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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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
Alfresco enhances document management, reduces costs, and increases efficiency with open-source flexibility, driving paperless operations and environmental benefits.
Sentiment score
6.2
Users find Atlassian Confluence delivers significant ROI through cost-effectiveness, efficiency, knowledge sharing, and improved operational ease.
Alfresco provides a significant return on investment by efficiently managing documents.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
I have seen a return on investment as open-source production with vibrant community support is cost-effective compared to many proprietary CMS solutions in the market.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
It made my office go paperless, thereby saving the environment.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Alfresco's support is responsive and professional, but faster responses often come from re-sellers or community forums.
Sentiment score
6.3
Atlassian Confluence's customer service is friendly, but technical support varies, with some users relying on forums or internal teams.
I would prefer a direct relationship with them, focusing on updating their products more like in an agile practice
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
The customer support for Alfresco is very vibrant, supportive, and responsive.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
This team manages all queries and uses various plugins, such as Tempo for time tracking.
Manager QA at [x]cube LABS
The Atlassian technical support team is reachable through different platforms.
Project Manager at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Alfresco scales efficiently across layers, handling growth easily with strong clustering and configuration flexibility, attracting users with scalability.
Sentiment score
7.1
Atlassian Confluence is scalable and adaptable, though large teams may face challenges, especially in high-user cloud environments.
Implementations needing to handle millions of documents may involve complex cluster setups requiring expert assistance.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Alfresco is very scalable and handles my organization's growth efficiently.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
Alfresco's scalability is very good; it grows with organizational needs and handles all organizational requirements.
Network Engineer at AT&T
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Alfresco is highly stable with proper configuration, despite a steep learning curve and potential large-scale request issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Atlassian Confluence is stable and reliable, with rare minor issues, improved performance, and effective communication on maintenance.
The stability of Alfresco is rated highly as it hardly goes down.
Head Of Information Technology at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Alfresco is generally a very stable and high-performance platform.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Those issues have now been corrected.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alfresco users seek improved Microsoft integration, usability, security, AI features, and enhanced tools for better workflow and interface.
Users seek improvements in Confluence's search, UI, integration, collaboration, content organization, pricing, and project management features.
It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Governance of this system is required. If you don't have proper governance, things can go wrong.
Technical Project Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
I feel the documentation needs a lot of improvement, especially for Activiti microservice adoption, which is sometimes frustrating or slows me down.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
The company using Atlassian Confluence needs to have a very clear structure for where information will be organized.
GM at a real estate/law firm with 501-1,000 employees
The software does not currently have any kind of AI integration.
Manager QA at [x]cube LABS
This chart used AI to offer users the option to create it based on the data.
Sr Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Alfresco's Enterprise Edition offers extensive features at a starting price of $100,000, with additional costs for upgrades and integrations.
Enterprise buyers find Atlassian Confluence costly due to licensing, user volume, and plugin-related expenses, requiring strategic cost management.
Alfresco is a very cost-effective and affordable tool.
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
The pricing of Alfresco starts at $100,000, which can be expensive for small projects.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Alfresco is very cheap and cost-effective.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
It streamlines license management and renewal processes, which can otherwise lead to complications or lapses in access.
Manager QA at [x]cube LABS
Money is a factor because Atlassian Confluence is not free.
Project Manager at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Alfresco provides open-source document management, integration, customization, and scalability, enhancing collaboration and workflow while promoting cost-effectiveness.
Atlassian Confluence integrates with Jira for seamless teamwork, offering flexible collaboration, robust organization, and customizable document management.
This makes the record independent of the document, which is beneficial as documents often change, and it helps avoid continual updates to the registry.
Country Head Spain at Apiux
There is document storage with metadata, document versioning, document workflow, check-in, check-out, REST API for integration, easy customization, and vibrant community support.
Software Engineer at Procter & Gamble
When it comes to scripting, if there is something that Alfresco does not do natively, you can use their custom API to do almost anything that you want.
Network Engineer at AT&T
You can easily link Atlassian Confluence into a Jira ticket, which allows for a quick overview when you are in the ticket system and the ability to quickly dive deeper into the Wiki directly.
GM at a real estate/law firm with 501-1,000 employees
This tool provides a single repository for interacting with the entire team.
Sr Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I use Atlassian Confluence for task management and other project management tasks, such as reporting, visualization of tasks, tracking the progress of tickets, and understanding how work is progressing.
Project Manager at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Alfresco
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (7th), Document Management Software (1st)
Atlassian Confluence
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
109
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 7.6%, down 7.9% compared to last year.
Atlassian Confluence, on the other hand, focuses on Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals), holds 13.0% mindshare, down 16.0% since last year.
Enterprise Content Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alfresco7.6%
SharePoint11.6%
OpenText Content Management8.0%
Other72.8%
Enterprise Content Management
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Atlassian Confluence13.0%
SharePoint22.9%
Drupal16.7%
Other47.400000000000006%
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

Peter Liam - PeerSpot reviewer
Human Resources Specialist at Unilever Inc.
Unified document workflows have boosted customization, search efficiency, and collaboration
In my experience, some of the best features that Alfresco offers include document management, intelligent process management, and information governance. Out of those features, I find myself relying on document management the most because it helps users to quickly find and access information from anywhere on any device using web-based viewing tools. I presume all the features are very unique, robust, and helpful. Intelligent process management, integrated process, and content service capabilities help to streamline content-centric processes and enable faster, more informed decision-making. Alfresco is very scalable. Alfresco delivers a scalable way to automatically enrich content and metadata and provides key insights by automatically extracting valuable information. I love the full-text search engine, the ability to automate record lifecycle to save time and cost, and storing documentation. Creating rules for documents and folders adds to the overall usability of the features. Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to save money by only needing to use one platform to serve our customers, which is Alfresco. The community version is free to use. We charge our customers for customization, so this greatly boosted our sales. Sales engagement and sales were boosted by at least thirty to forty-five percent.
Talha Hussain. - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Manage projects effectively with seamless task tracking and integration, but deployment requires familiarity
We are conducting all our project management using Atlassian tools. We use Atlassian Confluence for task management, reporting, visualization of tasks, and reviewing the progress of tickets and work I use Atlassian Confluence for task management and other project management tasks, such as…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise52
 

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, the challenge is the general availability to users. Initially, they had poor documentation, but over the years, their documentation has highly improved. Initially, we had challenges find...
What is your primary use case for Alfresco?
This is mainly for unstructured document management systems with workflow and data classification.
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?
Money is a factor because Atlassian Confluence is not free. I need to purchase extra components when adding new projects or employees.
What needs improvement with Atlassian Confluence?
What I would like to improve in the product is definitely the Jira integration. It is hard to tell which product is lagging or lacking because I can usually find a feature on the Marketplace if I a...
 

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, IBM, Adobe and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: March 2026.
884,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.