Atlassian Confluence vs. Basecamp vs. Evernote

It is well suited due to the below reasons 1. Easy collaboration between teams 2. Strong integration with other applications 3. Centralized documentation among teams and within the organisation 4. Project planning and report sharing 5. Employee onboarding is easier and maintain HR policies very well. Less appropriate in below scenarios When this is being used as a main tool for communication rather than its purpose of collaboration.

Incentivized

Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.

Incentivized

Evernote is an excellent tool for keeping track of client relationships and taking notes. The indexing is excellent, with text in images and text. However, a Wiki might be better for large-scale collaboration. It is a perfect use case for it, and it is hard to beat. To-do lists that need to be tracked or have due dates assigned do not work well in Evernote. It's almost like a library that anyone can add to, edit, tag, and reference. Evernote has a limited checklist function in terms of tasks meant to be kept in one place rather than reviewed and organized over time.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
• The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
• Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• Ability to share meeting notes with others (like that it works well with Rocketbook).
• The To-Do list helps with organization and project deadlines.
• Able to sync to multiple devices so you can use it in the office or in the field.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
• Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
• Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.

Incentivized

• The free application's feature will meet most users needs, but the Premium plan is expensive.
• Though Evernote lets you create and manage notes effortlessly, its basic plan supports sync between two devices and does not support offline mode.
• Can't export data easily to other applications.

Incentivized

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.

When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.

I can't really imagine how much they'd have to charge me to make me quit Evernote. I can't really think of any technology that has changed my life as much without going back to email in the 90s, or the introduction of the iPhone. I know I sound ridiculous, but it would be really tough for me to live without it. If I were forced to choose between my smart phone (and keep in mind that I get lost in my driveway) and my Evernote, I'd probably choose my Evernote.

Atlassian Confluence is a great tool for project management, especially for internal documentation. It has a minimum governance requirement to use its full power. Also, it is a little pricy to unlock its full power as well, so it is not recommended for companies with a low budget in my opinion.

Incentivized

It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.

Incentivized

• Basic visual organization - ability to create a notebook and store user notes inside of it.
• Basic easy navigation - You can quickly move in and out of files and notes.
• User intuitive addition - whatever you need to add to your document, it's relatively easy to understand and use.
• We find overall that we still want some functionality in creating better task lists, boards, and other things that we find in Notion - which is the tool that we use as a team notebook/storage space.

Incentivized

I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.

Incentivized

I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.

Incentivized

Generally issues are by connectivity and not Evernote availability but I have had issues in the past with cross-client consistency of data which Evernote Support has ID'd as bugs that are still unresolved as far as I know

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.

Incentivized

Fast and clean interface. Just upgraded to Evernote 5

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.

Incentivized

For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.

Incentivized

I bet you won’t even need to call their support. Their product has never failed me. Simply put. But if you were to email them to gather some details or help, I bet they won’t disappoint you. Don’t worry about the support, it’s the last thing you should worry about this product.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)

Make sure you think about your tags. If you end up with multiple similar tags then things aren't grouped together as you might prefer. For instance if you have a tag called Disney and Walt Disney, this will split up your articles. Evernote makes it simple to correct, but I suggest you make sure your users look closely at the existing tags before creating new ones.

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.

Incentivized

Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.

Incentivized

The most similar program I have used is OneNote by Microsoft, and other note taking programs exist like Notepad and Microsoft Word but those programs do not offer syncing like Evernote does. There are newer programs in the space like Dropbox Paper and Google Docs which would be on a list of ones to consider.

Incentivized

This tool is very adaptable. So much so we use it for three completely separate projects, in three very different ways.

Incentivized

• We totally rely on this tool since a decade now and despite being so much transition in our company it has served us well in those transitions
• Many times, during security audits we are asked to showcase our readiness for various compliance points and confluence helps us a lot in maintaining that
• Talking about Confluence in front of clients and customers gives us an upper hand that we are up to date with latest trend and technologies and tools for our RnD planning and management

Incentivized

• It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
• It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
• The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.

Incentivized

• Evernote has allowed our school's over 3000 students and staff members to work more efficiently instead of spending time on making physical notes, clicking pictures, and uploading them to the cloud in order to share them
• The investment in Evernote Premium has also allowed for heavier files to be attached in each note such as student work that allows teachers to be certain that students have followed deadlines and finished assigned tasks
• Evernote has allowed our school to smoothly transition in and out of online learning as the local COVID-19 protocols change and student work requires one platform to be based on throughout

Incentivized