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
Arena PLM and QMS
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Arena by PTC is a cloud-based PLM and QMS platform. Arena helps product companies that rely on distributed teams and global supply chains to develop products, ensure regulatory compliance, and respond to customer demands.
N/A
Pricing
Atlassian Confluence
Arena PLM and QMS
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
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Arena PLM Launch
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Arena PLM Enterprise
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Arena QMS
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Arena QMS Enterprise
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Confluence
Arena PLM and QMS
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
Additional Details
Prices shown here reflect prices for deployments with 100 users or less. The prices decrease wien the user base surpasses 100.
Arena's cloud-based PLM and QMS solutions include role-based subscriptions to meet diverse team needs. Their fixed-fee QuickStart™ implementations supports rapid deployment.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Atlassian Confluence
Arena PLM and QMS
Considered Both Products
Confluence
Verified User
Engineer
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.
Been a long time, and it was called Agile then, and I did not use it a LOT, but my recollection was the interface was FAAARRR better than Arena PLM and QMS. Simple things like 'where uses' was a graphic with lines to all items/places where an items was used, including REF DES, …
I was not involved with SAP when it was evaluated but feedback from others SAP was chosen without full knowledge of ARENA's capabilities in these areas.
These two products are extremely similar. Agile has better integration with certain systems, like JDE Enterprise One and is more rigid in terms of entering information.
Arena is only a PLM solution, so if you need PDM + PLM, look elsewhere. Or use a separate PDM to your PLM system. Large companies with complex products may find this an issue, but if you can streamline your PLM use Arena could be a good fit. Once you get past that decision, …
Arena is more convenient than PTC Windchill. Arena is easier to use with SOLIDWORKS than PTC Windchill. Arena is easier to use when working with assemblies and subassemblies than PTC Windchill. Arena is easier to use when creating engineering change requests, handling reviews …
I have had the opportunity to research other tools including Oracle and I am a former Agile Administrator. Arena is a great tool and easy to use. It is also the most cost effective.
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.
Arena PLM is well suited for part number, BOM and file management. Processing changes (ECNs, ACOs, DCO's, etc.) in Arena is very easy to do and provides great visibility on the status of submitted requests. The ability to communicate with Suppliers and grant them access to files in Arena is extremely helpful. Arena does not appear to be the best suited system for managing software
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.
It provides easy, 'login-anywhere' internet cloud-based access to fundamental PLM functions.
It provides secure access control for employees & vendors (but you pay per person for access licenses).
Data is effectively 'always backed up' in the internet-cloud.
There is an option to attach thumbnail graphics representative of each item and create a Bill of Materials view that also displays the graphics to help provide item recognition for BOM readers.
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.
In my opinion, the Help Pages clearly do not realize that a picture is worth a 1,000 words; need illustrations and screenshots!
I think the 'Save' button when editing Quality Processes needs to "float" on the active page, not lurking at the bottom.
In my experience, the Arena PLM and QMS Training programs need to be revamped to include "real-world" examples and working through examples, not simply reading through a training manual.
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.
We have so much time and effort invested into Arena. The history of approvals, revisions, etc. are necessary for many of our customers. We also have entire device histories recorded. Having to re-create that on another platform would be a feat requiring years of effort. But mostly, Arena just works. It's transformed our business into a much more streamlined system, resulting in a massive cost and time savings.
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.
Arena has improved their UI over the years that I've used it to make it more user friendly. Additionally, there is a lot of redundancy within Arena (multiple ways to achieve the same end), which makes it easier to learn.
Seems like when I need to access our workspace for an emergency situation, this is when maintenance is scheduled, just the luck of the draw, I guess, and I just wait until the maintenance is complete, and then can proceed
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.
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.
Upon initial observation, Arena Solution appears to possess a rather intricate nature, yet this complexity was effectively navigated during the initial configuration phase with the invaluable assistance of an expert well-versed in Arena, a factor that greatly contributed to our comprehensive mastery and autonomous handling of Arena Solutions thereafter.
The On line training was easy to understand and was very efficient for most of our users. We used the training tools to make sure we use all of the features to their fullest and correctly! After a few weeks mos of our users were very proficient with ARENA PLM and were able to work on their own and use mos of the sections and PLM capablilities.
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.
Arena is much better than QAD in terms of BOMs and ECOs and Revision Control. We use Arena concurrently with SAP and they integrate very well together, which is nice. The integration team was really helpful in making sure that the SAP to Arena functionality runs smoothly, and when there are any issues, they are very responsive to help make changes to fix the problem that might be there.
Arena is easy to customize and therefore easy to scale. Different user groups with access restrictions can be easily created and new training plans can be created to support different user bases. Suppliers can also easily be added or items can be shared with them
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
Decreased the company's time to market for release of its second generation flagship product.
Decreased the turn around on non-conformance reports (NCRs), supplier corrective action reports (SCARs), and corrective and preventative actions (CAPAs).
Better organized the company's process maps, DHF, and other regulatory related information so that major audits are completed faster and with fewer findings.
