Atlassian Confluence vs. Microsoft 365

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.
$6.40
per month per user
Microsoft 365
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is a Microsoft Cloud subscription service that includes Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access). The software can be installed across multiple devices and ensures that users always have the most up-to-date version of the included Office applications.
$5
Per User Per Month
Pricing
Atlassian ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
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
Business Basic
$5.00
Per User Per Month
Individual
$5.84
*Per Month
Business - Apps
$8.25
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - F3
$10.00
Per User Per Month
Business Standard
$12.50
Per User Per Month
Business Premium
$20.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E3
$32.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E5
$57.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
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.*When billed annually.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
Considered Both Products
Confluence
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Overall, Atlassian Confluence is a user-friendly tool and offers such a vast array of capabilities for project and knowledge management purposes and beyond. Other tools listed above have much more limited capabilities, although they are great tools for very specific needs and …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
Atlassian Confluence is better suited for documenting and acting as a repository for information than the more immediate what is currently being worked on things that are better suited for in Jira. In my opinion, Atlassian Confluence certainly has it's short comings but it is …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
There are similar products to Confluence - for us, being a big automotive company, it was important that the tool was scalable and easy to roll out to the different departments and branches of the company. Confluence was the best in that regard and was very quickly accepted in …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
TopTeam is one tool which is also evaluated while purchasing this. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Atlassian Confluence was rated little higher because it is user friendly, and is easy to integrated with JIRA( which is our project management tool). Easy to …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
The way the knowledge is stored and indexed in Atlassian Confluence is very advanced so that it can be easily accessed. It supports including images, links, etc so that we can convey the idea very well. Overall it's very useful for organizations where new features are rolled …
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
We used to use shared spreadsheets but that was not very efficient due to frequent locking of files and getting them corrupted. Confluence is by far a more user-friendly and efficient solution for sharing information.
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We were using MS SharePoint which was integrated with TFS for managing our developer workflow and it was quite clunky. We had to be signed into the VPN to access any of it and it relied upon Internet Explorer for access. It felt slow and sometimes you could use other browsers …
Chose Atlassian Confluence
We mostly used Alfresco as a central content repository system (write once, read many) versus Confluence for team collaboration tool (write many, read many). Whereas Alfresco is simpler to use and admin, it lacks the powerful team syncing features that make Confluence strong
Microsoft 365
Chose Microsoft 365
Confluence is much easier to use and is less clunky than MS. Specifically comparing Confluence to SharePoint, the main advantage SP has is the ability to check in docs, you can't do this as well in Confluence. The SP sites are tough to admin and figure out where all the backend …
Chose Microsoft 365
Google Sheets is better for sharing and collaborative editing. Versioning of the same file is also one of Google Sheets strong points.
Microsoft 365 is better for working with local files. It is much easier to store the file in multiple places and backup multiple versions in …
Chose Microsoft 365
Compared to Docs & Sheets, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Sheets offer more functionality. Notepad is almost always pre-installed on Microsoft Word-enabled computers. This alternative to Microsoft Word isn't as robust, but it's free. Microsoft Publisher is incompatible with Adobe …
Chose Microsoft 365
Personally I would prefer Google Workspace because it integrates better with the Android based tools that I already use. I also like how Google's Docs, Sheets, and Slides online functionality is their focus rather than an addon to get to the cloud. Google Workspace's sharing …
Chose Microsoft 365
We actually use all those other tools that I selected simultaneously with Microsoft 365 because of different customers we work with who utilize different sharing/collaborative tools. I think all are equally comparable but Microsoft 365, especially Word, provides the …
Chose Microsoft 365
G Suite is too difficult to manage in a growing org.
Chose Microsoft 365
Was a company wide decision, but both of the products are well designed for thier purpose. I quite like the integrated calendar of Office 365 however I used Gmail at most of my previous workplaces.
Features
Atlassian ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.1
158 Ratings
9% below category average
Microsoft 365
-
Ratings
Task Management7.2126 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts7.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling7.221 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation6.490 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access6.8117 Ratings00 Ratings
Search6.9156 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual planning tools7.2126 Ratings00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Atlassian Confluence
7.9
158 Ratings
1% below category average
Microsoft 365
-
Ratings
Chat6.415 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications8.2155 Ratings00 Ratings
Discussions7.8148 Ratings00 Ratings
Surveys7.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase9.0149 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
157 Ratings
4% below category average
Microsoft 365
-
Ratings
Versioning8.2136 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files6.8104 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files6.896 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration8.4152 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.7147 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced security features8.3114 Ratings00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive5.947 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync8.485 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
Atlassian ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(174 ratings)
8.8
(259 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(22 ratings)
9.5
(6 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(62 ratings)
8.7
(29 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.4
(25 ratings)
8.9
(54 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
9.0
(2 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 ConfluenceMicrosoft 365
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Microsoft 365 would be well suited for medium to large enterprises. This is where there are several hundreds or thousands of people. Since most everyone has used one of the applications the learning curve would be reduced. Another reason would be the ability to implement security measures to prevent access to sensitive data. This could justify the cost of an Enterprise license.
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Chat with teams and the integrations with the other apps, and many more smaller ones, like to-dos, news, and the recent Outlook integration.
  • Easy embedding on SharePoint to broadcast all the content created in the different tools.
  • The office package is still robust with the good things from the past and new additions.
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Slack is 1000x better than teams. Why put a 250 limit on a chat? Our company hasn't moved fully to channels and it's making us lose transparency. Plus, the teams channels we do have nobody is going to. 90% loss in visibility and engagement.
  • Teams for web meetings. I think the UI/UX should match Zoom which is the standard for all our customers. They don't like it when we use Teams.
  • Chats and Channels need to somehow be on one screen automatically without having to choose that view because majority of our company hasn't opened Teams Channels and only stays in chats.
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
Microsoft
There are many features of Office that we cannot replicate in any other tool. Plus people know it already. It's not going away anytime soon.
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Microsoft 365 is the gold standard for performing project tasks in a professional environment, enabling the quick transfer and exchange of files and ideas for team members who work locally and remotely. Its suite of tools is familiar and has evolved to being cloud based, allowing for files to be updated in real time from near and far.
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
Microsoft
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.
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!
Read full review
Microsoft
Everything works and I use it all the time.
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
Its very user-friendly, collaborative and efficient that boosts productivity using cloud tools. their security is strong and it provides data protection. There are regular updates that shields us from attackers too. It offers a wealth of learning resources, including tutorials, help articles and video guide to help users make the most of the application and personally upgrade their skills.
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.
Read full review
Microsoft
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
Read full review
Microsoft
  • We have a lot of nonprofit users, so they have a good ROI.
  • I like the constant updates without having to purchase the software repeatedly.
  • I used to purchase each Office (insert year here) often, so the software was up to date and had the newest options and connectors. I think my return on investment would have been much better if Microsoft had updated those versions to keep them current; after all, we did pay for them.
  • Microsoft 365's offering a monthly fee or a discount for a year helps, and you can look at it as a free backup if you have everything set to back up to One Drive. (Cloud-based document filing you can access anywhere ( with an internet connection)—you Can't beat that!)
Read full review
ScreenShots