ActiveCollab vs. Atlassian Confluence

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCollab
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Active Collab is a project management solution built around features such as task management, collaboration, time tracking, and invoicing.
$8
per member/per month
Confluence
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Confluence is a collaboration and content sharing platform used primarily by customers who are already using Atlassian's Jira project tracking product. The product appeals particularly to IT users.
$6.40
per month per user
Pricing
ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
Editions & Modules
ActiveCollab Project Management
$8
per member/per month
Self-Hosted Plan
$999.00
license
Free
$0
Free for 10 Users
Standard
$6.40
per month per user
Premium
$12.30
per month per user
Data Center
220,000.00
40,001+ Users - Annually
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCollabConfluence
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$6.25 per member, per month, annual billingNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices shown here reflect prices for deployments with 100 users or less. The prices decrease wien the user base surpasses 100.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
Features
ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
3.6
13 Ratings
73% below category average
Atlassian Confluence
7.0
157 Ratings
11% below category average
Task Management5.112 Ratings7.1125 Ratings
Resource Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts3.07 Ratings7.912 Ratings
Scheduling1.011 Ratings7.221 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.01 Ratings6.389 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.113 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management3.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration4.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access1.110 Ratings6.7116 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking2.09 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management2.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Search00 Ratings6.8155 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings7.2126 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
5.7
8 Ratings
30% below category average
Atlassian Confluence
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates6.97 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing6.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software7.94 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Atlassian Confluence
7.9
157 Ratings
1% below category average
Chat00 Ratings6.415 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings8.2154 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings7.7147 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings7.015 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings9.0148 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings9.37 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings9.610 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCollab
-
Ratings
Atlassian Confluence
7.7
156 Ratings
4% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings8.2135 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings6.8104 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings6.896 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.3151 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings8.6146 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.3113 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings5.947 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.384 Ratings
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ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
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User Ratings
ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
Likelihood to Recommend
1.6
(13 ratings)
8.2
(173 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(21 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(61 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(3 ratings)
5.4
(25 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCollabAtlassian Confluence
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCollab
Scenarios where ActiveCollab works well 1) ActiveCollab works well for small teams specifically T&M teams.Its invoicing feature is unique & can make your life easy. 2) It is very easy to use & posses good range of filters like on the task list, we can drag/drop tasks, Filter by assignee's,
tasks lists, due dates, or completed tasks. 3) It has some simple but awesome features like when you're in
the middle of writing something i.e a comment on story and get interrupted,
it retains what you wrote. 4) It allows you to tag team members in threads of comments to grab their attention, its really needed when teams are distributed. Thus helping team members to collaborate easily & stay on same page. 5) It integrates pretty well with other web apps like quickbooks , Slack, Trello, HubSpot, Zapier etc Scenarios where ActiveCollab did not work well 1) Tasks can not have multiple assignee's here so if two members are working on same task it did not allow you to reflect that. 2) Sorting capability is not their under invoicing 3) It did not work well for larger teams 4) Search option is not very detailed & you may end up wasting lot of time searching one particular bug or issue.












Read full review
Atlassian
I would recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies that want to have internal documentation and minimum governance processes to ensure documentation is useful and doesn't have a lot of duplicated and non-updated content. I wouldn't recommend Atlassian Confluence for companies with a low budget since this product might be a little costly (especially with add-ons).
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Pros
ActiveCollab
  • Great for project and task assignments, project workflow and communications.
  • Solid web-based platform that doesn't require software downloads, also includes great mobile platform.
  • Great reporting tools for managing billing, estimating, project workflow and other essential project details.
  • Allows for both the agency and its clients to interact on a single platform using role-specific permissions.
Read full review
Atlassian
  • Cross product linking - If you use other Atlassian products then Atlassian Confluence is a no-brainer for your source of documentation, knowledge management etc. You can show previews of the linked asset natively E.g. showing a preview of a JIRA ticket in a Atlassian Confluence page.
  • Simple editing - Though the features available may not be super complex right now, this does come with the benefit of making it easy to edit and create documents. Some documentation editors can be overwhelming, Atlassian Confluence is simple and intuitive.
  • Native marketplace - If you want to install add-ons to your Atlassian Confluence space it's really easy. Admins can explore the Atlassian marketplace natively and install them to your instance in a few clicks. You can customise your Atlassian Confluence instance in many different ways using add-ons.
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Cons
ActiveCollab
  • It isn't possible to set members of staff as part time, so if someone is unavailable on certain days you must manually enter them as OOO every single day that they are not in, that other teammates work. Hours also can't be edited individually - everyone is treated as working the same hours in a day, rendering capacity planner useless for flexi working teams
  • Subtasks cannot be assigned their own hours and deadlines, meaning the To Do list view can't be seen in actual date order and capacity planner does not reflect all time allocated to an individual's schedule unless every task is set up as a separate task rather than subtask
  • There is no way to see all tasks of a certain type across multiple campaigns (e.g all copywriting tasks vs all technical tasks) - support team suggested exporting data and making spreadsheets
  • Kanban view isn't available for people's own task lists ('board' view here shows a list)
  • Not possible to have one task be assigned to more than one person
  • Notifications are not sent when tasks are updated, so you have to leave comments and tag people each time
Read full review
Atlassian
  • UI Design is very simplistic and basic could make use of more visually interesting colour choices, layout choices, etc.
  • Under the 'Content' menu, it defaults to having a landing page for all L1 and L2 category pages. Meaning as long as the broader content category has a sub-category, it still creates a separate landing page. In my team's case, this often creates blank pages, as we only fill out the page at the lowest sub-category (L3).
  • Hyperlinks are traditionally shown as blue, however, this results into very monotonously blue pages in cases where a lot of information is being linked.
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Likelihood to Renew
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
I am confident that Atlassian can come with additional and innovative macros and functions to add value to Confluence. In 6 months, Atlassian transformed a good collaborative tools into a more comprehensive system that can help manage projects and processes, as well as "talk" with other Atlassian products like Jira. We are in fact learning more about Jira to evaluate a possible fit to complement our tool box.
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Usability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
Great for organizing knowledge in a hierarchical format. Seamless for engineering and product teams managing software development. Helps in formatting pages effectively, reducing manual work. Tracks changes well and allows for easy rollbacks. Granular controls for who can view/edit pages. Search function is not great which needs improvement. Hire some google engineers
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
Read full review
Performance
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
We never worked against the tide while using Confluence. Everything loads considerably fast, even media components like videos (hosted on the platform or embed external videos from Youtube, for example). We are not using heavy media components a lot, but in the rare occasion we happen to use one we have no problems whatsoever.
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Support Rating
ActiveCollab
We have not required support for ActiveCollab as it works pretty seamlessly. We didn't have any issues with using the platform or with any billing issues. The self-service aspect of the platform is robust and easy to navigate so we have not encountered any errors that required assistance from the support team.
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Atlassian
This rating is specifically for Atlassian's self-help documentation on their website. Often times, it is not robust enough to cover a complex usage of one of their features. Frequently, you can find an answer on the web, but not from Atlassian. Instead, it is usually at a power user group elsewhere on the net.
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Implementation Rating
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
Overall, I am very satisfied with the initial implementation (and the subsequent upgrades and implementations made over the years).
This product has never rose to the level of being an major issue at an executive level. It has quietly and valiantly done it's job for our company!
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Alternatives Considered
ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab is easier to use and simpler in its setup. It has the right mix of features and simplicity. It's also project-oriented which is important for our workflow. Other tools are often too task-oriented, making it hard to track projects. Overall, ActiveCollab has a great mix of simplicity with good features.
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Atlassian
We chose Atlassian Confluence over SharePoint because it's much more user-friendly and intuitive. Atlassian Confluence makes collaboration and knowledge sharing easier with its simpler interface and better search. While SharePoint can be powerful, it often feels clunky and complex, making it harder for our team to actually use it.
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Scalability
ActiveCollab
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
This tool is very adaptable. So much so we use it for three completely separate projects, in three very different ways.
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Return on Investment
ActiveCollab
  • Allows our team to stay organized and keep conversations on tasks.
  • The To-Do List email every morning helps me mentally prepare and know exactly what I should be doing as soon as I start work.
  • Powerful and useful integrations save lots of time (Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Zapier and more!).
Read full review
Atlassian
  • The AI feature which lets me find relevant documents while reading one document is really beneficial.
  • Centralising of knowledge systems is one of the key differentiators for large organisations.
  • As long as folks keep using Google Docs and Atlassian Confluence, there is going to be a challenge in building a continuum.
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ScreenShots

ActiveCollab Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard with an overview of projects.Screenshot of multiple task views currently showing a Kanban view of the tasklists and tasks.Screenshot of Overview of all recent activity.Screenshot of Calendar view with task dependencies.Screenshot of Permission settings (owner, member, client, client+).Screenshot of List of available Add-ons.