When comparing Confluence vs BookStack, the Slant community recommends Confluence for most people. In the question“What are the best multi-user wikis?” Confluence is ranked 3rd while BookStack is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Confluence is:
Confluence offers a highly intuitive and user friendly experience without sacrificing the advanced feature set of a typical wiki.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to use
Confluence offers a highly intuitive and user friendly experience without sacrificing the advanced feature set of a typical wiki.
Pro Integrates well with other services
Confluence integrates well with other Atlassian offerings like Jira, a bug tracking system.
Pro Keyboard shortcuts support
There are a lot of shortcuts to speed up the interactions with the editor, viewscreen, workbox, etc.
Pro Hierarchical page tree
Most wikis don't have a page hierarchy, but Confluence has one, and this is very helpful for a lot of people.
Pro Great plugin ecosystem
Confluence offers a huge selection of paid and free plugins across all kinds of different categories that extend the functionality of the core software.
Pro Document and inline commenting offers low-commitment opportunities to contribute
Often someone that is not an expert/owner of a process is hesitant to edit documentation of someone that is. The ability to merely comment on the existing material helps elicit improvements without requiring as much boldness.
Pro LDAP integration
Confluence provides built-in connectors for:
- Microsoft Active Directory
- Apache Directory Server (ApacheDS)
- Apple Open Directory
- Fedora Directory Server
- Novell eDirectory
- OpenDS
- OpenLDAP
- OpenLDAP Using Posix Schema
- Posix Schema for LDAP
- Sun Directory Server Enterprise Edition (DSEE)
- A generic LDAP directory server
Pro Clean & simple default interface
The stock interface design has a modern feel and is simple for new users to use.
Pro Free and open source
Released under the MIT license.
Pro Full role and permissions system built in
Granular permissions can be set up for specific roles on a per-content basis and permissions will waterfall down to child content.
Pro Multilingual
Over 9 different languages are built in to BookStack which can be set at a per-profile level.
Pro Feature rich and stable
Markdown editing, syntax highlighting, WYSIWYG, keyboard shortcuts, versioning, SSO, LDAP, different roles, performant and fast developer response.
Pro Support for domain authentication
Can be deployed within an active directory environment with its features to connect over LDAP.
Pro Supports SSO using Google Apps
Very convenient when you're a company that uses Google Apps, that makes logging into Bookstack more secure and more convenient.
Cons
Con Pretty slow
The hosted version feels slow and can be annoying to use regularly.
Con Search is utterly terrible
It requires having to put in almost exactly what's needed to get a result on the front page. Defeats the purpose of the problem it's supposedly solving.
Con Many unresolved bugs
Atlassian is notorious for not resolving bugs for months or even years in Confluence.
Con Costs money
Although inexpensive, starting at $10/mo for 10 users, many other solutions are free.
Con WSIWYG editor is broken
Markup is not saved and complicated to use.
Not suitable for dev teams.
Con Redesigns are rolled out without thorough testing
There were two major redesigns for Confluence (cloud version) in the last couple of years, and both of them were released in a very immature state, causing a lot of trouble for existing clients.
Con No full Unicode support (no real emoji support)
Confluence has a limited number of "emoticons" but doesn't support emojis as defined in Unicode.
Con Limited customisability
Customisation options are limited with only the main theme color, logo and name being customisable.
Con No support for readable markup languages
The content entered through the WYSIWIG editor is stored as HTML. The HTML can be edited directly, but no other markup language is parsed. Speak ReST, Markdown, etc.
Con Limited to 2 levels of content
Bookstack implements a "Book / Chapter / Page" system which works fine, but lacks flexibility when you need to have more levels of imbrication.
Con Complicated installation
The current installation process involves many steps and may be a lot to take in for people not familiar with setting up Laravel applications.