# Confluence — Knowledge Base & Wiki

Confluence by Atlassian Pty Ltd holds a panel rating of 3/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 3/5), as of 2026-11-01. Provenance: Rest of world; sovereignty: not determined.

- Vendor: Atlassian Pty Ltd (https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence)
- Category: [Knowledge Base & Wiki](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base.md)
- Provenance (editorial classification): Rest of world
- Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence
- Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence/alternatives.md))
- Data as of: 2026-11-06 · evaluated 2026-11-01 · oldest source captured 2026-11-01

**AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology

## At a glance

- Vendor: Atlassian Pty Ltd
- Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
- Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
- Free plan: Yes, per the vendor’s own page [S1]

## The panel's verdict

Confluence Cloud is a mature collaborative wiki whose strength, in the bench's scoring, lies in authoring and search and in access control, both clustering at 7 to 8: live co-editing, full-text search across attached files and into Google Drive and SharePoint, granular space and page permissions, SAML single sign-on and IP allowlisting through Atlassian Guard, and an exportable audit log. Knowledge governance is weakest at 4 to 6, the widest spread and a genuine split: four judges scored 4, declining to count the approval workflow they found — a plugin prototype in developer documentation last updated in 2018 — as governance; two scored 6, crediting its documented states, blocked self-approval and rollback. We found no public information on named page owners, review dates with reminders, or whether search and AI answers honour page permissions. Cloud pricing is unusually public — Free at $0 for 10 users, Standard at $5.78 per user / month, Premium at $11.16 per user / month — but Enterprise is contact-sales, Guard is unpriced on the captured pages, and the self-managed Data Center edition ends life on March 28, 2029.

**Speaks for it:**
- Rich collaborative editor with full-text search that covers attached files and reaches into Google Drive and SharePoint
- Granular per-space and per-page permissions with SAML single sign-on, enforced two-step verification, IP allowlisting and an audit log exportable as CSV or via a REST API
- Cloud pricing published in detail: Free at $0 for 10 users, Standard at $5.78 per user / month, Premium at $11.16 per user / month, with guests free up to five per paid user
- Documented integration plumbing: REST API v2 with a downloadable OpenAPI spec, webhooks with statistics, and a Rovo MCP server endpoint for AI assistants
- A free Cloud Migration Assistant moves space data, users, attachments and Marketplace apps with pre- and post-migration reports

**Held against it:**
- The only documented approval workflow is a plugin prototype last updated in 2018, and we found no public information on named page owners, review dates with reminders or read confirmations
- We found no public information on whether search and AI answers honour each reader's page permissions
- The self-managed Data Center edition has a published end of life on March 28, 2029, when subscriptions and Marketplace apps expire
- The full cost is not computable from public pages: Enterprise is contact-sales and the Atlassian Guard subscription carrying single sign-on is unpriced
- We found no public information on a custom domain, SEO controls or an in-product help widget for externally published documentation

**Best for:**
- You need a real-time collaborative wiki with deep search across pages, attached files and connected tools like Google Drive and SharePoint for day-to-day team documentation
- You administer external collaborators: the guest model is documented in detail, with each guest limited to a single space and free up to five guests per paid user
- You publish support documentation to anyone on the internet and want it connected to Jira Service Management for centralised self-service support
- You want published per-user cloud pricing with a starting point of Free at $0 for 10 users and Standard at $5.78 per user / month

**Avoid if:**
- You need formal document governance — named page owners, expiring review dates, read confirmations and a shipped approval workflow — which the bench scored lowest, at 4 to 6, with the only documented approval workflow being a 2018 plugin prototype
- You must self-host long term: the self-managed Data Center edition's support and subscriptions end on March 28, 2029, with Marketplace apps expiring then
- You need a fully computable enterprise budget: Enterprise is contact-sales and the Atlassian Guard subscription carrying single sign-on is unpriced on the captured pages
- Your procurement requires a European contracting and hosting chain: the contracting entity is Atlassian Pty Ltd under Australian law, the default hosting footprint is global, and data residency is an opt-in feature covering only certain in-scope data

## Scores by judge and criterion

Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price, or the judge found no public information on that criterion.

| Criterion | The Operations Lead | The IT Administrator | The Support Knowledge Manager | The Engineering Lead | The Quality Manager | The Skeptic |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Editor, structure & search | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| Verification, ownership & freshness | 2/5 | 2/5 | 3/5 | 2/5 | 3/5 | 2/5 |
| Permissions, SSO & administration | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| Help-center publishing & integrations | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| Import, export & self-hosting | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 |
| European sovereignty | 2.5/5 | 2.5/5 | 2.5/5 | 2.5/5 | 3/5 | 2.5/5 |
| Pricing transparency | 2.5/5 | 2.5/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| **Weighted verdict** | **3/5** | **3/5** | **3/5** | **3/5** | **3.5/5** | **3/5** |

### The judges

- **The Operations Lead** (v1.0): Head of operations at a 180-person machine builder in Baden-Württemberg, where onboarding, travel rules and the service hotline's answers live in a shared drive, three OneNote books and two colleagues' heads. Wants one place the whole company actually uses: an editor office staff manage without training, a search that finds the answer rather than the file, pages that name who keeps them current, and a price that does not double when the workshop gets read access.
- **The IT Administrator** (v1.0): Runs IT for a public utility with 900 staff whose Confluence Server held twelve years of pages until Atlassian ended its support. Was offered the cloud, read the subprocessor list and went looking instead. Needs a migration that keeps page trees, permissions and attachments, single sign-on against Entra ID with groups synced, an audit log the auditor accepts, and an edition they can run in the utility's own data centre if the works council or the regulator asks.
- **The Support Knowledge Manager** (v1.0): Owns the knowledge base of a Dutch SaaS company with customers in six languages and a support team of twenty-five. Writes once for agents and customers, publishes the public part as a help center on the company's own domain, and watches which searches find nothing. Wants review dates that nag the right expert, translations kept in step with the source, a widget inside the product, and articles that show up in the help desk next to the ticket.
- **The Engineering Lead** (v1.0): Leads a forty-person engineering team at a Berlin fintech that writes runbooks, architecture decisions and on-call guides. Writes in Markdown, links pages to Jira tickets and Slack threads, and has moved the team's docs twice. Wants fast search, code blocks and diagrams that render, an API and webhooks to generate pages from the pipeline, AI answers that cite their pages, and a full export the next tool can read.
- **The Quality Manager** (v1.0): Quality manager at a medical device supplier certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 13485, where every work instruction must be approved, versioned and read by the people it applies to. Today that means Word files, a sign-off sheet and an audit every spring. Wants approval workflows with named reviewers, read confirmations, review dates that expire pages, an audit trail they can export for the certifier, and permissions that keep drafts out of sight.
- **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Has migrated a wiki whose "export" turned out to be one PDF per page, watched a self-hosted edition announced as retired with two years' notice, and read "your data is never used for training" above a subprocessor list naming two AI providers. Asks what a full export contains, which model reads the pages and where, whether readers are billed like editors — and what leaving would cost.

## European sovereignty — proven facts

Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined.

| Dimension | Finding | Points | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Not determined | — | — |
| Hosting location | Not determined | — | — |
| Hosting options | Not determined | — | — |
| Open source | Not determined | — | — |
| Data processing agreement | Not determined | — | — |
| Transfer impact assessment | Not determined | — | — |

## Key facts

Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources).

**Compliance**
- Additional policies: Cookies & Tracking Notice · Atlassian Careers Privacy Notice · Former Workplace Privacy Notice · Demographic Survey Privacy Notice [S12]
- Audit logs: yes [S6]
- Audit rights: NDA required · yes [S13]
- Business continuity: Disaster Recovery Program described [S6]
- Data privacy framework: yes [S13]
- Data security: AI features keep data secure and private [S4]
- DPA effective date: 2026-08-17 [S13]
- DPA roles: Controller or Processor · Processor or Sub-processor [S13]
- Encryption: AES-256 full disk · TLS 1.2+ with PFS [S6]
- EU UK regional disclosures: /eea · uk [S12]
- Guard premium: requires separate Atlassian Guard Premium subscription on all plans · no [S6]
- Guard standard included: included · requires subscription [S6]
- Min age: 16 [S12]
- Onsite audit notice days: 60 · 12 [S13]
- Privacy control: Designed to protect privacy [S9]
- Regional commitment: Committed to compliance in every region [S9]
- Scc governing law: courts of Ireland · Irish law [S13]
- Security incident notification: 72 [S13]
- Security measures: yes [S12]
- South korea terms: yes [S13]
- UK addendum: UK Addendum to EU SCCs [S13]
- US state disclosures: /us_states [S12]

**Data**
- Administrator access: yes [S12]
- Authentication data: /device_browser · behavioral_interaction [S12]
- Automatic collection: yes [S12]
- Collected categories: account_and_profile · content_through_products · content_through_websites · support_channels · payment_information [S12]
- Deidentification: yes [S12]
- Deidentified aggregated use: yes [S13]
- Deletion post termination: yes · required by Applicable Data Protection Law · standard backup or record retention policies [S13]
- Export delete during term: yes [S13]
- Other sources: /service_users · affiliates · partners · third_party_providers · social_media · public_databases [S12]
- Portability: yes [S12]
- Retention policy: yes [S12]
- Support information: yes [S12]
- Text message optin exclusion: yes [S12]
- Third party login: name · email address · Google [S12]
- Tracking technologies: /cookies · web beacons · device identifiers · pixels [S12]

**Hosting**
- EU representative: Atlassian B.V. [S12]
- International transfers: yes [S12]
- UK representative: Atlassian (UK) Operations Limited [S12]

**Integrations**
- Apps marketplace: Apps and integrations supported; template library and macros included [S6]
- Audit log rest API: organizations REST API · access and save audit log activities [S20]
- Audit log webhooks: yes [S20]
- Authentication methods: basic auth · JWT · OAuth 2.0 [S8]
- Authorization methods: based on authenticated user · scopes · OAuth 2.0 user impersonation [S8]
- Cursor pagination: limit · cursor · yes [S8]
- Dev ops tools: Integration with development and operations tools [S18]
- Jira: Jira integration · yes [S2]
- Jira service management: centralized self-service support · Jira Service Management [S3]
- Jsm: Jira Service Management integration · yes [S2]
- Marketplace order info: yes [S12]
- Marketplace trust programs: yes [S9]
- Openapi spec download: yes · yes · yes [S8]
- Pagination link header: yes · yes [S8]
- Third party: third-party app integrations · yes [S2]
- Third party tools: Third-party tool integrations available [S1]
- Trello: Trello integration · yes [S2]
- Webhooks admin only: yes [S21]
- Webhooks API docs formats: Postman Collection · OpenAPI [S21]
- Webhooks connectivity test: /rest/api/webhooks/test · yes [S21]
- Webhooks credentials: yes [S21]
- Webhooks crud endpoints: yes · yes · yes · yes · yes [S21]
- Webhooks enable disable: active toggle [S21]
- Webhooks event filtering: yes · yes [S21]
- Webhooks forge oauth2 denied: yes [S21]
- Webhooks invocation history: /rest/api/webhooks/{webhookId}/latest · yes [S21]
- Webhooks rest API: Confluence Data Center REST API /rest/api/webhooks · yes [S21]

**Legal**
- Controller role: controller [S12]
- Effective date: 2026-08-17 [S12]
- Entities: Atlassian Pty Ltd · Atlassian US, Inc. · corporate affiliates [S12]
- Processor role: Data Processing Addendum · yes [S12]
- Registration: 53 102 443 916 · 102 443 916 · 796 192 619 · Australia [S11]
- Service provider: Atlassian Pty Ltd · c/o Atlassian, 350 Bush St, Floor 13, San Francisco, CA 94104, United States [S11]
- VAT number: EU372001951 [S11]

**Pricing**
- Annual savings: 17 [S6]
- Enterprise pricing: no · yes · yes [S6]
- Free price: 0 · 10 [S6]
- Free storage: Free · 2 [S2]
- Free tier: yes [S1]
- Free user limit: Free · 10 [S2]
- Guest free: yes · up to five guests per paid user [S19]
- Premium price: 11.16 [S6]
- Standard price: annual billing toggle (SAVE UP TO 17% shown for annual) · 5.78 [S6]
- Trial: 7 · yes [S3]

**Product**
- Addons: custom themes, branding, workflows [S3]
- Admins can assign space: yes · yes [S19]
- AI automation: summarization and rule-based automation · yes [S2]
- AI content creation: AI content creation/drafting [S4]
- AI context: Confluence provides context for teams and AI agents from docs, threads, meetings, and decisions across tools [S1]
- AI insights: AI insights and jargon definitions · yes [S2]
- AI summaries search: AI-powered summaries and cross-tool search [S23]
- AI support usage: yes [S12]
- AI writing improvement: AI editing: polish writing, fix errors, change tone [S4]
- API modules: Attachment · App Properties · Ancestors · Blog Post · Children · Classification Level · Comment · Content · Content Permissions · Content Properties · Custom Content · Database · Data Policies · Descendants · Folder · Label · Like · Operat… [S8]
- API v2 reference: REST API v2 reference with definitions and performance intended to be an improvement over v1 [S8]
- App requests: yes · app requests to review and approve new site requests [S5]
- Approval queue page: yes [S17]
- Approval workflow page states: editing in progress · waiting for approval · accepted · rejected [S17]
- Approved content banner limitation: Without core Confluence changes, the best we can do is to show users a banner which says "This content is being reviewed. The most recent approved content is here" [S17]
- Approver self approval restriction: yes [S17]
- Apps marketplace: apps · yes [S2]
- Ascend program: Atlassian Ascend migration program [S7]
- Atlassian guard: Atlassian Guard with SAML SSO, enforced 2-step verification, automated user provisioning · yes [S2]
- Audio briefings: Summaries and audio briefings from pages and comments [S1]
- Audit log download link expiry: 1 · yes [S20]
- Audit log export filtered: yes [S20]
- Audit log export format: CSV · email download link [S20]
- Audit log export limits: 180 · 10000 [S20]
- Audit log export plan availability: any plan [S20]
- Audit log export roles: Organization admin · Site admin [S20]
- Audit log export scope: organization audit log · site audit log [S20]

**Subprocessors**
- Annual compliance reviews: yes · yes [S14]
- Aws bedrock: AWS Bedrock · Generative AI services provider for intelligence product features · USA · EEA (Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Ireland, France) · South Africa · Japan · South Korea · India · Singapore · Australia · Indonesia · Canada · Switze… [S14]
- Aws residency note: yes [S14]
- Beta notification: yes [S14]
- Cloudflare: Cloudflare, Ltd. · Content delivery network provider; Hosting provider for the Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server · Customer traffic is processed globally at the data center closest to the end user. [S14]
- DPA reference: Sub-processors bound under Data Processing Addendum (or Forge Data Processing Addendum) [S14]
- Effective date: Effective Starting May 15, 2026 [S14]
- General authorization: yes [S13]
- Google vertex: Google Vertex AI · Generative AI services provider for intelligence product features · USA · EEA (Belgium, Netherlands, Finland) · Singapore · Taiwan [S14]
- Heroku: Salesforce, Inc. (Heroku) · Cloud services provider (DX) · USA [S14]
- List scope: generally available Cloud Products · Support or Advisory Services · Forge [S14]
- List subscription: yes [S13]
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp · Product notifications and video sharing over email (Loom) · USA [S14]
- Mailgun: Mailgun Technologies, Inc. · Communications technology provider for product notifications · USA · EEA [S14]
- Messagebird: MessageBird USA, Inc. (Bird) · Communications technology provider for product notifications · USA · EEA [S14]
- Notice period days: 30 [S13]
- Notification signup: yes [S14]
- Objection remedy: termination of affected Order [S13]
- Onesignal: OneSignal · Mobile product notifications and video sharing (Loom) · USA [S14]
- Openai: OpenAI, L.L.C. · Generative AI services provider for intelligence product features; Atlassian support · USA [S14]
- Partnerhero: Partner Hero · Customer service and technical support (Loom) · Philippines · Romania · South Africa [S14]
- Plivo: Plivo, Inc. · Communications technology provider for product notifications (Statuspage) · USA [S14]
- Service providers: /development · hosting · maintenance · backup · storage · virtual_infrastructure · payment_processing · analysis · marketing [S12]
- Snowflake: Snowflake, Inc. · Cloud database provider (DX) · USA [S14]
- Softserve: SoftServe, Inc. · Customer service, outsourced engineering and technical support · Bulgaria · Poland · United States [S14]
- Speechmatics: Cantab Research Ltd (Speechmatics) · Transcription services (Loom) · USA [S14]
- Telus: Telus, Inc. · Customer service · Romania [S14]

**Support**
- Availability: 24/7 · yes [S5]
- Critical response time: critical issues · 30 [S5]
- Engineers available: Customer Support [S9]
- Enterprise support: 24/7 for all issues [S6]
- Free support: Community Support [S6]
- Migration channels: support team, Atlassian Migration Program, Atlassian Community, Atlassian Partner, Cloud migration demos [S24]
- Premium support: 24/7 for critical issues [S6]
- Senior agents: senior support agents · yes [S5]
- Standard support: Local Business Hours [S6]
- Trust portal: Trust Portal [S9]
- Uptime SLA: 99.9 · 99.95 [S6]

162 more facts on the canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence

## Questions

### Is Confluence European?

No. whats-best.ai classifies Confluence as Rest of world.

### Where does Confluence store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026.

### Does Confluence have a free plan?

Yes. Confluence has a free plan, per [the vendor’s page captured 1 Nov 2026](https://whats-best.ai/evidence/13717).

### What are the best alternatives to Confluence?

As of 1 Nov 2026, the panel rates [Document360 (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/document360), [BookStack (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/bookstack) and [XWiki (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/xwiki) highest among the other 13 Knowledge Base & Wiki products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [Document360](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/document360) (UK / wider Europe). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [Confluence alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence/alternatives).

## Head-to-head

- [Confluence vs Notion Wikis](https://whats-best.ai/compare/confluence-vs-notion-wikis.md)

## What this page leaves out

- 16 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 13 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 10 subprocessors facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 5 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 4 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 data fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 hosting fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 integrations fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown.
- 6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement.

## Sources

- [S1] Vendor product page: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S2] Features page: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/features (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S3] Features page (knowledge base): https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/knowledge-base (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S4] Features page (AI): https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/ai (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S5] Features page (enterprise): https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/enterprise (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S6] Pricing page: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/pricing (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S7] Migration page (Server and Data Center to Cloud): https://www.atlassian.com/migration (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S8] API documentation: https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/rest/v2/intro/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S9] Trust center: https://www.atlassian.com/trust (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S10] Data protection and residency: https://www.atlassian.com/trust/data-protection (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S11] Legal notice: https://www.atlassian.com/legal/impressum (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S12] Privacy policy: https://www.atlassian.com/legal/privacy-policy (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S13] Data processing agreement (dpa): https://www.atlassian.com/legal/data-processing-addendum (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S14] Subprocessor list: https://www.atlassian.com/legal/sub-processors (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S15] Editor, structure & search — found from sitemap: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/features/editor (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S16] Editor, structure & search — found from sitemap: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/insert-the-page-tree-search-macro/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S17] Verification, ownership & freshness — found from sitemap: https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/approval-workflow/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S18] Verification, ownership & freshness — found from sitemap: https://www.atlassian.com/itsm/it-governance (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S19] Permissions, SSO & administration — found from sitemap: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/assign-space-access-to-guests/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S20] Permissions, SSO & administration — found from sitemap: https://support.atlassian.com/security-and-access-policies/docs/export-audit-logs/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S21] Help-center publishing & integrations — found from sitemap: https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/rest/v10219/api-group-webhooks/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S22] Help-center publishing & integrations — found from sitemap: https://support.atlassian.com/rovo/kb/confluence-rovo-mcp-server-returns-invalid_token-error-during-integration/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S23] Import, export & self-hosting — found from sitemap: https://www.atlassian.com/migration/assess/compare-cloud-data-center/confluence (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S24] Import, export & self-hosting — found from sitemap: https://support.atlassian.com/migration/docs/cloud-migration-methods-for-confluence/ (checked 2026-11-01)

---

Cite as: whats-best.ai, "Confluence — Knowledge Base & Wiki", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-11-06. https://whats-best.ai/software/knowledge-base/confluence

Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/1232?target=page