TheDocs vs Confluence
This is not really a like-for-like comparison. Confluence is a wiki. TheDocs is a publishing platform. Most teams that evaluate both end up running both.
TheDocs vs Confluence: what is the actual difference?
Confluence is a wiki: it is optimised for internal collaboration, where anyone can create a page and the value is in capturing things quickly. TheDocs is a publishing platform: it is optimised for a reader finding a correct answer, which means every article has an owner and a review date, changes can require approval, the output is a branded public site with SEO and versioning, and search returns an answer with citations. Most organisations need both, for different content.
- Confluence: fast capture, broad editing, internal collaboration.
- TheDocs: ownership, review cycles, controlled publishing, public portal.
- Confluence has no reader-facing product versioning.
- TheDocs has SEO, structured data and a branded portal as core, not add-ons.
- Most teams keep Confluence for project pages and move docs to TheDocs.
- Confluence spaces import to TheDocs with structure and macros mapped.
Feature by feature
| Capability | TheDocs | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Fast internal page creation | ||
| Simultaneous editing | ||
| Branded public portal on your domain | ||
| SEO metadata and structured data | ||
| Product versioning for readers | ||
| Review and approval workflow | Add-on | |
| Named owner and review cycle per article | ||
| Read acknowledgement | Add-on | |
| AI search with citations | ||
| Embeddable support chatbot | ||
| Search-gap and deflection reporting | ||
| Per-article translation status | ||
| Partner-only audiences | ||
| Branded PDF export | Add-on | |
| Readers on public docs | Unlimited | Licensed |
| Jira integration depth | Issue linking | Native |
| Project pages and meeting notes | Not the focus | |
| Whiteboards and internal collaboration |
Compiled from publicly available product documentation and pricing pages. Vendors change their products and plans - please verify anything that would change your decision.
How teams usually resolve it
Split by audience, not by department
The clean line is not 'engineering uses Confluence, support uses TheDocs'. It is whether the content has readers who are not the authors.
- Confluence keeps: project pages, meeting notes, decision records in progress, team spaces, whiteboards.
- TheDocs takes: customer-facing documentation, controlled procedures, anything with a review cycle, anything published externally.
- Content that starts as a Confluence page and matures into documentation gets moved once it stabilises.
- Cross-linking works both ways, so neither becomes an island.
Trying to run public documentation out of a wiki is usually what brings teams to this page in the first place.
What migration actually looks like
Confluence migrations have a reputation. Most of it comes from macros.
- Spaces map to projects; page trees map to category hierarchies, preserving order.
- Standard macros - info, note, warning, code, expand, table of contents, status - convert to native blocks.
- Attachments and images are downloaded and re-hosted, with links rewritten.
- Third-party macros with no equivalent become a flagged callout naming what was there, so nothing vanishes quietly.
- The import report lists every flagged item, ranked by the page's traffic, so you fix what matters first.
- A redirect map is generated from your Confluence URLs.
Keep looking
Questions people ask before they start
Import one Confluence space and read the report.
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