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Atlassian Confluence vs. IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Confluence

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AConfluence 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

    IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management

    Score5 out of 10
    N/AIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is an end-to-end engineering solution used to manage system requirements to design, workflow, and test management, extending the functionality of ALM tools for better complex-systems development.N/A
    Pricing
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Editions & Modules
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo 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
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Considered Both Products
    Atlassian
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    Chose IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    JIRA is simpler and much more intuitive, especially when bundled with Confluence. TFS is obvious choice if working with Microsoft technologies and has superb API.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Unfortunately, this IBM ELM installation predates my tenure, and the project and client have become entrenched in it with no viable way to move off of it. There are better products capable of doing individual workflows well. ELM's attraction is that it does a lot of things OK.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Although JIRA is getting popular in DevOps team, it does not work well with ITIL model as RTC does. RTC is still widely used for production management in our company.

    CA Service Desk Manager (GSD) is integrated with TPAM which is being used for privilege account management in …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    An alternative which I have very briefly used is Atlassian's JIRA, which is very similar to IBM RTC, although has a modern UI, feels light-weight and is faster to respond and additionally has seamless integration with Bitbucket, which is a Git platform, and other Atlassian
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    89%
    Would buy again
    97 Answers
    78%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    87 Answers
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    100 Answers
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    5 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    54 Answers
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Features
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Atlassian Confluence and IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.1
    158 Ratings
    9% below category average
    IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    -
    Ratings
    Task Management7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation6.591 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access6.9118 Ratings00 Ratings
    Search7.0157 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visual planning tools7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Atlassian Confluence and IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.9
    158 Ratings
    1% below category average
    IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    -
    Ratings
    Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings
    Notifications8.2156 Ratings00 Ratings
    Discussions7.9149 Ratings00 Ratings
    Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase9.0150 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 Atlassian Confluence and IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.7
    157 Ratings
    4% below category average
    IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    -
    Ratings
    Versioning8.2137 Ratings00 Ratings
    Video files6.9105 Ratings00 Ratings
    Audio files6.997 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document collaboration8.4153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access control8.7148 Ratings00 Ratings
    Advanced security features8.3115 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive5.947 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device sync8.486 Ratings00 Ratings
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    Score8.7 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (174 ratings)
    3.0
    (22 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (22 ratings)
    8.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (63 ratings)
    4.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.4
    (25 ratings)
    5.0
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.8
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Atlassian
    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
    Read full review
    IBM
    The software is robust enough to handle highly complex software development or other product development and can be used well beyond the range to do what a client needs. However, because of the inability to hold its users to proper best practices, things can get wildly out of hand and cascade over the years, creating unnecessary technical debt. The system has a lot of usable features, but they don't funnel users toward the correct processes and practices.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • Open Services supporting Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC).
    • Required definition management and managed capabilities enabling.
    • Rational DOORS Web Access for local on the test field presence.
    • On-sites established reporting system.
    • Approved linking requirements to test plans
    • Engineering Requirements Management DOORS traces requirements thereby eliminates manually processes and spreadsheets, for improved productivity.
    • Returns the investment efficiently.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    • I feel like it is too heavy sometimes and updating is not very straight forward. For example, if I want to change an incident ticket (IN) to a service request (SR) and add some comment for the change, I have to first change the IN to SR, then click refresh which takes a few seconds, then add a comment. If I forget the refresh step, my comment will be discarded without warning like my ticket is not in the latest status. This also happens when somebody else changes the ticket during my edit as I can not lock the ticket exclusively.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    IBM
    At the moment we are required by contract to continue to use the IBM DOORS software for our current client. Given that it can be expensive, if we were to use it after our current client's needs were met, we would have to secure other projects in order to justify the continued use of the software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Atlassian
    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
    Read full review
    IBM
    The UI is terrible and not intuitive. Users need training in order to complete tasks. Much like SAP, it's not the clearest tool. The tracing feature is especially complicated because you must write the scripts yourself. There is a learning curve. Also, even the setup, installation, and logging in each time takes a considerable amount of time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Atlassian
    I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    It does a basic job and has the potential to complete some robust reporting tasks, however, it really is a clunky piece of software with a terrible user interface that makes using it routinely quite unpleasant. Many of our legacy and maintenance projects still use DOORS but our department and company use many alternatives and are looking for better tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    No problems
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    It was easier to do all the change management-related activities, even configurations were handled very effectively. New process definitions and initiatives made it easier for better project deliverables. Effective resource allocations and better reporting and defect management. The overall cost of the tool is great too and well within budget.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Atlassian
    • 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
    Read full review
    IBM
    • It's part of CLM suite so it can be used to manage the whole lifecycle with tight integration with development module (Rational Team Concert) and quality module (Rational Quality Manager).
    • Comprehensive reports and dashboards provide better visibility.
    • License cost is on higher side.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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