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Atlassian Confluence vs. Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Socialtext (discontinued)

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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

    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor

    Score9 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The Lightning Conductor is a content aggregation tool for Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Users can build rich, modern content reports based upon SharePoint lists, SharePoint Search, Microsoft Graph or Microsoft 365 Groups. Content can be aggregated from lists and libraries, and other applications such as Planner, To Do, OneDrive, and Teams.

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Socialtext (discontinued)

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASocial Text was a tool that focused on social learning and includes Twitter-like microblogging capabilities. The product competed with MindTouch,Confluence, Jive Team Collaboration and other collaboration platforms. It was acquired by PeopleFluent in 2012 and is no longer available as a separate product, though similar capabilities are supplied by the PeopleFluent platform.

    $1

    Starting Price Per Month

    Pricing
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    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
    Lightning Conductor WSP
    From 1950
    per year One WFE
    Lightning Conductor Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year Four or more WFE
    Lightning Conductor Online
    From 2200
    per year per installation
    Lightning Conductor Plus (Includes Data Viewer)
    From 2500
    per year per installation
    Lightning Conductor Online Enterprise Edition (>10,000 users)
    POA
    per year per installation
    Socialtext
    $1.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    Free Trial
    YesYesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYesNo
    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.Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    Considered Multiple Products
    Atlassian
    No answer on this topic
    Lightning Tools
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    Chose Socialtext (discontinued)
    I frankly like Confluence better than socialtext because of the speed and the quality of search. They also have better design elements which can help make the articles pleasant to the eyes.
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    89%
    Would buy again
    97 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    87 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    100 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    45 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    54 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Atlassian Confluence and Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor and Socialtext (discontinued)
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.1
    158 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    8.6
    2 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Socialtext (discontinued)
    7.6
    1 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Task Management7.2127 Ratings8.82 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Workflow Automation6.591 Ratings00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Mobile Access6.9118 Ratings00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
    Search7.0157 Ratings8.42 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Visual planning tools7.2127 Ratings00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Atlassian Confluence and Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor and Socialtext (discontinued)
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.9
    158 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    -
    Ratings
    Socialtext (discontinued)
    7.2
    1 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Notifications8.2156 Ratings00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
    Discussions7.9149 Ratings00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
    Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase9.0150 Ratings00 Ratings10.01 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 Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor and Socialtext (discontinued)
    Feature
    Atlassian Confluence
    7.7
    157 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    -
    Ratings
    Socialtext (discontinued)
    -
    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
    Best Alternatives
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    Small Businesses
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (174 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (22 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (63 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.4
    (25 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.8
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 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
    ConfluenceLightning Tools Lightning ConductorSocialtext (discontinued)
    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
    Lightning Tools
    Having experience of SharePoint On Premise and also SharePoint Online, there isn't an out of the box app/webpart that enables you to 'roll up content' from a variety of source's (in my case SP Lists, but there are many other data sources it works with) across site collections with an easy to use and intuitive interface which is what Lightning tools excels at.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    We use Social Text as a platform to air our issues with different departments. We voice our concerns and suggestions so we can help find a solution to the problems we incur on a daily basis. We need to have social text as an app so we can communicate in real time not only during work hours.
    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
    Lightning Tools
    • Aggregate documents across SharePoint site & libraries
    • Filtering for owner/person responsible & due dates
    • Ease of end-user filtering on columns
    • Color-coding & other formatting
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Version history - Always keeps the edited versions and one can revert back any time
    • Creating and Editing an article is very easy and intutive
    • Sharing the articles with peers
    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
    Lightning Tools
    • Mobile Friendly
    • Calendar/Gantt views
    • Complex/Custom Logic
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Search needs a ton of improvements. It was very slow a year ago
    • Search result quality was also not that good
    • I know they have improved their UI recently but when i used it last year it did not really have any design elements which could be used to make the articles look more presentable. It was important for us as we used it for external communication as well.
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    We have a lot of info in Socialtext already. It would be hard to get all that info out and port it to a different system
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    Atlassian
    I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Lightning Tools
    The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    I haven't found another product to compare this one to. Only in SharePoint Online which has a similar App 'Highlight Webpart' ... it's far too complicated to set up and requires learning yet another language and exporting and importing via PowerShell to get any real results that would be useful.
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    I frankly like Confluence better than socialtext because of the speed and the quality of search. They also have better design elements which can help make the articles pleasant to the eyes.
    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
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    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
    Lightning Tools
    • Policies easier to portray
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • We get solutions to concerns much faster
    • We promote interactions with the other depts
    • We listen and have discussions
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor Screenshots

    Screenshot of MODERN SHAREPOINT LIST ROLLUP
The Lightning Conductor is a SharePoint Content Aggregator that can be configured quickly by business users. The Lightning Conductor can be used to aggregate content from SharePoint Lists such as Tasks, Document Libraries, Contact Lists, and Custom Lists making it easy to view content in one place even if it is distributed across many sites and site collections. Key data can be highlighted using conditional formatting and data-bars as shown. Content from Search and Microsoft Graph can also be aggregated with the Lightning Conductor.Screenshot of CONTENT AGGREGATION WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Lightning Conductor Web Part can be used within Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Teams. Even if content is stored within SharePoint sites, it is useful to have aggregated Documents, Tasks, Announcements, Calendars or Custom Lists from multiple sites displayed in a single handy view in Microsoft Teams. The Lightning Conductor can be added as a Teams Tab in any Microsoft Teams Channel.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT GRAPH
The Lightning Conductor can be used (without code) to aggregate content from Microsoft Graph as well as Search and SharePoint Lists. This example displays Microsoft Planner Plans and Microsoft Planner Tasks where users can Add new Tasks, Assign Users to Planner Tasks, Delete Tasks, and Complete Tasks. The same can be performed on Microsoft To Do items and displayed within Modern SharePoint pages or Microsoft Teams Tabs. The Lighting Conductor can also contain multiple views of content, making it ideal to display all of your tasks from SharePoint Task lists, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner in a single web part or Teams Tab.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT 365 GROUPS
Powered by Microsoft Graph, the Microsoft 365 Group Rollup Provider enables users to aggregate content by browsing and selecting Microsoft 365 Groups. Within Microsoft 365 Groups, you’ll be able to select entities such as Drive Items, Owners, Members, Planner Plans, Planner Tasks, Events, Posts,  Sites, Lists, and Calendars.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of AGGREGATING USING SEARCH
When performance is critical, search can be used for rollups. The Lightning Conductor offers three data source configurations to get to content. Object Model (Real Time Aggregation from SharePoint Lists), Microsoft Graph (Aggregation from Graph Entities such as Planner, OneDrive, Outlook), and Search. The Search Data Source enables the aggregation of content from large SharePoint lists and libraries when performance is critical. Thousands of documents can be displayed in under a second using Search.Screenshot of HIGHLIGHTING KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN VIEWS
End users and Site Owners can highlight the data that is important to them, the data that they need to prioritize. Using conditional formatting, data bars, and icons, conditions can be configured to highlight the data that is most important. Icons and Data Bars can be any color or size desired. Examples include highlighting High Priority tasks, Showing data bars for the completion progress of Tasks, or indicating which tasks are assigned to any particular user.