Confluence Reviews

Real-time simultaneous editing
Ease of finding and organizing what I've written
Constantly adding new features
Integration with Jira and Trello is great, but also works as lightweight project management by itself

Honestly, they've fixed my biggest cons, like storage space (now you can buy a bigger plan) and they keep adding more things.
I think my colleagues would say there's still a learning curve, which is understandable, and I think Confluence has been changing the interface with more tips and features for new users (which is sometimes confusing for long-time users like me, LOL)
One big con is still the limited integration with MS Office. Confluence fully replaces the need for Word in most cases, so that's not a big deal, but I wish the Excel integration and/or the table functionality was better.
Also, printing is pretty tough when you have tables.

Confluence is a great option for existing Atlassian users looking to seamless integrate an active knowledge base into their project workflow. With direct connection to the JIRA project management platform, Confluence allows you to connect existing users directly to relevant project documentation. Its base functionality is fairly intuitive for novice users, and its advances permissions schemes allow you to create a variety of admin tiers that can restrict access to relevant users only. The integration between Confluence and JIRA is as simple as checking a box in the user admin panel.

As a general word processor, Confluence can be a little clunky when compared to the UX of similar processors such as Word of Google Docs. While its advanced features can be very useful for more experienced users, available tutorials can be difficult to come by and are often outdated. Like most Atlassian products, the bounty of features, settings, and schemes can be very overwhelming to the average user and are not overtly intuitive. Document organization can also be very confusing, as there are a variety of options to choose from when creating parent and child pages.

The ease to document a wide variety of software related information makes it a strong tool for the teams it has been developed. They also have made it very easy to use several templates for meetings etc. If you integrate it with the main product Jira, then you have a very good combination of tools for software development and follow up documentation.

To work properly with confluence you should also use Jira as project management tool. It is hard to implement it without Jira.To make proper documentation a lot of extra plug-ins make your live a lot easier. Some are free, others are at a cost.Integration with office, google workspace etc is hard.

Curating processes to fit the way we do business and organizing an easy access database to allow employees to utilize tools, or knowledge points it's crucial. Confluence allows you to easily create and navigate sources necessary to run a business.

The formatting limitations on some of the pages. While they offer a lot of layout options ultimately creating expanding boxes is not easy or user friendly. There may be a way to do it a lot of the time but it's not always obvious, as it should be.

That it links with Jira which is beneficial to keep the tech and product team updated with sales and business development.

It’s not very user friendly compared to other tools like Notion. Notion has a lot more functionality.

The best feature that this has is the extended Add-In marketplace. You can find the proper Add-In to express your ideas in the best way: Coding, Images or illustrations, animated gifs or videos, and even forms inside the documents and pages. From a user perspective, this is one on the easiest knowledge base software in the market, and also you have the bakcing of Atlassian. The process of the integration with our existing business logic was easy because we didn't have a strict knowledge base, but Confluence gave us the foundations to build one from scratch.

The export tools and options you have inside the platform are not good. The data isn't portable, so you can't migrate easily to another platform in case you want. The installation process was complex, but today, they stopped producing self-hosted applications, so you are obligated to use their cloud services, and it can be a problem if the company has a strict data policy, like restrictions in the phisycal storage of the data.

-No need to use multiple MS software like Ms Project, excel or even Word for documentation. Now I'm using a single tool for my Checklist, Requirement list, action plans, help guides, and testing strategies.
-I like how it is integrated with JIRA which is also one of the main tools we use at work. All Jira dashboards are available within Confluence which allows documentation to be supported by task.
-There are ready templates for creating different types of documents. There is an option to create hierarchy for documentation and link them to each other to avoid duplication.

-Right now, exporting of documents is only limited to Word and PDF file types. It would be better if there were more options.
-Adding the option to customize forms would be a convenient feature. Instead of only having the pre-build forms.
-It is also better if there will be more complex support for searching algorithms for discovery when searching, not just by typing the exact keyword

Confluence is a great tool for having all your documentation and knowledge in one place. You can create wiki pages for each topic and group these pages under 'Spaces'. Multiple team members can work on one page simultaneously. It captures a detailed audit trail on the changes made at a page level. You can have strong control on the content publishing by defining a robust review and approval process. It has a robust search functionality and it seamlessly integrates with JIRA, MS Teams and other third party tools.

One major issue with Confluence is that when multiple people are working on one page simultaneously, then you need to refresh the page in order to see the changes made by others. Also, the access control can be complex and glitchy sometimes.I would love if the user interface for Confluence is improved.

The rich text central location of document storage and the ability to share based on permissions is a nice-to-have tool for large companies or groups. Utilization is tricky as every team or group will use it in their own way and organize their own way so even if you implement this in your company and you're browsing another department's documentation, you will find essentially that it is just their own internal documentation which requires a little bit of a lucky search to find what you're looking for. Essentially this is a glorified document cloud storage which allows version control, permissions, and sharing.

It is not much different than say any other software or tool available in this category. It has some nice features like version control and seeing a complete history of who made changes to what along with comments and a social feature to it where you can subscribe but honestly there is so much more potential here especially from a company like Atlassian. I just feel they really dropped the ball here by not implementing better integration with some other apps which are already available. Example is that their spreadsheet implementation is a nightmare. The formatting almost always behaves irradicably and it has the bare minimum when it comes to these spreadsheets. Why not implement at least at the base of other offerings? For a paid product, the level of quality is expected to be much more.

The software is very easy to use for its most basic features - as a place to create and store content. It is a solid tool for a knowledge base or even project management. Macros allow creatively in how content is displayed and linked or mirrored from other pages. Users can control permissions, visibility and see a clear history of changes - which can be easily reverted back to if necessary. Page trees make it simple to navigate complex "spaces" of information and the search functionality is robust. Overall, a great place to develop content for internal collaboration and future reference.

Although Confluence is a great place to create and collaborate on content, it has a few major downfalls that are a constant source of frustration. The biggest issue relates to users working on the same page at the same time. This is a horrible experience at best. Content between users is frequently lost or overwritten and you can never be confident in if your content will save successfully and not disappear. When Confluence tries to merge changes, it often will lose content or simply not work at all. The result is users ensuring that only one person is editing at a time, which is a terrible annoyance and slows teams down. It often causes teams to actively collaborate in another tool where this is not an issue and then simply link to it through Confluence.

Confluence distinguishes itself through its history and complete traceability, which is extremely beneficial for collaborative work within the company. The platform meticulously records all activities and changes made to the pages, allowing for a complete audit of previous contributions and modifications. This feature is particularly useful for projects where you need to track the evolution of content and keep a record of revisions made.

Although Confluence has many advantages, it also has some drawbacks that should be mentioned. One of them is its limited design and visual presentation capabilities. While images and other visual elements can be inserted into pages, the customization and design tools are less sophisticated when compared to other content creation platforms. This can be aggravating for those who want more aesthetic freedom in their documents and presentations.

Confluence is an enterprise-grade collaboration and knowledge management tool developed by Atlassian. It is a web-based platform that enables teams to work together seamlessly, share information, and create and store content in a centralized location.One of the most significant advantages of Confluence is its versatility. It can be used by different teams in various industries, including software development, marketing, project management, human resources, and customer support. The platform provides teams with a range of features to create, share, and organize content, including pages, blogs, comments, templates, and macros.One of the key benefits of Confluence is its intuitive user interface, making it easy to use and learn. It has a WYSIWYG editor that enables teams to create rich content with ease, and the platform is highly customizable, allowing teams to tailor it to their specific needs.Confluence also integrates with various other Atlassian tools, including Jira, Trello, and Bitbucket, which allows for seamless collaboration across different teams and departments. The platform also offers various add-ons and integrations with third-party tools, further expanding its functionality..

However, like any software, Confluence has its drawbacks. The platform can be slow at times, and its pricing may not be affordable for small businesses or startups. Additionally, while Confluence's search functionality is powerful, it can be challenging to navigate, making it difficult to find specific content.

I have used confluence for around 5 years now and have experienced it's feature from it's on premises platform to it's cloud platform. The feature that I value the most is Confluence's ability to organise information in a central hub and promote collaboration not only amongst the team members but amongst the stakeholders as well. Confluence allows for team members and stakeholders to easily access and share information. The user will always find document creation and editing easy and seamless. Confluence takes care of the communication between collaborators for you by allowing the user to assign tasks, make comments but most importantly send notifications of changes to the collaborators. Confluence has excellent version control management and tracking features and places this control in the hands of the user. This feature guarantees that the user or project team can manage changes and revisions with ease while keeping the integrity of their document

Using confluence for a long time has explore and urge for feature improvements especially for those who are new to confluence. The user interface for new users can be over whelming as it may be difficult to navigate to document that the user needs. Tutorials are beneficial to new users as user can find plenty of these on YouTube. Confluence allows for many plugins and macros from third party applications, however, alot of them would require you to have experience using that third party application as confluence does not assist in teaching or showing you how you can use the plug in or macro. There has been many times where I have faced lag or long loading times with documents where either the browser needs to refresh or Confluence will kick me out of the document and take me to the home page. This is not ideal especially when you need to be productive. I have used Confluence with and without single sign the on feature and have experienced high loading times with single sign on.

We use Confluence on a daily basis to document various aspects of our organization. There is a large variety of built-in templates for a variety of sorts of documents. We heavily utilize the how-to articles to record procedures. Although it does link with other Altassian products, like Jira, we don't use that functionality currently as we run Confluence on-site and Jira in the cloud. The upgrade to version 6 greatly increased the usefulness of the product, as it brought in concurrent editing, ala Google Docs, which was functionality we needed when developing procedures for an event as a group. The search and indexing capabilities make it easy to find a document if its location is not obvious.

Search and indexing can lose usefulness in the event you have many similar documents, like say a checklist that is executed often. I would like a function to be able to click a check box to "ignore results like this." The initial setup of Confluence was not completely straightforward, however, we were installing on an older version, version 5. (The upgrade to version 6 went much smoother.) I would prefer an omnibus install package if it doesn't currently have that rather than having to install PostgreSQL and the application. The LDAP integration could have been a little bit smoother than it was, although it is in line with the other Atlassian products I have integrated.

Confluence is an excellent tool for document management. It offers many features, including version control, access controls, and document organization. This makes it much easier to keep track of changes to important documents and manage them effectively. With Confluence, you can be sure that all your documents are stored securely and have complete control over who can access them. Whether you are working on a project or need to keep your records organized, Confluence is the perfect solution.

I've heard from some users that Confluence is lacking in some formatting and customization options. Specifically, some have reported that the platform lacks more advanced formatting capabilities, such as the ability to create multi-column layouts. Additionally, while Confluence allows for customization, it seems that the platform's options are somewhat limited compared to other document management tools.

It comes with rich features, below are a few features which I personally liked:

1. Documentation: When there are some important knowledge articles that need to be shared with the team, we use this tool. It comes with multiple options to make the page feels catchy and rich, it also allows us to attach the images.

2. Search Functionality: When there are 1000s of confluence pages, and if I want to access the page containing a specific word or a line, the search engine works like a champ it finds the pages almost immediately, this feature really helps me in easing my office work.

3. It displays the name of the person who had created the page and last modified person name, this helps to know whom to reach out to when we need additional info pertaining to the details as written on the page. And if required we can add the approvals, thus whenever someone edits the document without your consent changes won't reflect others until you approve the updates.

4. Like and Comments: Similar to social media, readers can either hit like if they like the content or they can mention their feedback in the comment section, this feature really helped me while suggesting something to the author or express my thanks via a LIKE.

There should've been an option to keep the page in draft before publishing it. But unfortunately, there is no such feature in confluence.
Apart from this, I didn't find any other flaws in the software.

The widgets. I love the team calendars, the roadmap functionality for time lines, decision tracking and criteria, tasks/action items and the ease of defining them, status bars, and the flexibility for meeting notes, how to articles, blogs, file lists, product requirements, retrospectives, task reports, and troubleshooting articles from one source. It has really improved our interaction with customers for projects and documentation.

From time to time I see issues with editing pages. It does not make the bold or color changes to changes even though the toolbar indicates it is made, it does not display correctly. I also see this display issue with tasks, where the tool bar indicates a task is inserted, but it is not displaying correctly. And also see this issue with bullets. It will display no bullet, or even worse, it displays additional bullets that I don't want.

I would also love to be able to sync widgets between pages (ie a status bar on one page to a parent of that page for a summary. And also be able to sync components/pieces of a page between two Confluence instances. For an example of the use case, we have a time line that we maintain on an internal instance, and I want to sync parts of that timeline to an external instance that we share with customers. This would allow me to have internal only deliverables mapped, but provide a customer facing doc without maintaining two versions

With Confluence we have an environment that is very efficient to work in to add new content, very easy to update articles and manage file attachments. The keyboard shortcuts are second to none. It is an absolute pleasure to work in Confluence all day. Setting up spaces for various audiences, including a "personal space" allows me to draft documents privately and then move the document over into a space with an audience. Effectively I can "publish" content to employees with a couple of mouse clicks.

Permissions are very well thought out. The permission scheme is based on spaces, individuals and groups, with flexibility from super-locked-down to wide open on the public internet. It allows control of various actions per person or per group, and affords us maximum utility of the product. People within the business are dreaming up different ways to use it faster than we can implement them.

As with any full-featured system that allows you total control as an administrator, successful use of the product requires that you lay out your business requirements clearly first so that there are no unexpected outcomes. Establishing best practices for content creators within the system is also advisable.

I have used other systems in the past, notably MediaWiki and SharePoint, and while I enjoyed them at the time, Confluence blows everything else out of the water. The control and flexibility is unparalleled and the product has obviously been designed for use in environments where project priorities, staff hierarchies, etc can experience rapid significant change.

I also highly recommend the Atlassian sister product JIRA and add-on JIRA Service Desk for task based work management. It is incredibly useful.

With great power comes great responsibility and great potential to make an absolute mess of things. Deployment of this tool to a large user base would require some serious preparation to establish access schemes, permissions for user groups, best practices for editing and creating new content, and organizing content within the spaces. End user training is critical to cement those rules and establish a culture around using it effectively. I would not recommend deploying this tool in a slapdash hurry (Although, given it's innate flexibility, it would be easier to correct it later with Confluence than some of its competitors!)