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Alfresco vs Atlassian Confluence comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (9th), Document Management Software (3rd)
Atlassian Confluence
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) (2nd), Enterprise Social Software (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Alfresco and Atlassian Confluence aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Alfresco is designed for Enterprise Content Management and holds a mindshare of 7.7%, down 7.9% compared to last year.
Atlassian Confluence, on the other hand, focuses on Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals), holds 14.4% mindshare, down 19.1% since last year.
Enterprise Content Management
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

Karthi Keyan - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlining document management with enhanced digitalization features needed
We used Alfresco as a document management system for automating and digitizing manual forms. Those were the main use cases The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes has improved our organization. The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with…
Rabindra K Maharana - PeerSpot reviewer
Editing features improve document accessibility
There is a holiday calendar, however, I need to install an app or add something to it. The add-on feature is not readily available or well-documented. Guidance on this should be available in a forum. Recently, I used a feature in another tool—perhaps GitHub—where it helped prepare a chart. It involved listing resources, like having fifteen people in the X team, ten in the Y team, and seven in the Z team. It created a bar chart showing these numbers. This chart used AI to offer users the option to create it based on the data. It was then created on a separate page and made available.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Document repository."
"The most valuable features of Alfresco include its integration with the scanning solution, the ability to search, and the capability to store and index to capture metadata."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"Copying another page and providing an option to edit everything is valuable."
"It is stable and reliable."
"The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence it's very easy to use and there are different options."
"The best feature is the automatic tagging of information in documents. The automatic algorithm highlights irrelevant information that conflict with the actual documents."
"This is a scalable solution that supports thousands of users."
"I rate this solution a nine out of ten."
"What's most valuable to me in Atlassian Confluence is that it allows the concurrent development of documentation. I also like how you can add comments offline and implement changes directly on the document."
"With Confluence, everything is in one place, so it's easy to find documentation."
 

Cons

"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong. You have to make rules, such as one folder should not have more than 5,000 subfolders or children."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"Some elements of the user interface could be more user-friendly, including embedding diagrams."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Confluence could incorporate stronger records management and automation features. The current management structure is too open, which becomes an issue."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing."
"I would like to see integration with Slack."
"Atlassian Confluence could improve the stability, there are timeouts sometimes."
"There could be an option to collaborate with other users while editing the documents."
"This is kind of by design, however, the lack of control in terms of editing the page to make it look the way you want it to look is an issue. It would be nice if there was more flexibility there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"The license for Alfresco is expensive - not the maximum, but close. There are also extra costs once you start building integrations, as implementation seems to be very costly."
"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"We have to pay licensing fees."
"When you purchase this solution you get some support."
"To my knowledge, Atlassian Confluence had a pricing approach which is a commercial open-source solution, so that if you are a company, you had to pay an amount. This fee was not huge compared to other traditional solutions, and it was free for personal use or if you were an individual."
"This is a very expensive 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."
"The issues I have with the pricing are in respect to the add-ons."
"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."
"For us, it's free to use. We don't pay any licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Educational Organization
59%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alfresco?
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects. There is often a transition from the community version to the licensed version, which incurs migration costs. ...
What needs improvement with Alfresco?
Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk. Clients, especially large enterprises such as banks, are concerned about documen...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
Mostly, the primary use case is to store documents related to transactions in our company. These documents could be signed documents, invoices, purchase orders, etc. While transaction records are s...
What do you like most about Atlassian Confluence?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from its document-controlling feature. In Atlassian Confluence, controlled documents cannot be edited by anyone else.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Atlassian Confluence?
With Atlassian, the costs are reasonable. Although higher than before when we used multiple platforms and licenses, having a collaborative platform like this is advantageous. It streamlines license...
What needs improvement with Atlassian Confluence?
There is a holiday calendar, however, I need to install an app or add something to it. The add-on feature is not readily available or well-documented. Guidance on this should be available in a foru...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Confluence
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Over 1,300 companies from 180 different countries. Including EuroStar, Saks Fifth Avenue, NASA Langley Research Center, and KLM.
Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, NASA, Netflix, Adobe, Bonobos, LinkedIn, Pfizer, Citi.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.