Atlassian Confluence vs. Cherwell Service Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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.
$10
per month
Cherwell Service Management
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Cherwell Software was founded by the former CEO of FrontRage Solutions and is a full suite of service management tools competing with BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, and IBM SmartCloud.N/A
Pricing
Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Free for 10 Users
Standard
$5
Per User Per Month
Premium
$10
Per User Per Month
Server
$10
10 Users - Perpetual License
Server
$2,700
25 Users - Perpetual License
Server
$5,300
50 Users - Perpetual License
Server
10,200.00
100 Users - Perpetual License
Data Center
15,000.00
500 Users - Annually
Server
19,800.00
250 Users - Perpetual License
Server
30,000.00
500 Users - Perpetual License
Data Center
30,000.00
1,000 Users - Annually
Server
45,000.00
2,000 Users - Perpetual License
Data Center
52,000.00
2,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
79,200.00
3,000 Users - Annually
Server
90,000.00
10,000 Users - Perpetual License
Data Center
105,600.00
4,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
132,000.00
5,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
143,000.00
10,000 Users - Annually
Server
150,000.00
10,001+ Users - Perpetual License
Data Center
154,000.00
15,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
165,000.00
20,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
176,000.00
25,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
187,000.00
30,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
198,000.00
35,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
209,000.00
40,000 Users - Annually
Data Center
220,000.00
40,001+ Users - Annually
Enterprise
Contact Sales
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.2
109 Ratings
9% below category average
Cherwell Service Management
-
Ratings
Task Management7.187 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.058 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access6.882 Ratings00 Ratings
Search6.9107 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual planning tools7.586 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.9
109 Ratings
1% below category average
Cherwell Service Management
-
Ratings
Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications8.2107 Ratings00 Ratings
Discussions8.0101 Ratings00 Ratings
Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase8.5101 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting6.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts9.37 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook9.610 Ratings00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.9
109 Ratings
3% below category average
Cherwell Service Management
-
Ratings
Versioning8.092 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files7.869 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files7.763 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration9.0104 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.7102 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features8.178 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive7.248 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync6.848 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
-
Ratings
Cherwell Service Management
9.7
53 Ratings
17% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings10.052 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings9.641 Ratings
Service restoration00 Ratings9.935 Ratings
Self-service tools00 Ratings9.851 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings9.538 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.548 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards00 Ratings9.751 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
-
Ratings
Cherwell Service Management
9.7
44 Ratings
17% above category average
Configuration mangement00 Ratings9.742 Ratings
Asset management dashboard00 Ratings9.741 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement00 Ratings9.731 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
-
Ratings
Cherwell Service Management
9.8
50 Ratings
16% above category average
Change requests repository00 Ratings9.848 Ratings
Change calendar00 Ratings9.844 Ratings
Service-level management00 Ratings9.845 Ratings
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Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
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User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(126 ratings)
9.6
(57 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(19 ratings)
9.9
(13 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(12 ratings)
8.7
(5 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.2
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(25 ratings)
6.6
(16 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(2 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Atlassian ConfluenceCherwell Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Atlassian
It has a comment option on the page, where you can tag other teammates tagging them. it sends the mail notification. Comment at the page end is pretty good for referring to other stakeholders and future references of the topic on the page. Creating the highlights of the discussions, and meeting held points with highlighted tagging. Easy shortcuts such as to add a date just type "//". The interface is cool and has easy shortcuts for quick page making.
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Ivanti
Well suited in an IT environment where you have limited staff. It can be managed by one administrator. Reliability of the SaaS environment has been excellent. Flexibility in developing automated workflows to open, manage, and close Incidents. Change Management due to ability to modify OOB to meet the needs of our staff. Contract Management allowing us to be notified when a contract or license is up for renewal and setting reminders. Integrations are not easy to create and manage.
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Pros
Atlassian
  • QUICK How-to Guides that can be generated and share instantly
  • One can subscribe to the pages and spaces and receive updates in the feed on their home page
  • Automatic Email notifications of new updates in the Confluence area
  • The platform integrates easily with other Atlassian platforms including third-party apps thus improving its reliability
Read full review
Ivanti
  • Cherwell's email handling automation works flawlessly. The only time that I have ever needed to reset the automation service that drives it is when my own server that houses the small connecting agent has some kind of problem and disconnects us from our hosted Cherwell instance. It just works. Emails to a certain address always result in a new ticket or update to an existing ticket.
  • Cherwell is literally 100% customization in so many ways that it would be pointless to try to enumerate them. There is a very sizable list of already-created customizations (called "mApps") that you can download and apply to your instance. If you don't like them you can roll them back in seconds. But you can add and configure entire modules using one of these pre-defined, completely free, add-on packages. It's so easy to add features this way that I check the list of available mApps every month or so just to see what functionality I can add.
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Cons
Atlassian
  • Navigation. Similar to other Atlassian products, users have complained that aspects of Confluence are difficult to learn right away[.]
  • An issue that users can face when using Confluence is attempting to edit a document while someone else is editing. Although users can access the document and save it, they are unable to see the changes happening in [real-time] that other users are implementing until they refresh their page. Some users have also noted that this can result in loss of edits.
  • Another drawback of using Confluence is its specific organizational structure. All information is stored within one page or project, although the page is able to be broken up into sections, some users do not prefer this style. Users can use the ‘page tree’ on each page to organize the different elements of each project.
Read full review
Ivanti
  • Cherwell lacks modern UI capabilities such as responsive forms and CSS styling for web portals.
  • Built-in reporting engine is hard to use and resource intensive to run.
  • No patching model for small platform fixes, must upgrade to receive platform code changes.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
Ivanti
Cherwell is still the best tool for the job in the market. Even though Ivanti bought them and are trying to convince everyone to move over to Neurons for ITSM, they have stated Cherwell will remain supported indefinitely and have a roadmap for future Cherwell development. Unfortunately, ISM is not as flexible as Cherwell (and the UX is atrocious), hence why many people are sticking with Cherwell (and why many Cherwell customers never purchased ISM originally)
Read full review
Usability
Atlassian
Confluence can - and in my personal opinion, it will - be a bit hard to use in the first moment. Atlassian is a great company and is eager to help you with any question you have, though. The interface seems to be a bit clumsy at first but the customization options are enough to make it easier and simpler. In general, Confluence is easy to use when you understand what each section does, but this can take a while.
Read full review
Ivanti
I enjoy the layout and configuration of our Cherwell Service Management instance. It did take me a bit to get used to, as with any new ticketing system, but now that I understand the system more, I thoroughly enjoy it! There are just so many options and the UI is very intuitive.
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Reliability and Availability
Atlassian
I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
Read full review
Ivanti
Almost always available, with exception for a handful of outages due to infrastructure related issues
Read full review
Performance
Atlassian
Pages load very quickly, which makes it useful for quickly obtaining information. The search functionality is also very quick and is able to parse through all of the documents to provide the most relevant results for the query. Other information based software gets bogged down, but so far Atlassian Confluence maintains its performance.
Read full review
Ivanti
The browser client is mostly acceptable in terms of performance, but still lacks parity with the rich client. The rich client is not very performant at all. It's built on old architecture and relies heavily on a fast internet connection, good caching and database indexing. There are several unwritten rules with form design (and form arrangement) which most users are not aware of, but can severely impact performance in the rich client. This is where the flexibility of Cherwell can come back to bite you if you step outside the boundaries of these unwritten rules
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Support Rating
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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Ivanti
We generally have a good time with Cherwell support, however, there are the few niche cases where I have to explain how Cherwell works to the customer support agent on the other end. A little more product education for tier 1 support could go a long way in helping expedite support requests from SaaS customers.
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In-Person Training
Atlassian
No answers on this topic
Ivanti
I didn't partake in the in-person training, but it was available. I preferred the online method instead, which was a great experience. It was nice to have someone available to bounce questions off of and demonstrate how certain functions worked.
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Online Training
Atlassian
No answers on this topic
Ivanti
The training was great! We got together to review the system, its UI, and how to perform basic functions. Then there was plenty of time to ask questions and test out the system while there was someone available to assist.
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Implementation Rating
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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Ivanti
Implementation is a breeze. Each time I've implemented it, we had an outsourced vendor overseeing it & assisting where needed. However, Cherwell OOTB is ready to go, and configuring it for LDAP/SAML, etc. for authentication and user-imports is really straight forward. The infrastructure needed for Cherwell is extremely simple too - and installing the server & database takes no more than 20 mins
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Alternatives Considered
Atlassian
We used to use Google Drive to store all of our documentation, but it is disconnected from our every day working environment and it was easy to lose documents and become disorganized within the broad drive environment. [Atlassian] Confluence has kept us more organized and its tight coupling with Jira has made documents more accessible and more likely to be kept up to date.
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Ivanti
Much more customizable than other products, especially when ran in a self-hosted environment. Cherwell [Service Management] allows for greater flexibility of custom development and integrations to allow for automating tasks that traditional ITSM apps are not well suited for. Cherwell [Service Management] gives you the freedom to develop your own objects with minimal licensing costs.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Atlassian
No answers on this topic
Ivanti
We have had great contracts with Cherwell and love the concurrent licensing model
Read full review
Scalability
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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Ivanti
We have never had any major show-stopper issues with Cherwell itself - more so with the infrastructure it sits on. Moving from in-house cloud (on Cherwell's side), to AWS then to Azure has caused multiple problems over the years (some still on-going), however the product has remained fairly stable
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Professional Services
Atlassian
No answers on this topic
Ivanti
As mentioned, they were always great to work with (minus the project management side). My only feedback would be to push back on requirements that don't make sense
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Return on Investment
Atlassian
  • We've gone from folders and folders of Word documents and PDFs into a single system with a search feature to bring all of our data together and trackable
  • While onboarding took a bit longer for the company (to switch from a Word document centric mindset - to a web-based one), overall the company has embraced the features and power of Confluence within the working stack
  • However, as costs continue to climb for the Atlassian product, we are forced to continue our evaluation of the product - with replacing it a remote possibility if it begins to outprice its usefulness to us.
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Ivanti
  • As with any standard ticketing system, it helped decrease the time before first contact with clients.
  • Our department was always concerned with keeping a low budget, and it was cheaper than most.
  • My supervisor could easily tell how many resources were being put into each employee, so we had more visibility of our team's capabilities at a given time if we needed to take on something complex.
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ScreenShots