Confluence vs SharePoint
A side-by-side comparison based on real reviews
Many organizations evaluating online collaboration tools and intranet portals end up with Confluence and SharePoint on their shortlist. These tools share many similarities, which may make the right choice far from obvious. But they also have several fundamental differences that are important to keep in mind.
In this article, we will take a closer look at both Confluence and SharePoint and examine their strengths and weaknesses to help you make the right decision for your company.
Confluence and SharePoint compared
Both Confluence and SharePoint have been on the market for many years and have accumulated hundreds of thousands of users. While Atlassian is younger than Microsoft, both tech companies have earned the trust of many businesses, both large and small.
Both platforms are designed to help businesses manage knowledge and collaborate internally, and share many of their features. Both also have several notable limitations.
Ultimately, it will all come down to your unique needs, preferences, and workflow, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to collaboration software. And if you're having trouble choosing between Confluence and SharePoint, keep in mind that they aren't your only options. There are many other excellent tools that may turn out to be an even better fit for your needs.
To make the most informed decision, let's first dive deeper into what SharePoint and Confluence have to offer, taking into account their strengths, limitations, notable features, pricing, and user reviews. We will also have a look at other alternatives you may want to consider.
Confluence
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $5/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.4/5
Confluence as been on the market since 2004 and boasts over 60,000 customers worldwide. It's best suited for medium-sized businesses and software development teams.
While the feature set of Confluence is somewhat limited compared to SharePoint, it makes up for it with a clean, intuitive interface. It comes with a certain learning curve but it's much easier for new users to get the hang of it.
One of Confluence's core strength lies in its seamless integration with other Atlassian products, such as Jira and Trello, which makes it easy to manage projects and document them in parallel. Note, however, that each tool in the Atlassian suite comes with additional cost per user, which may quickly rack up your monthly Atlassian bill.
Why you might prefer Confluence over SharePoint:
Confluence is easier to get started with than SharePoint and doesn't have a very steep learning curve for new users.
The interface of Confluence is more user-friendly and intuitive.
Confluence seamlessly integrates with Jira and other Atlassian products.
It's easier to organize and navigate your content in Confluence.
The search function is more intuitive and reliable in Confluence.
Confluence can be set up and maintained even by a non-technical person, while SharePoint intranet usually requires a dedicated IT specialist to manage it.
Looking for more tools similar to Confluence? Check out this list of Confluence alternatives.
SharePoint
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $5/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.2/5
SharePoint has been around for over 20 years and has over 190 million users worldwide. It's particularly popular among large enterprises.
SharePoint offers a very extensive range of features, including many not offered by Confluence, from visual customization options to advanced version management. It's a full-featured intranet platform. Unfortunately, these additional features come with a steep learning curve. Before committing to SharePoint because it's "more powerful", make sure your team will actually need all of this additional functionality.
The integrations with Office 365 and OneDrive are some of SharePoint's main selling points. Everyone on your team can have access to all your company documents in one central location, without confusion or version conflicts. The price of SharePoint is also included in MS Office 365, making it a much more affordable subscription than Confluence.
Why you might prefer SharePoint over Confluence:
SharePoint is tightly integrated with other Microsoft products.
SharePoint offers more advanced customization options than Confluence.
SharePoint offers better document version management than Confluence.
SharePoint has built-in approval workflows to get the signoffs from stakeholders.
SharePoint is more affordable than Confluence and comes free with any Microsoft 365 Business plan.
Looking for more tools similar to SharePoint? Check out this list of SharePoint alternatives.
Other alternatives
It should be mentioned that your options are not limited to just Confluence and SharePoint. There are many other great corporate wikis, document collaboration tools, and intranet portals that can serve you just as well.
For example, if you are looking for a more user-friendly, fast, and intuitive solution, consider Nuclino. While not as feature-packed as Confluence and SharePoint, Nuclino focuses on the essential functionality, such as search, content organization, and collaborative editing, and minimizes the learning curve for new users.
One of Nuclino's notable strengths is the seamless collaboration experience, which allows users to easily edit documents in real time and exchange feedback using comments. Every change is automatically saved, preserved in the version history, and can be restored, if needed.
You can also turn any Nuclino workspace into a public website, accessible to anyone on the web and discoverable via search engines. It's perfect for help centers, user documentation, changelogs, and much more.
While Nuclino can be used exclusively as an intranet or a wiki, it's a highly versatile tool that is capable of much more. It offers a variety of ways to structure and visualize your content, including a nested list, a Kanban board, a table, and a mindmap-style graph. This makes Nuclino a great solution for many additional use cases, including project collaboration, sprint planning, asynchronous communication, and more. You can bring all your team's work together in one place and collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
Learn more about how Nuclino compares to Confluence: Nuclino vs Confluence.
Confluence vs SharePoint: So which is better?
While the best choice depends on your team's specific requirements, most small and medium-sized businesses tend to appreciate the intuitive interface of Confluence and struggle with the complexity of SharePoint. That said, some larger enterprises prefer the advanced feature set of SharePoint. If you pick it, however, be prepared to dedicate enough time to training and onboarding your team.
On the other hand, if you would prefer something more modern and easy-to-use, consider exploring other alternatives, such as Nuclino.
We hope this article has made your decision a little easier. But at the end of the day, the only way to be sure you are making the right choice is to thoroughly evaluate each tool together with your team.
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