Atlassian Confluence vs. Jira Software

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
Jira Software
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
JIRA Software is an application lifecycle management solution for software development teams. It allows users to create, prioritize and track the progress of tasks across multiple team members, and offers a wide range of integrations. It is offered via the cloud and local servers.
$10
per month
Pricing
Atlassian ConfluenceJira Software
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
Standard
$7
Per User Per Month
Premium
$14
Per User Per Month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConfluenceJira Software
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceJira Software
Considered Both Products
Confluence
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence is a simpler platform than Microsoft SharePoint, which is good and bad. It is much easier to use and has less overhead than SharePoint, which makes it ideal for quick documentation and sharing knowledge. If more advanced features and document sharing are …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
To keep the user stories together, we used the Microsoft Office tools. It took a lot of time to search for the relevant stories, so we moved to Atlassian Confluence which is now saving a lot of time.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I used Lotus Notes many years ago and Atlassian Confluence reminds me of that - ugly and functional. We use Atlassian Confluence because we use JIRA. I doubt anyone would select Atlassian Confluence if they didn't also use JIRA. I've looked at Basecamp and it has a better …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We actually started with Atlassian Confluence from the beginning. Tried other (sometimes free) alternatives for personal use but they don't compare to Atlassian Confluence.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I've used mediawiki in the past and it is quite antiquated at this time. The logical switch was to a modern, WYSIWYG system with a very low barrier for less technical colleagues.
As the company is already using other Atlassian products, like Jira, it seemed to logical to also …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
[Atlassian] Confluence is backed by direct, and superior support from Atlassian versus their vendors. For end users, [Atlassian] Confluence provides way more options for layout and content, while also being simpler and easier to use. Most other tools also require a higher …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence was the market leader and we quickly realized that for our organisation, it was the no-brainer choice as it has more features and is easier to deploy with our other tools, such as Jira.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Nothing that I've used has matched [Atlassian] Confluence, however I've seen a ton of advertisements for ClickUp across the country this year and I think they might be a serious competitor. BUT I hear [Atlassian] Confluence mentioned on NPR quite often.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
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 …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We have selected Confluence for the cloud sync option. It is easily synced with cloud and have data privacy. data recovery.
Our organization using Confluence for more than 5 years, we recommend for personalized changes also to adapt with the organization changes and …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I do use both on my daily basis, Jira works perfect for me on the creation of tickets, defects, parent tickets and this is useful to keep all the documentation necessary to keep working on the projects, so if you get to work with both to me is the best way, also you can add the …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
It integrates well with other SAAS products and has been our industry standard for all projects that we're involved in.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
The primary advantages we have with Confluence over Google Drive are the search capabilities and automatic notification whenever there is a change to the document.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I really don't think that there are any legitimate competitors to Confluence. Open source solutions lack all of the enterprise robustness and plug-ins that our organization enjoys. The only closest competitor to Confluence in the commercial space is SharePoint, which has …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
I think the only comparable product is Google docs. Google docs is a much simpler product, however, it doesn't have all of the features that confluence has. I think if confluence improved their UI to make it a little better, it can really improve.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We used to use Hugo because it was free, and it is very similar in a lot of ways. Great for collaboration and sharing with team members, but Confluence is a bit easier to keep track of notes going back to the beginning of a project by creating a space.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Before [Atlassian] Confluence we were creating Google Docs stored on Google Drive using our Google Worskpace. The problem was that we weren't able to optimize the way we were linking Product Management tickets to Google docs and we were loosing so much time at trying to find …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Google Drive is generally easier to collaborate on with external vendors.
Smartsheet processes excel files better and is sometimes preferred for that purpose.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
IBM Connections tried to be what Confluence IS - but failed miserably at it. As a knowledge management platform, it was terrible because information went in, but never came out. We used to have a saying that Connections is where information went to die simply because you …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Sharepoint is a little bit more complex to get set up. You have to invent part of the wheels to make the product work for you.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We only used internal solutions for knowledge-base management before so I have nothing "official" and marketable to compare.
Jira Software
Chose Jira Software
We use the best-in-class Confluence software. Tight integration with JIRA is what really keeps us there. Additionally, we've spent years refining workflows and practices that revolve around JIRA, and there's nothing else out there that's as flexible in my opinion.
Chose Jira Software
Previously we were tracking all projects requirements/solution under Confluence, now using Jira [Software] we have [split] everything in small user-stories and tracking their deliveries against a Jira Id. Now we are following 2 weeks of release cycles which helps to deliver …
Chose Jira Software
Jira Software is like Backlog on steroids, but that has [drawbacks] such as slower responsiveness, a cluttered interface, and features smaller teams may not need, but still have to pay for them. [The] backlog doesn't have as much expansion or customizability nor does it allow …
Chose Jira Software
Jira is so flexible and configuration from the Jira administration perspective also its effective and smooth.
Chose Jira Software
Jira is more complete as of now I feel.
Chose Jira Software
It's fantastic and wouldn't substitute it for anything else.
Chose Jira Software
Haven't evaluated other products like the Jira Software, since Jira is the top competitor in this field and everyone relies on it since it gets the job done.
Jira is a very important tool in almost any kind of project, helping to track down the work of all the team members and …
Chose Jira Software
Jira is simple, easy to understand, has less learning curve, highly descriptive features. All these features make it easy to work and manage and track our day-to-day work for better progress. All these features make Jira give an upper hand over other tools.
Chose Jira Software
It provides a good collection of features like dashboard, reports section with all the releases, slippages details. It gives a good estimate of effort added by team members and the quantum of load on them. Its search engine does a great deal of helping with going through old …
Chose Jira Software
Jira Software works for many development environments, has custom workflows, is friendly, stable, robust, and can be integrated with the most recognized DevOps tools on the market.

Chose Jira Software
Pivotal Tracker is a really great product that takes a different approach to project management and display. But Jira just wins out with the customization and more modern look. If you need something a little less flashy then Pivotal Tracker might be for you. But if you want a …
Chose Jira Software
After several years of using both of those, I very much prefer Jira. Customizability is much better, as well as compatibility with other solutions. Jira is also a lot more intuitive and makes more sense when it comes to configuration and building your own boards and instances.
Chose Jira Software
Previously I have used TFS and Rally. JIRA is very simple to use and has lots of features compared to these two and other tools available in the market. The ability to integrate other tools is much easier in JIRA. It is also robust, scalable and has a good number of add-ons to …
Chose Jira Software
I don't hear any software collaboration tool that can be compared to JIRA as of this moment.
Chose Jira Software
JIRA was already in place; there wasn't a good reason to switch to something else. We just needed to work on refining our processes and clean up the existing structure so that we could make progress on our SDLC while getting our MVP out the door. If you are really starting …
Chose Jira Software
Phabricator is the only comparable tool I have used recently. It was designed to integrate with PHP-based projects specifically (Facebook, MediaWiki, WordPress) which are today the most diverse (WordPress) & highest volume (Facebook) & flexible (MediaWiki) online services in …
Chose Jira Software
JIRA is way better than the IBM Rational suite, in every way i can think of, right from the user experience and look and feel. For someone who spends a lot of time per day with these tools it makes a big difference to their overall productivity.
Chose Jira Software
Jira provides the full agile model with a customization path. Moving from road-testing to driving it on the highway is a short learning curve. VersionOne is more complex.
Chose Jira Software
We remain with JIRA even though our umbrella company is fully invested with ServiceNow(SNOW) as SNOW has just a portion of the utility of JIRA when it comes to agile development. SNOW also requires advanced technicians and an entire support team to maintain, whereas JIRA's …
Chose Jira Software
I was not part of the team who decided to go with JIRA, however I have used Rally, Trello and spreadsheets and JIRA beats them all hands down. Rally was a good starter system, but they did not (at least at the time) have the advanced query and administrative/configuration …
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
Atlassian ConfluenceJira Software
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Confluence and Jira are pieces of software created by Atlassian. Though the products have some overlap, they both serve different business needs.

Confluence is a collaboration tool used by organizations to track the progress of projects, set up wiki-like structures, and allow users to share thoughts and ideas. Jira is software that is meant to provide in-depth ticket and milestone tracking throughout a project’s life cycle. 

Both Confluence and Jira are used by small, medium, and large businesses due to their ability to scale based on the demands of a project. 

Features

Confluence and Jira offer a number of features that make them an attractive proposition to companies. 

Confluence allows teams collaboration spaces where they can set up boards for discussions or wiki-style documentation for initiatives. With this comes excellent search capabilities for users to easily find what they need. Confluence also offers a plethora of department-based templates so users can get started quickly to meet the needs of teammates or customers. 

As mentioned before, Jira is more detailed and is suited to tracking progression through a project. It allows users to set up complex workflows and diagrams to navigate the life of releases. Jira also offers built-in analytics so users know which goals need to be reached and which ones have been achieved. Jira is an excellent tool for agile software development. It allows users to set up boards to track sprint progression and the ability to log defects during a release. 

Limitations

Depending on the use case, Confluence and Jira users may find faults in a few areas of these programs. 

Confluence users report having difficulty with version control in documents. Teams will want to make their version editing intentions clear due to other groups due to Confluence’s inability to monitor this. While Confluence offers the ability for users to edit documents concurrently, some users have experienced issues with this functionality. One other slight downside to Confluence is that users may need to select additional add-ons to achieve their goals and these add-ons are available for a fee. 

Jira users have complained that the user interface is complicated and takes time to get used to. Another issue is that there are sometimes multiple ways for users to achieve the same goal which can lead to training confusion. Jira users also note that it does not support access restrictions for individuals and that file upload size limits can cause issues.  

Pricing

A free version of Confluence is available and supports up to 10 users and allows unlimited spaces and pages. A Standard package is available for up to 10 users that expands on the free version with page permissions and archives for $10 monthly. A Premium tier is available for $10 per user and has a limit of 10,000 users. This tier includes unlimited cloud storage and 24/7 support. All plans can also be purchased on a yearly basis. 

Jira also offers a free version for up to 10 users which includes scrum and kanban boards and roadmaps. The Standard package is available for up to 10 users and includes audit logs and advanced permissions for $10 a month. A Premium tier is available for $14 per month per user on average and offers unlimited storage, sandboxing, and advanced roadmaps. All plans can also be purchased on a yearly basis.  

Features
Atlassian ConfluenceJira Software
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.2
109 Ratings
9% below category average
Jira Software
-
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
Jira Software
-
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
Jira Software
-
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
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User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceJira Software
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(126 ratings)
8.7
(187 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(19 ratings)
9.0
(35 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(12 ratings)
7.0
(28 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
5.3
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(25 ratings)
8.8
(23 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(4 ratings)
7.7
(8 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 ConfluenceJira Software
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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Atlassian
The Jira software works well for managing scrum boards and allocating resources to a task. When your Epics and Issues are set up properly, it can give you a good idea of where your team stands and the trajectory of your project. It is not the ideal solution if you need to provide documentation and support to people outside of your product teams or organization. It would benefit from having a public documentation or repository feature.
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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
Atlassian
  • Running sprints and tracking progress of roadmap, epics, story, task and subtask
  • The user interface is great. It allows tables inside details, have common shortcuts and clean design.
  • Can create custom dashboards and can view data in multiple ways
  • Advanced access rights based on role
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
Atlassian
  • Management of the software is very difficult at times, although has improved.
  • Ability to manage resources is really non-existent, there are some plugins but they are ALL buggy (I've tested them all).
  • Better integration with Trello, would love to see this happen. Right now it's very clumsy.
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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Atlassian
This is because Jira Software generates a huge profit for an affordable price. Having a tool that makes team management transparent and effective is very valuable.
In addition, the renewal of Jira Software and all Atlassian tools is predictable and clear, as the prices are published on the Atlassian website and there is no pyramid of intermediaries.
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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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Atlassian
JIRA Software is a pretty complex tool. We have a project manager for JIRA who onboarded us, created our board, and taught us the basics. I think it would have been pretty overwhelming to learn without her. JIRA offers so much functionality that I'm not aware of -- I constantly need to Google or ask others about existing features. Also, although they are all under the Atlassian umbrella, I find it difficult to switch between JIRA Software and Confluence.
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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
Atlassian
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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Atlassian
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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Atlassian
Our JIRA support is handled internally by members of our Product Support team. It is not supported by a 3rd party. Our internal support will always sent out notifications for downtime which is usually done on the weekend unless it is required to fix a bug/issue that is affecting the entire company. Downtime is typically 3-4 hours and then once the maintenance is complete, another broadcast email is sent out informing the user community that the system is now available for use.
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Online Training
Atlassian
No answers on this topic
Atlassian
One of their strong points i stheir documentation. Almost all of the basic set up needed within JIRA is available online through atlassian and its easy to find and very precise. The more critical issues need to be addressed as well and hence the rating of 8 instead of a 9.
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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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Atlassian
Take your time implementing Jira. Make sure you understand how you want to handle your projects and workflows. Investing more time in the implementation can pay off in a long run. It basically took us 5 days to define and implement correctly, but that meant smooth sailing later on.
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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.
Read full review
Atlassian
Jira Software has more integrations and has more features than many of its competitors. While some of its competitors do have better UI/UX than Jira Software, they have improved this greatly over time. Atlassian also acquired Trello years ago, so that adds better user interfaces to the system. They do also offer a pretty in-depth library of how to customize the platform that others don't.
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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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Atlassian
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.
Read full review
Atlassian
  • Jira has positively made our company's daily activities much better organized
  • With Jira we can track progress and follow up on tasks
  • Jira has great reporting tools which aggregate various data and give us a good overview of our teams capacity
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ScreenShots