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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
6.4
Number of Reviews
14
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
108
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 7.8%, up 7.8% 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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Alfresco7.8%
SharePoint11.3%
OpenText Content Management8.0%
Other72.9%
Enterprise Content Management
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Atlassian Confluence13.0%
SharePoint24.3%
Liferay Digital Experience Platform16.8%
Other45.900000000000006%
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

JM
Country Head Spain at Apiux
Maintaining document integrity with persistent linking and customizable workflows
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 document security if someone breaches the server. It would be beneficial if Alfresco offers different options for document storage, such as databases or cloud solutions. Also, it would be helpful if Alfresco's viewer could be easily embedded in other systems, as its integration is currently complex.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Document repository."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"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."
"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"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 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."
"Copying another page and providing an option to edit everything is valuable."
"The best feature is the automatic tagging of information in documents. The automatic algorithm highlights irrelevant information that conflict with the actual documents."
"It seems highly scalable. There are 500 end users using this solution."
"The interface is good....I didn't face any issues with the scalability. It was very good."
"The most beneficial aspect is real-time collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on the same documents simultaneously."
"It is a very popular tool."
"The search functionality is a really powerful feature."
 

Cons

"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"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."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"The discoverability of documents could be improved."
"I have a couple of different pipelines that I work with. However, I'd like to see them displayed differently on the same dashboard. So, I would like to have a unified dashboard to view the different pipelines."
"We would like there to be more advanced data manipulation features available in this solution, such as creating more complex charts, and a column freezing option."
"They can improve the table feature of Confluence. It is currently not adequate."
"The product should have a workflow with approvals out-of-the-box."
"An area for improvement in Atlassian Confluence is encouraging more vital interaction among the project members or users involved. I was researching a tool that could be used for better interactions offline among users on a specific topic or discussion. That feature would make Atlassian Confluence better."
"There are some issues with performance when creating tables."
"The product is considered expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"Licenses are quite expensive"
"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."
"This is a very expensive solution."
"For us, it's free to use. We don't pay any licensing."
"There is a license needed to use Atlassian Confluence."
"We have to pay licensing fees."
"When you purchase this solution you get some support."
"Maybe we're only using 10% of it, but we have to pay for everything."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise26
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, OpenText and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: February 2026.
882,744 professionals have used our research since 2012.