[walrus01]

I don't understand why people use confluence.

I can gain far more functionality with a properly implemented self-hosted mediawiki server (the same code that runs wikipedia itself) with a number of useful plugins installed and enabled.

It doesn't require a rocket science level of apache2+php7+mariadb knowledge to set up. The instructions are really quite straightforward.

[rablackburn]

If this is a serious question, this is why:

Confluence users are enterprise companies, and getting a self-hosted server up and running is too much pain to be bothered to deal with.

This is a process problem. The steps to get one would be something like:

- try and find the “provision a server” option in the corporate service portal (there probably isn’t one)

- ask someone if they know how to provision one. Get a link to a separate system where you can make the request

- you need to associate the instance with a cost centre, or maybe you literally need a credit card number, don’t forget to attach written manager approval

- update the project’s budget to include the unexpected cost of this internal service. Hopefully there’s actually some margin to afford it.

- wait a day or two for the request to go through

- get the instance details, RDP in and try and set everything up. Realise you need to make a separate request for admin rights to install non-base software if you don’t want to use IIS and MSSQL server

- wait a day for admin rights. Don’t forget to add written manager approval to the request or else it will be denied

- realise you need to make a separate DNS request to get a friendly url for the team to access it. Also, how are you going to secure access to just your team members? Need to integrate with the corporate AD

- …about a dozen more steps

Compare all of that with:

- Go to the corporate confluence instance

- click “Create”, add your team members with edit rights.

- done

Confluence itself may not be a great experience to use, but it’s solving the problem of getting to the point of having a wiki setup in the first place.

[jfrunyon]

> getting a self-hosted server up and running is too much pain

And yet many of them self-host Confluence. And many other things. And provision servers all the time. And you have to provide a CC (or maybe PO) for Confluence in any case. And you can't just associate Confluence with a cost centre. And you have to budget it. And... literally every single one of your arguments applies just as much to Confuence.

[ivan_gammel]

Self-hosted Confluence Server edition is a legacy of the times when cloud SaaS was not an option. Now you cannot even buy it, because it is being replaced with DataCenter edition.

[rablackburn]

It’s not that confluence doesn’t require a server, or a technological feature at all, it’s about the business processes.

The business is guided to build a setup where setting up confluence is no-friction. Whereas a one-off generic server is much higher in comparison.

[jfrunyon]

"It's not any of the things claimed in the comment you were replying to, but I'm going to argue with you anyway"

[GordonS]

Oh, and updating the CMDB too!

[GordonS]

And firewall rules!

[MegaDeKay]

We started with a self-hosted mediawiki server and this did not go well. Expecting someone not very computer savvy (and there are lots of those in my company) to dive into the markup on a page and not make a mess of it was a bad idea. At that time at least the WSIWYG editor was not very usable. Don't know if that is still the case.

So off we went to Atlassian. It has many flaws, but nobody is pining for the old days of Mediawiki. And the hooks Confluence has in to Jira is something you don't get with plain Mediawiki, and that has real use for us.

[jfrunyon]

You can literally go see for yourself how the WYSIWYG editor works these days. I suspect it's come a long way since the last time you checked it.

My bigger question though is why the average user is important. Most large companies have employees whose entire job is ... knowledge management. If they can't figure out how to write wikitext then maybe they're not a good fit for the role?

[macintux]

> My bigger question though is why the average user is important. Most large companies have employees whose entire job is ... knowledge management. If they can't figure out how to write wikitext then maybe they're not a good fit for the role?

If your wiki limits its contributors to experts, you're doing it wrong.

[jfrunyon]

Regardless of limitations, the vast majority of edits tend to be by those whose job it is.

[macintux]

I'm struggling to remember any job I've had where documentation was primarily the realm of tech writers. Certainly none of the large companies. One startup had a dedicated tech writer but engineers and evangelists still wrote much of the documentation.

[ivan_gammel]

In corporate environment paying for Confluence Cloud subscription can be cheaper than having even a part time admin to install and maintain self-hosted solution (proper security, backups, handling compatibility issues on updates etc etc). It may not be the best solution, but it is good enough.

[jfrunyon]

In corporate environment how do you not already have an admin who can handle this just like they handle any of your other self-hosted needs? I've never worked for a single company that didn't have something hosted internally.

[ivan_gammel]

Regardless of whether a company has an admin with necessary qualifications or not, their time is not free and can be used elsewhere.

In the company where I work we do not have anything but network equipment in the server room (500 employees distributed across Europe). All „self-hosted“ solutions are on AWS instances behind VPN, and there are only four 3rd party systems of this kind, where investment in self-hosted setup did make sense at some point (two of them will be replaced with commercial SaaS soon). We of course have a devops team capable of maintaining those systems, but this is not given that it worth it.

When talking about „self-hosted“ solutions it is important to consider all factors that contribute to TCO. It is not as simple as getting some hardware and running an installer.

[jfrunyon]

Of course their time is not free. Neither is the time of the SaaS provider's employees. What's your point?

Of course it's important to consider all the factors. That's important no matter what. The point is that people aren't considering all the factors because the reality is, the costs of SaaS are almost always higher.

You don't have any local backup, by the way? Oof.