DOCS & WIKI

Polybase vs Confluence

Confluence is a deep wiki that lives apart from the rest of your work. Polybase puts documents beside the chat, tasks and calls they belong to — in one workspace you can self-host.
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POLYBASE
Polybase treats documentation as part of the work, not a separate destination
CONFLUENCE
DOCS & WIKI
Feature
10+
Moving from Confluence
5

Confluence Cloud runs on AWS under US jurisdiction, within reach of the CLOUD Act. A self-hosted Data Center edition does exist, positioned for larger deployments — and Atlassian has ended Server licences, so smaller teams have fewer on-prem options than before. Polybase self-hosts at any team size: EU cloud, your own VPC, or fully air-gapped on your servers.

Polybase
Confluence
POLYBASE

One workspace. Every surface.

Polybase treats documentation as part of the work, not a separate destination. Every channel holds its docs next to the chat, tasks and calls they relate to. The block editor supports conflict-free co-editing with per-block locking and presence, version history, comments and full-text search — plus viewers for PDF, DOCX, XLSX and PPTX with OCR text extraction. And you can self-host the whole workspace at any team size, with no enterprise threshold.

Unified · Extensible · Yours
CONFLUENCE

Powerful. But alone.

Confluence is Atlassian's wiki, and it is a mature one: deep nested page trees, a huge macro and Marketplace ecosystem, granular space and page permissions, and a tight tie-in with Jira. Its scope is the wiki itself — discussion tends to happen in Slack or Teams, tasks live in Jira, and pages can drift out of date because the work happens elsewhere. Confluence Cloud runs on AWS under US jurisdiction; the self-hosted Data Center edition is positioned for large enterprises, and Server licences have been discontinued.

DOCS & WIKI
comparison

A practical comparison.

Review how Polybase and Confluence approach the work your team needs to do.

Feature
Polybase
Confluence
Block-Based Document Editor
Real-Time Co-Editing
Per-block locking with live presence
Version History
Inline Comments
Built-in Team Chat
Comments only
Video Calls in the Workspace
Not built in
Kanban Task Boards
Basic task lists; Jira for full tracking
Whiteboards
Confluence whiteboards (Cloud only)
Macro & Plugin Ecosystem
REST API, MCP server, GitHub & HubSpot connectors
Thousands of Marketplace apps
Self-Hosted Deployment
Any team size, air-gapped included
Data Center edition

Based on publicly available information about Confluence as of August 2026. Products evolve — plans and features may have changed; please verify details with the vendor. Spotted something out of date? Let us know at [email protected].

Migration

Moving from Confluence.

A practical sequence for planning the change, moving the useful material and introducing the new workspace.

5 steps
  1. 01

    Export Your Confluence Spaces

    Use Confluence's space export (PDF, Word or HTML) to take a copy of everything you own. This is also the moment to audit: most wikis carry years of stale pages, and only a fraction is worth moving.

  2. 02

    Map Spaces to Channels

    In Polybase, documentation lives inside channels rather than a separate site. Map each active Confluence space to the channel where that team already talks — the docs land next to the related chat, tasks and calls.

  3. 03

    Bring the Living Documents Over

    Import Word exports directly via DOCX import, and recreate your key pages in the block editor. We provide migration assistance during onboarding; automated importers are on the roadmap.

  4. 04

    Reconnect Your Dev Workflow

    Confluence leans on Jira for anything actionable. In Polybase, tasks live in the same channels as the docs — with List, Board and Timeline views and GitHub automation that links PRs, branches and commits to tasks.

  5. 05

    Retire the Wiki Gradually

    Keep Confluence read-only during the transition so nothing is lost. As teams find their docs, discussions and tasks in one searchable workspace, the old wiki empties itself out.

Why Polybase

What Polybase includes.

The additional workspace capabilities to consider when comparing Polybase with Confluence.

01

Docs Where the Work Happens

A wiki that lives apart from daily work goes stale. In Polybase, every channel keeps its documents beside the chat, tasks and calls they belong to — so pages get read, referenced and updated as part of the work itself.

02

Discussion Without Leaving the Page

With Confluence, the conversation about a page happens in Slack or Teams and evaporates. Polybase has chat with first-class threads in the same workspace, so decisions stay linked to the documents they shaped.

03

Tasks Without a Second Product

Confluence hands anything actionable to Jira — a separate purchase with its own admin. Polybase includes task management with List, Board and Timeline views, one-click chat-to-task, and GitHub automation.

04

Self-Host at Any Team Size

Atlassian ended Server licences and positions Data Center for large enterprises. Polybase self-hosts via Docker Compose at any team size — including fully air-gapped deployments. Your servers, your keys.

05

One Search Across Everything

Polybase's full-text search covers docs, chat, tasks and files in one query — including OCR-extracted text from scanned PDFs. No more guessing whether the answer lives in the wiki, the tracker or a chat thread.

06

AI Assistant on Your Own Keys

Poly, the built-in assistant, searches and drafts across your docs and tasks — with bring-your-own-model support for Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini or self-hosted models. Your content is not used to train foundation models.

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Common questions about switching from Confluence to Polybase.

01Can Polybase match Confluence's macro and plugin ecosystem?
Honestly, no — Atlassian's Marketplace has thousands of apps built over two decades, and if your workflow depends on specific macros or plugins, Confluence keeps that edge. Polybase's approach is to cover the common needs natively — docs, chat, tasks, calls, whiteboards, tables and workflow automation — and expose a REST API and an MCP server for the rest.
02Does Polybase integrate with Jira?
There is no Jira sync. Instead, Polybase ships its own task management in the same channels as your docs — List, Board and Timeline views, statuses and workflows, and GitHub automation that links PRs, branches and commits. For custom glue, the REST API and MCP server are available.
03Can I self-host Polybase the way I could self-host Confluence?
Yes — and without the enterprise threshold. Confluence's remaining self-host option is the Data Center edition, which is positioned for large organisations, and Atlassian has ended Server licences. Polybase deploys via Docker Compose at any team size, in your VPC or fully air-gapped; calls in an air-gapped setup use a self-hosted LiveKit server.
04How does co-editing in Polybase compare to Confluence?
Polybase uses conflict-free co-editing with per-block locking and presence: you see who is editing which block, and blocks lock while being edited — not Google-Docs-style character-level merging. Combined with version history and comments, it keeps concurrent editing safe and predictable for team documentation.
05What about enterprise page permissions?
Confluence's space- and page-level permission schemes are very granular at large scale, and if you rely on that depth today, weigh it carefully. Polybase enforces role-based access natively in the database layer, scoped per channel, with protected file fields and signed share tokens. SSO/SAML, SCIM and 2FA are on our roadmap — we're happy to walk through your requirements.
06How do I move my existing Confluence pages?
Export your spaces to Word and use Polybase's DOCX import, or recreate key pages in the block editor — many teams treat the move as a chance to prune years of stale content. We provide migration assistance during onboarding, and automated importers are on the roadmap.
Ready to switch

Compare Polybase with Confluence?

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