Confluence is an intranet software developed by Atlassian, an Australian company founded in 2002. It’s used by businesses as a digital team workspace to improve collaboration and knowledge exchange. Confluence makes it easy to store and share files and to review them and give feedback. Some of the most important features include project screening, app integrations, add-on installation, and team activity tracking. Confluence is the wiki software where employees can produce new topics by putting files into the wiki.
Though employees can share files, Confluence doesn't have the social features of Happeo, the preferred Confluence alternative - and those are crucial to drive real engagement and foster your company's culture. Scroll down to see a full comparison between Confluence and Happeo and learn about the pros and cons of using Confluence. Want to see and compare other Confluence alternatives? Visit our intranet platforms comparison.
Feature overview
| Digital workplace | Happeo | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Search | ✓ | ✓ |
| Third-party app launcher | ✓ | ✓ |
| Integrated Drive Editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrated Docs editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrated Sheets editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrated Slides editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Collaboration platform | Happeo | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Employee directory | ✓ | ✓ |
| Slack integration | ✓ |
Separate purchase |
| User-creatable channels | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrated Hangouts conferencing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrated Calendar editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Jabber, Webex integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| Social intranet | Happeo | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Page builder | ✓ | ✓ |
| Social channels | ✓ | ✗ |
| Analytics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Personalized news feed | ✓ | ✗ |
| Announcements | ✓ | ✗ |
| Widgets | ✓ | ✗ |
| Branded file templates | ✓ | ✗ |
| Influencer analysis | ✓ | ✗ |
| Overall features | Happeo | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile intranet app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Push notifications | ✓ | ✓ |
| Single Sign On | ✓ | ✓ |
| ISO compliant security | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR compliant | ✓ | ✓ |
| Top-down communications | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bottom-up communications | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom branding | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multilingual | ✓ | ✗ |
| Deep Google Workspace integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| User-first design | ✓ | ✗ |
| Fast time to deploy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Google Workspace integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| Office 365 integration | ✓ | ✗ |
See how Happeo stacks up against other alternatives
Happeo vs Jostle
Jostle is a Canadian company that provides an intranet solution to companies that need software to align their internal communications.
Happeo vs Jive
Jive is a software company that provides solutions for internal communications in businesses. Jive is one of the old-school leaders in the industry.
Happeo vs Simplrr
Simpplr is a US-based software company founded in 2014. Simplrr helps with connecting and engaging employees accross departments.
Get the Intranet Comparison Guide
Directly compare our alternative here by downloading the free Intranet Comparison Guide.
Confluence is dependent on plugins
Confluence’s functionality is dependent on third parties like the marketplace or their own plugins. Both options are inconvenient – the marketplace is scarce and creating plugins would require a Java developer. Happeo is way more practical - it integrates perfectly with most APIs, one of the biggest reasons why organizations value Happeo as the best Confluence alternative.
Confluence could have more features to engage employees
Confluence remains a place meant for storing and sharing information, but it misses social features like Channels, where employees debate and discuss, get to know each other and create a strong company culture. With Happeo employees can share publications, images and videos, add comments, and this way feel engaged.
Confluence isn't meant for Internal Comms
To encourage employee collaboration, Confluence has its own built-in chat functionality – which doesn’t sync or integrate with tools like Chat or Slack. We think it’s a missed opportunity, because people love Slack – it allows for real-time communication, integrations, and different bots. Its integration with Happeo has a chatbot notify you when there’s an update in relevant Happeo Channels. One step further is Happeo’s Direct-Message (DM) integration with Slack, which allows you to send colleagues a DM from their Happeo profiles.
Confluence is missing integrations
It’s possible to connect Confluence with other applications - The Office Connector allows viewing and importing files from Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. However, Confluence doesn’t integrate with a standard set of tools like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite). Chat applications like Slack come with a separate purchase – considering the benefits of Slack and other apps, missing integration features is a disadvantage.
Confluence has low adoption rates
Implementing Confluence requires time and training, and there is no online or in-person training offered. Plus, the deployment time is difficult to estimate. All in all, implementing and adopting Confluence can be a time-consuming process. There are a few Confluence alternatives that have higher adoption rate. One of the best alternatives is Happeo.
Confluence's search feature could use an improvement
Confluence searches for content in all spaces, including e-mails, personal content, and files. However, searching for information with Confluence takes too much time and the results are often irrelevant. On the bright side, Happeo search provides you with the most accurate results quickly.