Atlassian Confluence vs. IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Confluence
Score 8.0 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
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Score 6.7 out of 10
N/A
IBM 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
Atlassian ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle 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
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 Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Considered Both Products
Confluence

No answer on this topic

IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
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.
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 …
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 …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Atlassian ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.1
110 Ratings
11% below category average
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
-
Ratings
Task Management6.188 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation6.159 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access7.683 Ratings00 Ratings
Search7.0108 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual planning tools7.787 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.7
110 Ratings
4% below category average
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
-
Ratings
Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications8.1108 Ratings00 Ratings
Discussions6.3102 Ratings00 Ratings
Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase8.9102 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
7.7
110 Ratings
5% below category average
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
-
Ratings
Versioning7.693 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files7.670 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files7.564 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration8.5105 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.5103 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features8.379 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive6.748 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync7.149 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(127 ratings)
8.8
(22 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(19 ratings)
8.0
(6 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(13 ratings)
2.1
(4 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
Atlassian ConfluenceIBM Engineering Lifecycle 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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IBM
IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS former IBM Rational DOORS profits very much from the mighty market position it had till today. It had been the most favored requirement engineering tools suite with the highest investments in the infrastructure concerning hardware, software, and knowledge sources. It was embedded in knowledge sources of test stands, hardware labs, and knowledge database servers. It allowed for some of the highest profit changes and made the fame with it. But the paradigms of requirements engineering change. If not were superseded by completely different approaches for the target solution worlds. The foremost position in the selling tables is unstable if changes are not solved or coped with by the strategist at IBM and their customers. Since the highly successful alternative suits are already at the market, and some are from IBM already the lifecycle for IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS is at the later highs. But the suite is still at the very top and very popular. There are still many problems unsolved and many wishes at the customers to make the use more comfortable and efficient at the overall level. If the time of setting up the software package is passed the adoption get more extended and complicated. There is a lot of work at the stage around and the expertise will be required for a long time from now.
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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
IBM
  • Easy to use with well defined template and user defined fields. New team can setup a project area easily by copying an existing template and adding customized fields for their special needs.
  • It can be used during almost the whole project cycle and give us a better view and control on the projects.
  • Lots of built-in report functions.
Read full review
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
IBM
  • Wireframes are quite basic. If you need intuitive and interactive wireframes to elaborate the requirements. you probably need to define outside the tool and then upload as image.
  • ER (define data dictionaries) modeling is not there.
  • Use case modeling is quite basic. You can visualize the use case and actors relation but the tool does not enforce the rules.
  • Does not support offline work.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Atlassian
I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
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.
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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.
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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.
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!
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IBM
No problems
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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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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.
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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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IBM
No answers on this topic
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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IBM
  • If you can setup DOORS to your project, you will experience lower costs.
  • Also, less rework in the project, which means lower times to achieve your milestones.
  • Finally, the cost of setting up a related project is considerably lower, and the estimates obtained in the process are much more precise.
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