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Atlassian Confluence vs. IBM Rational Synergy vs. Progress Chef

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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 Rational Synergy

    Score6 out of 10
    N/ARational Synergy is a task-based software development and delivery solution that supports medium-to-large development teams working in heterogeneous, distributed computing environments. The software brings together your global, distributed development teams on a unified change, configuration, and release management platform.N/A

    Progress Chef

    Score6.5 out of 10
    N/AChef IT infrastructure automation suites were developed by Chef Software in Seattle and acquired by Progress Software in September 2020. The Chef Enterprise Automation Stack is an integrated suite of automation technologies presented as a solution for delivering change quickly, repeatedly, and securely over every application's lifecycle. The Chef Effortless Infrastructure Suit is an integrated suite of automation technologies to codify infrastructure, security, and compliance, as well as…N/A
    Pricing
    ConfluenceIBM Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConfluenceIBM Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    Free Trial
    YesNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo 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 Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    Considered Multiple Products
    Atlassian
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Progress Software
    Chose Progress Chef
    We did evaluate other solutions comparable to Chef.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    89%
    Would buy again
    97 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    87 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    100 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    54 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    6 Answers
    Features
    ConfluenceIBM Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Atlassian Confluence and IBM Rational Synergy and Progress Chef
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.1
    158 Ratings
    8% below category average
    IBM Rational Synergy
    -
    Ratings
    Progress Chef
    -
    Ratings
    Task Management7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation6.591 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access7.0118 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Search7.0157 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visual planning tools7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Atlassian Confluence and IBM Rational Synergy and Progress Chef
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.9
    158 Ratings
    1% below category average
    IBM Rational Synergy
    -
    Ratings
    Progress Chef
    -
    Ratings
    Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Notifications8.2156 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Discussions7.9149 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase9.0150 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting6.03 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts9.37 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook9.610 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Atlassian Confluence and IBM Rational Synergy and Progress Chef
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.7
    157 Ratings
    4% below category average
    IBM Rational Synergy
    -
    Ratings
    Progress Chef
    -
    Ratings
    Versioning8.3137 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Video files6.9105 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Audio files6.997 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document collaboration8.4153 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access control8.7148 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Advanced security features8.4115 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive5.947 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device sync8.486 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
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    Score8.5 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    ConfluenceIBM Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (174 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.9
    (18 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (22 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (63 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.4
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.4
    (25 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.7
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.8
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.6
    (5 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ConfluenceIBM Rational SynergyProgress Chef
    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    Chef is a fantastic tool for automating software deployments that aren't able to be containerized. It's more developer-oriented than its other competitors and thus allows you to do more with it. The Chef Infra Server software is rock-solid and has been extremely stable in our experience. I would definitely recommend its use if you're looking for an automation framework. And it also offers InSpec which is a very good tool for testing your infrastructure to ensure it deployed as intended.
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    • Chef is great at deploying code to both small and large groups of servers.
    • We use chef to standup new servers as well as deploy updated code to existing servers and it does this very well.
    • Being able to make a change and have it push manually or automatically to any subset of servers has changed the landscape of how our IT teams operate.
    Incentivized
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    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    • Chef could do a better job with integration with other DevOps tools. Our company relies on Jenkins and Ansible, which took some development and convincing for plug-ins to be created/available.
    • It would be nice if kitchen didn't only have a vagrant/virtual-box prerequisite. Our company one day stop allowing virtual-box to run without special privileges, and that caused a lot of issues for people trying to do kitchen tests.
    • Chef could use more practice materials for the advanced certification badges. There was not a lot of guidance in what to study or examples of certain topics.
    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
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    The suite of tools is very powerful. The ability to create custom modules allows for unlimited potential for managing all aspects of a system. However, there is pretty significant learning curve with the toolset. It currently takes approx 3-4 months for new engineers to feel comfortable with our implementation
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Atlassian
    I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    It loads quick enough for basically all our systems. Because we have this for local dev environments, speed isn't really a big issue here. Yes, depending on the system, sometimes it does take a relatively long time, but it's not an issue for me. One thing that is annoying is that if I want to make a small change to a cookbook and re-run the Chef client, I can't just make the change in the cache and run it. I have to do the whole process of updating the server.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    Support for Chef is easily available for fee or through the open source community as most the issues you will face will have been addressed through the Chef developer community forums. The documentation for Chef is moderate to great and easily readable.
    Incentivized
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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!
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    No answers on this topic
    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    We considered the three leading competitors in the field: Chef, Puppet and Ansible. Ansible is a very strong competitor and has a nice degree of flexibility in that it does not require a client install. Instead the configuration is delivered by SSH which is very simple. Puppet seems like it has fallen off the pace of the competition and lacked the strong community offered by Chef. We chose Chef because of the strong support by the company and the dynamic and deep community support.
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Atlassian
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    The pricing seemed inline with our products in this space. Nothing out of the ordinary in contract, term, or pricing structure
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    Atlassian
    No answers on this topic
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    The entire professional services team was great to work with. The curriculum was tailored to our specific use cases. The group we worked with were very responsive, listened to our feedback, was very easy to schedule and accommodate. I cannot say enough good things about our professional services experience
    Incentivized
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    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
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    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Progress Software
    • Chef is a good tool for baselining servers. It will be a good ROI when there are huge number of servers. For less number of servers maintaining a master will be an over head.
    • One good ROI will be that the Operations Team also gets into agile and DevOps methodologies. Operational teams can start writing scripts/automations to keep their infra more stable and their application stack more reliable.
    • Implementation of Chef eliminates the manual mode of doing things and everyone aligns to automation mind set. It helps in change of culture.
    Incentivized
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