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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 7.6%, 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 Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Alfresco7.6%
SharePoint11.6%
OpenText Content Management8.0%
Other72.8%
Enterprise Content Management
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Atlassian Confluence13.0%
SharePoint22.9%
Drupal16.7%
Other47.400000000000006%
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

"The digitalization of workflow, forms, operations, and business processes is also significant."
"The product allows engineering teams and developers to introduce new things in a seamless and easy way."
"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."
"Alfresco's technical support is very fast and professional."
"I like the ease of use, sections, and calendar."
"Document repository."
"Alfresco allows broad searches with many index fields that you can search on, although the created fields and their values may not be intuitive."
"You can meet your users' expected features without having Alfresco's involvement."
"The ease of use has been one of the most valuable features. It has a very simple wiki."
"The solution offers a lot of freedom when drafting directly online."
"A simple tool for developers to write and record team decisions explaining the product that they are creating."
"The scalability is enough for our use cases. It covers all our needs."
"I think that it is one of the best products on the market from my experience."
"Confluence can link any ticket or task from JIRA to be included on the Confluence page."
"The most valuable feature of Atlassian Confluence is the ability to access your files from anywhere."
"This solution allowed us to easily input details beyond just text, such as creating basic data charts to monitor team performance."
 

Cons

"Alfresco has a very steep learning curve, and unfortunately, during the learning process, it's very easy to make errors, which often are unforgiving."
"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 setup process for Alfresco was complex."
"The configuration of Alfresco is a big challenge."
"Alfresco could improve workflow digitalization and enhance artificial intelligence capabilities."
"Currently, documents in Alfresco are stored on a file server, which, while good for performance, is a security risk."
"I would like them to consider document capture functionality."
"Metadata, auto class, disposition log, and legal hold."
"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."
"I would like to see the text editor upgraded from its current limited abilities."
"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."
"The one way in which this solution could be improved is by offering better design and UI."
"I think the couple of improvement areas would be around Markdown support and support for adding code."
"The way Atlassian Confluence handles tickets could be improved."
"Concerning the integration capabilities of Atlassian Confluence with Jira, I find it surprisingly simple, meaning it does not really have powerful features in it, but it is easy to set up."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you buy Alfresco through a partner, there is usually a OEM licensing option."
"It is cheaper compared to head-to-head competitors."
"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."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive, meaning its price falls somewhere in the mid-range zone."
"When you purchase this solution you get some support."
"We have to pay licensing fees."
"Making integration with other tools easier would be beneficial."
"Confluence charges an extra fee for analytics."
"This is a very expensive solution."
"The price of the on-premises data center version is too expensive."
"In my opinion, it's worth the investment"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
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, Adobe and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: February 2026.
883,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.