Confluence Cloud vs Data Center: which is right for you?

Confluence Cloud: main features

• Smaller operational costs: With the software being hosted by Atlassian’s servers, there are no extra costs for hardware and IT maintenance.
  
  
• Budget friendly: Designed for nearly every company, Confluence Cloud has tiered pricing to suit your budget and needs.
  
  
• No manual management required: Updates, maintenance, and infrastructure are all managed by Atlassian.
  
  
• Seamless integration: Confluence Cloud offers integration with other Atlassian cloud products such as Jira Cloud, Trello, Bitbucket, etc., as well as third-party apps available in the Atlassian Marketplace like Content Formatting Macros for Confluence.
  
  
• Security and Compliance: Atlassian manages security and compliance measures for Confluence Cloud, including data encryption, access controls, and compliance certifications. Confluence Cloud can even offer a HIPAA-compliant solution.

Confluence Cloud: pricing

• Free: Free tier gives you up to 2 GB storage, up to 3 active Confluence whiteboards per user, and unlimited spaces and pages. This tier is for up to 10 users, and is free forever (unless you add more than 10 members to your plan).
  
  
• Standard: Standard tier supports up to 50,000 users and comes with 250 GB storage, as well as all the previous benefits from Free tier. You can also assign user permissions. The maximum monthly price is $6.05 per user (with the price decreasing from 101+ users).
  
  
• Premium: Premium tier includes everything from Standard tier, plus Atlassian Intelligence, unlimited Confluence whiteboards, unlimited storage, Confluence Analytics, guaranteed 99.9% uptime, plus 24/7 Premium support. The maximum monthly price is $11.55 per user (with the price decreasing from 101+ users).
  
  
• Enterprise: Enterprise tier is designed for bigger companies, and more complex organisations. It supports up to 150 individual Confluence sites, includes Atlassian Access security, and 99.95% uptime, plus 24/7 Enterprise support. Designed for 801+ users or more, Enterprise tier is only available on an annual subscription. It costs $107,500 per year for 801 users.

What is Confluence Data Center?

Confluence Data Center: main features

• Complete data control: Being self-hosted, Confluence Data Center gives organisations full control over their data, which includes where it’s stored and how it’s backed up (essential for companies that must comply with regulations not on Atlassian’s Cloud roadmap).
  
• Uses own infrastructure: Organisations must install Confluence on their own servers, and need the resources to continuously maintain and update it.
  
• Available for an unlimited number of users: The size of Confluence Data Center depends only on your server capabilities.
  
• Tailored deployment: Confluence Data Center can be installed in a range of different configurations, from a single node (server) to clustered deployment, to tailor it to your organisation’s needs.
  
• Advanced page and space customisation: Edit Confluence pages as you would a web page. Organisations can customise their theme and style Confluence pages with custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), improving brand recognition.

Confluence Data Center: pricing

• 500 users: $28,000 per year
• 1,000 users: $50,000 per year
• 5,000 users: $231,000 per year
• 10,000 users: $265,000 per year
• 20,000 users: $311,000 per year

Cloud vs Data Center - the differences summarised

Is Confluence Cloud or Data Center right for me?

• You don’t have the infrastructure (i.e. servers) to host Confluence yourself.
  
• You want to save money on long-term maintenance costs.
  
• You already have other Atlassian products that you want to link seamlessly together.
  
• You want Confluence to ‘just work’ without any extra hassle or upkeep.
  
• You need a tool that teams can easily and securely access from anywhere.

• Your Confluence instance needs to run reliably every single hour of the day, every day of the week.
  
• You’re a large enterprise running complex operations.
  
• You have the infrastructure and need to keep your operations in-house.
  
• You need to meet specific compliance requirements not covered by Atlassian.