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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
7.8
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization by improving information flow to the shop floor, enabling electronic filing of our parts and drawings, and increasing employee efficiency."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the searching elements of the metadata."
"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"Alfresco has positively impacted my organization as it is open-source with a vibrant community and is very cost-effective compared to other alternatives."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"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 most valuable feature is the accessibility from different sites for different colleagues and the search option."
"I like the documentation. It's a central platform, and there are many things that I can do with it. I'm very pleased about it."
"Users can create tables and directly pull all Jira tickets into a Tableau format."
"The product has a valuable feature for quick verification of documents."
"The most valuable features is its design documentation abilities."
"It seems highly scalable. There are 500 end users using this solution."
"It has a very intuitive user interface, which every user able to manage the basic functionality of a PC will be able to work with and produce quite satisfactory results."
"We have found limiting permissions and history very valuable."
 

Cons

"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"One area where Alfresco can be improved is the ability to scan directly using Alfresco."
"I think the presentation layer could be improved - currently, it's too complex, and there are too many features cluttered all over the screen."
"The setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"Alfresco can be improved by adding some more APIs, although the existing APIs provide the required features very well."
"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."
"Some macros can be technical, and they are better managed on the Confluence cloud rather than on-premises. For example, when you add an image on the cloud, you can resize it just by using the mouse. This is not the case on-premises yet. You have to write pixels of the size of the image sometimes. Some of the very old macros are still there, and some of them are technical. It can be hard for users if they are not from an IT background to understand how to use them quickly."
"I'd like to see some improved reporting on usage."
"It lacks ease of integration."
"Some elements of the user interface could be more user-friendly, including embedding diagrams."
"The area that needs improvement is the search capability. It should have generalized capabilities."
"The software does not currently have any kind of AI integration."
"When editing a page with many iterations, it takes time to scroll down to the last iteration."
"The software does not currently have any kind of AI integration. Given that many platforms are now incorporating AI, I believe Confluence should also consider AI integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"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."
"There are costs for any upgrade or additional functions."
"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."
"There is an annual license."
"There are some cases where you can go on Confluence as a public site without a license, but you will not have all of the features. You can also have a Confluence site that does not require a license just to read the articles. When you have Jira Service Management attached to Confluence, then you can go through the portal of Jira Service Management and read the Confluence articles without the license. This is good because when you are in an ITSM environment, you have many customers, and you do not want them to have to pay just to read articles. Regarding the use of the full features of Confluence, there is a license cost, and it depends on how many users you want."
"The Confluence pricing is good. The only challenge we have experienced is with Jira and the add ons we use that need to be paid for separately."
"We pay $350 a month to use the solution."
"In my opinion, it's worth the investment"
"This is a very expensive solution."
"The issues I have with the pricing are in respect to the add-ons."
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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
6%
 

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.
884,696 professionals have used our research since 2012.