vs
HelpDocs vs Confluence
A dedicated knowledge base for authoritative docs with flat pricing, compared with Confluence's collaborative team wiki tied to Jira.
The verdict
Confluence and HelpDocs are built for different jobs.
Confluence is a capable team collaboration hub and wiki with real-time co-editing, deeply tied to Jira and priced per user. HelpDocs is a dedicated knowledge base for authoritative, single-source documentation, internal or external, with enterprise controls (permission groups, SSO, an audit trail, version history with side-by-side diffs) included rather than sold through a separate security subscription, plus flat pricing with unlimited free public viewers.
HelpDocs is best for
Teams, including larger documentation teams, who need an authoritative, single-source knowledge base, whether public for customers or private for staff, with predictable flat pricing, strong search, permission groups, and no per-user bill as it grows.
Confluence is best for
Teams who mainly need a collaborative workspace for real-time co-editing, meeting notes, and project collaboration, especially if they already live in Jira and the wider Atlassian ecosystem.
Feature by feature
How they stack up, feature by feature
A side-by-side look at what HelpDocs and Confluence each include, grouped by the job you're trying to do.
Setup & onboarding
How quickly you can go from signup to a live, branded knowledge base.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial without talking to sales | Yes | Confluence has a free plan for up to 10 users and free trials of paid plans, with no sales call.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Published, self-serve pricing | Yes | Atlassian publishes per-user Standard and Premium prices. Enterprise is custom and annual only.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Standalone knowledge base (no support suite required) | Yes | Confluence is a standalone product, but it is built as an internal team wiki rather than a customer-facing help center.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Live help center the same day | Yes | You can create a space quickly, but a public help center means turning on anonymous access at the site level and then per space, and only paid plans allow it. Anonymous users then see everything in that space unless you restrict items one by one.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Starter templates and sample content | Yes | Confluence ships a large template library for pages, wikis, and documentation.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Guided migration from other tools | Confluence content can be imported, but there's no one-click Confluence migration wizard like some other sources have. Built-in importers for Zendesk Guide, Intercom Articles, Help Scout Docs, Document360, GitBook, ReadMe, Notion, Google Drive and more, plus GitHub: point it at a repo and its Markdown and MDX files become articles. | Limited |
Authoring & editing
The day-to-day writing experience for the people who maintain your docs.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| WYSIWYG editor | Yes | Yes |
| Custom HTML blocks in articles | HTML blocks are on every plan. Full HTML templates are on Bloom and up. | Confluence Cloud restricts raw HTML by default.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Reusable snippets and content variables | Clips are reusable blocks of content, static or dynamic, and Variables hold a single piece of text like a product name or support email. Both are on every plan, and a Variable dropped into a Clip can be overridden per article. | Confluence has Excerpt and Include macros for reusable content.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Category and nested navigation management | Yes | |
| Version history with side-by-side diff | Yes | Confluence keeps full page history with change comparison.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Review and approval workflow builder | Limited | Approvals are built in on Premium and Enterprise only, with a space setting to require approval before publishing, but they cover pages rather than live docs or blogs and there is no general workflow builder.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
AI & search
How well the knowledge base answers questions and deflects tickets on its own.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| AI answers from your articles | Yes | Atlassian Intelligence and Rovo can answer from your content, but Rovo Chat and agents draw on metered credits.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI included in the base subscription | AI credits come with every plan. | Paid plans include a monthly Rovo credit allowance (25 credits per user on Standard, 70 on Premium, 150 on Enterprise), but AI chat and agents consume those credits and the Free plan gets none.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI drafting and rewriting in the editor | Yes | Atlassian Intelligence can draft and rewrite in the editor, drawing on Rovo credits.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI style and tone enforcement | AI style enforcement is on Bloom and up. | No |
| AI meta descriptions and SEO helpers | Yes | Confluence is not built for public SEO, so there are no AI meta description or SEO helpers.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Full-text search with failed-search reporting | Yes | Confluence has full-text search, and Premium and Enterprise analytics report search terms, unique searchers, and click-through rate, but nothing reports the searches that returned nothing.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI-powered semantic search | Ask AI draws on your monthly AI credits each time a reader uses it, so semantic search consumes the same pool as AI authoring. | Rovo Search adds AI-powered search across Atlassian content.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI agent that resolves live conversations | No | Confluence is a wiki, not a live-chat or conversation tool.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
Branding & customization
Making the help center look and feel like your own product, not a vendor template.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domain | Yes | A custom domain for your Atlassian site needs Confluence Premium, and the styling you can wrap around it stays limited.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| No-code color, font, and layout styling | Yes | Confluence Cloud theming is limited to basic look-and-feel controls, not full help-center styling.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Custom CSS | Custom CSS is included from Sprout. | Custom CSS in Confluence Cloud is heavily restricted and typically needs a Marketplace app.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Custom JavaScript | Custom JavaScript is on every plan. | No |
| Full HTML template control | Yes | Confluence does not expose full HTML template control for public pages.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Remove vendor branding (white-label) | No | Public Confluence pages carry Atlassian and Confluence branding that cannot be fully white-labeled.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Multi-brand help centers | Additional custom domains give each brand its own logo, colors, navigation and SEO over the same articles (2 included on Harvest, an extra fee otherwise). Brands that need different content run as separate accounts on one bill. | Confluence spaces are not designed as separate branded help centers.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
Access & permissions
Who can read and edit what, and whether the platform meets security reviews.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Private or internal knowledge base | Yes | A private internal wiki is Confluence's core strength.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Unlimited free reader accounts | Anonymous readers of a public help center are unlimited and free. Gated or authenticated readers can cost extra. | Anonymous access and per-page public links are paid-plan only, and each paid user can add up to five free guests. Internal readers beyond that still need paid seats.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Content-level permission groups | Yes | Confluence has strong space and page-level permissions and restrictions.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| SSO and SAML | JWT SSO is included from Bloom, and SAML and OIDC SSO on Harvest. | SAML SSO needs the separate Atlassian Guard Standard subscription on Free, Standard, and Premium. Only Enterprise includes it.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| SCIM user provisioning | HelpDocs has limited SCIM provisioning, alongside SAML, OIDC, and JWT SSO. | SCIM provisioning also comes through Atlassian Guard Standard, which only Enterprise includes.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Audit trail | Yes | Site audit logs start on Standard, but comprehensive logging of user-initiated activity is Enterprise only.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
Analytics
Understanding what readers search for, what works, and where content is failing.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Article views and engagement | Yes | Page insights (page and user views) start on Standard, and the fuller site, space, and page analytics are Premium and Enterprise.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Search and failed-search reporting | Yes | The Searches tab in Premium and Enterprise analytics shows search terms and click-through rate, but not the failed searches a help center reports.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| AI answer and deflection analytics | Yes | Confluence has no ticket-deflection or AI answer analytics, because it is not a support tool.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Reader feedback and ratings | Yes | Confluence offers page reactions and likes rather than structured article ratings.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Contributor and team performance reports | Yes | Contributor insights appear in analytics on higher plans.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Reporting data export | Yes | Export options depend on plan and analytics tier.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
Integrations & API
How the knowledge base plugs into the rest of your stack, and whether it doubles as a support suite or developer docs.
| Feature | HelpDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Public REST API and webhooks | HelpDocs has a read/write REST API, plus Slack webhooks for publish, feedback, and team events. It does not have general-purpose outbound webhooks. | Confluence has a mature REST API and webhooks.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Integrations | Yes | Yes |
| Help desk integrations (Intercom, Zendesk) | Yes | Jira Service Management integrates natively across the Atlassian ecosystem. Other help desks connect through Marketplace apps.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Embeddable in-app help widget | Yes | Confluence does not ship an embeddable in-app help widget.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
| Built-in live chat and messenger | No | No |
| Built-in ticketing and shared inbox | No | |
| OpenAPI and Swagger reference rendering | No | API reference rendering needs a Marketplace app in Confluence.Checked against public sources. Worth verifying yourself. |
Pricing
Pricing, side by side
Pricing below is accurate as of October 2026, after Atlassian's price change of October 13, 2026. HelpDocs is a flat monthly subscription for a set number of editors, with unlimited free public viewers. Confluence charges per user per month (billed annually), so the total climbs with every teammate, contractor, or collaborator who needs access, and its Rovo AI is metered by a monthly credit allowance.
Sprout
$99/mo billed annually (23% off). 5 editors, 1,000 AI credits/mo, AI meta features, AI drafts and rewrites, Ask AI, 3 languages, the Lighthouse widget, custom CSS and JavaScript, unlimited free public viewers.
Bloom
$239/mo billed annually (20% off). 15 editors, 5,000 AI credits/mo, AI meta features, AI drafts and rewrites, Ask AI, AI improve, AI style enforcement, 20 languages, audit trail, advanced permissioning, embedded SSO (JWT), the Lighthouse widget, custom CSS and JavaScript, custom HTML templating, unlimited free public viewers.
Harvest
$399/mo billed annually (20% off). 25 editors, 10,000 AI credits/mo, AI meta features, AI drafts and rewrites, Ask AI, AI improve, AI style enforcement, unlimited languages, audit trail, advanced permissioning, SSO with anonymous mode, IP restriction, the Lighthouse widget, custom CSS and JavaScript, custom HTML templating, unlimited free public viewers.
Free
Up to 10 users on one site. Unlimited pages and spaces, but no Rovo credit allowance, no space or page permissions, and no anonymous access or public links.
Standard
Billed annually ($720/year for up to 10 users); $7.15/user/mo month-to-month. Adds space and page permissions, anonymous access, public links, five free guests per paid user, and 25 Rovo credits per user per month.
Premium
Billed annually ($1,400/year for up to 10 users); $14.10/user/mo month-to-month. Adds site analytics, page approvals, admin insights, a custom domain, and 70 Rovo credits per user per month.
Enterprise
Annual billing only, quoted by Atlassian sales, and only offered from 801 users up. Adds up to 150 sites, Atlassian Guard Standard for SSO and SCIM, and 150 Rovo credits per user per month.
The bottom line: As of October 2026, Confluence's per-user model means cost scales with headcount: a 25-person team on Premium is $3,550/year, about $296/mo, and it keeps rising with every seat, while public sharing stays limited. HelpDocs Harvest covers up to 25 editors for a flat $499/mo ($399 annually) with unlimited free public viewers and AI credits included. If you need an internal wiki for your team, Confluence's per-user pricing can be reasonable at small scale. If you need a public, branded help center that customers use, HelpDocs is built for that job and its flat price does not grow with your audience.
Switching
Switching from Confluence
Moving from Confluence to HelpDocs is mostly a content and structure exercise, because the two tools are built for different readers. Confluence content lives in internal spaces and page trees, so the work is deciding which pages should become customer-facing articles and reorganizing them into clean categories. HelpDocs gives you a proper article editor, categories, and nested navigation to rebuild that structure as a public help center, plus search and analytics so you can see what readers actually look for once you are live. Your Confluence instance stays untouched, so you can keep it as your internal wiki and run HelpDocs as your external help center side by side. There is no Confluence importer today, so in practice the pages arrive as a CSV or through one of the other routes in, and the reorganizing is the real work whichever you pick.
- 1Audit your Confluence spaces and decide which pages are genuinely customer-facing versus internal only.
- 2Export or copy the pages you want to publish, keeping images and attachments together.
- 3Rebuild the structure in HelpDocs with clear categories and nested navigation for a public audience.
- 4Clean up formatting, fix any Confluence macros or raw HTML, and add SEO-friendly titles and descriptions.
- 5Point your custom domain at the new HelpDocs help center and keep Confluence as your internal wiki.
Honest trade-offs
Why teams pick one over the other
Why teams choose HelpDocs
- Purpose-built for an authoritative, single-source knowledge base, public or private, rather than a free-form collaborative wiki.
- Room for a larger documentation team: Harvest covers 25 editors with volume discounts on extra editors past 100, version history with side-by-side diffs tracks every article, and SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification is in progress.
- Flat, predictable pricing from $129/mo for 5 editors, up to $499/mo for 25, instead of a per-user bill for everyone who needs access.
- Unlimited free public viewers on every plan, where Confluence needs a paid plan to allow anonymous access at all and caps free guests at five per paid user.
- Custom CSS and JavaScript from Sprout, plus full HTML templating on Bloom, where Confluence Cloud restricts CSS to Marketplace apps and exposes no page templates.
- Failed-search reporting names the queries that came back empty, so you can see where your content has gaps. Confluence's Premium analytics reports search terms and click-through rate, but not the searches that returned nothing.
- AI credits come with every plan at a flat price, 1,000/mo on Sprout up to 10,000 on Harvest, with AI drafts, rewrites, and Ask AI on every plan, rather than a per-user Rovo credit allowance that the Free plan does not get at all.
- Built-in translation across 100+ languages for a global customer audience: 3 on Sprout, 20 on Bloom, and unlimited on Harvest.
- An audit trail, permission groups and JWT SSO from Bloom, and SAML and OIDC SSO with IP restriction on Harvest, with no separate security subscription. Confluence routes SAML SSO and SCIM through Atlassian Guard Standard, which only Enterprise includes.
- The Lighthouse widget puts your help center inside your own product on every plan, where Confluence has no customer-facing help widget. Lighthouse 2, now in early access, adds an embedded page, help pinned to a field, and a standalone search bar.
Why teams choose Confluence
- Excellent collaborative workspace for drafts, meeting notes, and cross-team documentation.
- Tight, native integration with Jira and the wider Atlassian ecosystem.
- Strong space and page-level permissions for internal knowledge.
- Real-time co-editing, inline comments, and collaboration built for teams.
- Mature Marketplace with thousands of apps to extend functionality.
- Enterprise scale with advanced admin, data residency, and governance options.
- Per-user pricing can be affordable for small internal teams.
FAQ
Questions about HelpDocs vs Confluence
Is Confluence a customer-facing knowledge base?
Is HelpDocs cheaper than Confluence?
Can I migrate my Confluence content to HelpDocs?
How does HelpDocs AI compare to Atlassian Intelligence and Rovo?
Can I keep Confluence for internal docs and use HelpDocs for customers?
Does Confluence include SSO and provisioning?
Is HelpDocs a good Confluence alternative?
Not decided yet
Still building a shortlist?
A head-to-head is the wrong shape when you have not narrowed the field yet. Confluence is one of twelve tools in our wider roundup, scored on the same criteria.
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