgrade a design and make technical architecture drawings to publish, we still use Visio first and then copy and paste it. If this feature were available on Confluence, it would be a useful tool. 

I have been using this solution for more than two years. 

This solution is stable and well-integrated with Jira. 

This solution is scalable. 

I have never directly contacted Atlassian technical support. 

I use SharePoint as well, mainly for the version control because I still need to prepare the document in Word and Visio and then load it to SharePoint. 

The initial setup, the installation, was managed by someone else. 

I implemented through an in-house team of three developers and engineers. They maintain both Confluence and Jira. 

I believe we have the Enterprise license with Confluence. 

I recommend Confluence to others. There are about 400 people in my company using this solution. However, if you are doing extensive drawings or looking for the version-control perspective, then I would caution you and suggest looking at another solution. 

I would rate Confluence a seven out of ten. 

It is a collaboration tool. All of our company documentation is on Confluence.

I am using its latest version. It is a cloud solution. Atlassian is the cloud provider.

It is very useful for companies that want to deploy their documents in a private cloud repository. Companies don't need to store their documents on some servers on their premises. This document collaboration platform makes it flexible to reach your documents at any time. There is no time or location limitation. You can reach your documents whenever you want and wherever you want. For that reason, it is a very useful tool.

Collaboration is most valuable. You can upload or create your documents on Confluence and share them with your team members. Your team members also can share documents. 

Confluence can integrate with draw.io and some of the other third-party tools as well. For that reason, it is joyful to use.

It has good integrations, but its integration capabilities can be improved.

They can improve the table feature of Confluence. It is currently not adequate.

I have been using this solution for three months.

It is a stable solution.

It can be used by as many team members as you want to collaborate. It is no problem.

You don't need any technical support. It is easy to use.

It is just for document collaboration. There is no deployment period. You are just creating your documents on Confluence.

I am using the paid version. My company has purchased it for company employees. We are using Confluence as a company. I don't know how much it costs, but its price is good enough. Its price is not so high.

It is a collaboration tool for document development. You can create, improve, and share your documents through Confluence. It is quite an efficient tool to collaborate with your team members. I would strongly recommend it. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

It's the knowledge base for our company.

We have project spaces for our customer projects, and the project teams share information about the projects.

We also use it as a wiki for our company.

As for valuable features, the team management features help us to share information very easily.

Also, you can work with multiple people on one document inside the solution.

The scalability for larger companies could be improved.

Atlassian has decided to stop the server edition of Atlassian Confluence. In the future, you can only buy an enterprise installation called Data Center, and you have to pay for a thousand users on up. This means that it will be very expensive. So, small installations will only have the cloud option, but the cloud version of Atlassian Confluence is not as stable as the on-premises version.

It would be good to have more graphical components on dashboards to show table components as graphics, pie charts or bar charts. These are not included at the moment.

I've been using it for the last five years.

The stability of the on-premises version is really good.

The scalability is not so good, but it's enough for us because our company is small. We have 30 users. However, we have customers who have 10,000 people on Confluence, and then it becomes a problem.

I would rate technical support at three on a scale from one to five.

We chose Atlassian Confluence because it is really easy to set up the system and because of the functionality. The system has many good functions, and the UI is really modern and easy to use.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Less than one full-time employee is needed for the maintenance of this solution.

Pricing wise, it ends up being an expensive solution. In the beginning it's cheap, but by the time you have all the functions you need, it turns out to be expensive.

Use the 30 day test period to be sure that you want the system. You should use it and test it during this time and then decide.

At the moment, Atlassian Confluence is the best team product you can buy, and I would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We are using a lot of Confluence. While we are gathering the requirements from the business for the development, Confluence is used. We are creating project charters there. It covers all the functional requirements including knowledge sharing sessions. Basically, when somebody's leaving or somebody is being hired, everything related to that goes on Confluence. This also includes information, for example, about annual leave information, et cetera. If a person is hired and we need to prepare a KT plan for that. So we prepare a page in Confluence.

We like that it is a complete knowledge base where anyone can go and search for various types of information. Different departments are using it. If I want to search for any information, instead of pulling it from files, we have just added everything on Confluence, which makes it easily searchable.

It's easy to use and you can create all types of pages. 

There are lots of functionalities. You can see statues, who is signed in or not, et cetera. 

When we import the data in Confluence from Word or any other document, the formatting is not correct. When we export the data, more or less, it is fine. Let's say from Confluence to Word or Confluence to PDF, it's okay. Otherwise, we face formatting issues.  

The solution would offer more importing features. 

We have used the solution for 15 years or so.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability is great. If your workload grows, it can easily match it. 

We have 700 to 800 people using the solution right now in our organization. HR, production managers, and more are typically on the solution. Pretty much everyone uses it. 

I haven't had any interactions with technical support. I can't speak to how they are in terms of responsiveness.

My understanding is that the pricing is competitive. I'm not directly involved in the pricing and how it was done. That said, the fact that we have been using it for the last 15 years makes me assume it would be fine for our pocket and reasonably priced. I'd rate the pricing at a three out of five in terms of value for money.

Confluence basically is not a management software. It is just a knowledge base. You can search for whatever is there. You cannot manage a project using Confluence. For that, you would need Jira, not Confluence. 

I would recommend the product. Currently, most companies are using Word documents for creating all requirements. Probably they'll be putting those in, either on SharePoint or somewhere. However, these need to be preserved for the future. This solution helps with that.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.