AFFiNE vs Confluence: Do You Still Need a Proprietary Wiki?
Confluence is the safer choice if your organization lives inside Jira and depends on Confluence's mature space permissions and marketplace apps. AFFiNE is the stronger choice if you want an open-source knowledge base you can self-host on your own infrastructure, with docs and whiteboards in one workspace, AI you can point at your own provider, and a pricing model that doesn't meter every reader.
At a glance
| Decision area | | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary model | Docs, whiteboards, and databases in one open-source workspace | Page-and-space wiki within the Atlassian suite |
| Best fit | Teams that want ownership of their knowledge base and visual + written work in one place | Organizations standardized on Jira that need a mature, deeply integrated wiki |
| Open source | MIT-licensed editor and most of the codebase; source-available EE backend | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | First-class: official Docker Compose path, free up to 10 seats per workspace | Server edition ended support in Feb 2024; remaining self-managed option is Data Center, priced for large deployments |
| Data residency | Your filesystem, S3-compatible storage, or Cloudflare R2, plus a PostgreSQL you operate | Atlassian cloud regions, or your own infrastructure on Data Center |
| Whiteboards & visual docs | Built in — every doc can switch to an infinite edgeless canvas | Whiteboards available in cloud plans; separate from pages |
| AI | AFFiNE AI in cloud, or bring your own provider keys and models when self-hosting | Atlassian Intelligence / Rovo, tied to Atlassian cloud plans |
| Ecosystem | Open repository, importers, and a growing template and integration surface | Jira integration and a large Atlassian Marketplace of paid apps |
| Pricing shape | Free locally and self-hosted (up to 10 seats); Team at $10 per seat/month billed annually | Free cloud tier up to 10 users; per-user Standard/Premium subscriptions, add-ons priced separately |
| Migration path | Import Markdown and HTML exports; validate in a pilot workspace | Space exports to HTML/XML; content typically needs conversion on the way out |
Quick verdict
Choose AFFiNE if you...
- Want your knowledge base on infrastructure you control — with an open-source codebase you can audit
- Need docs and whiteboards in the same tool instead of a wiki plus a separate diagramming subscription
- Are consolidating tool spend and don't want per-user fees for occasional readers
- Want AI on your own terms: your provider, your keys, your models — or none at all
- Are a self-host-friendly team that found Data Center pricing hard to justify
Stay with Confluence if you...
- Run your engineering process in Jira and rely on the deep page-to-issue integration
- Depend on granular space-level permission schemes administered at enterprise scale
- Have built workflows on Atlassian Marketplace apps that have no equivalent elsewhere
- Need Atlassian's enterprise compliance programs as a hard procurement requirement
AFFiNE vs Confluence: Ownership and deployment
The deepest difference between AFFiNE and Confluence is not a feature — it's who ultimately controls the software and the data.
AFFiNE is open source: the editor and most of the codebase are MIT-licensed and auditable, and the whole stack self-hosts with an official Docker Compose setup. Workspace docs and uploaded files live on storage you choose — the server filesystem by default, or your own S3-compatible bucket or Cloudflare R2 — next to a PostgreSQL database you operate. Self-hosting is free for up to 10 seats per workspace, and restricted networks are a supported case: an Installable License activates team seats without ever contacting AFFiNE's license servers.
Confluence went the other direction. Since Confluence Server reached end of support in February 2024, Atlassian's strategy centers on Confluence Cloud, with Data Center remaining as the self-managed option for large organizations. If your team liked running its own wiki but doesn't operate at Data Center scale, you're exactly the team the market left behind — and exactly who an open-source, self-hosted knowledge base serves.
AFFiNE vs Confluence: The knowledge model: pages vs. docs plus canvas
Confluence organizes knowledge as pages inside spaces.
It is a proven model for structured documentation: page trees, templates, labels, and a decade of enterprise wiki conventions. If your knowledge is mostly written and hierarchical, Confluence's model maps onto it cleanly.
AFFiNE treats a doc and a whiteboard as two views of the same underlying block document. Meeting notes can become an architecture diagram on an infinite canvas without switching tools; a brainstorm can be refactored into structured docs with backlinks and database views. For teams that think visually — engineering design reviews, product discovery, research synthesis — this removes the wall between 'the wiki' and 'the diagramming tool', which in the Atlassian world often means Confluence plus a separately licensed whiteboard or diagram app.
On permissions, honesty cuts both ways: Confluence's space permission schemes are more granular and more battle-tested at large-organization scale. AFFiNE covers workspace roles (Owner, Admin, Collaborator) and per-document access levels, which is sufficient for most teams — but if your requirement is complex permission matrices per department, Confluence is currently ahead.
AFFiNE vs Confluence: AI on your terms
Atlassian's AI (Atlassian Intelligence and Rovo) is genuinely useful — and available on Atlassian's cloud, on Atlassian's models, at Atlassian's pricing.
AFFiNE ships AFFiNE AI in the cloud product, and on self-hosted deployments lets you bring your own provider: set API keys, base URLs, and model IDs in the admin console and point the workspace at the endpoint you trust — or keep AI disabled entirely with a config switch. For organizations whose security review starts with 'which third parties see our data?', an AI layer that runs against your chosen provider inside your own deployment is a materially different answer than a bundled cloud AI.
AFFiNE vs Confluence: Cost of ownership
Confluence's free cloud tier covers up to 10 users; beyond that you're on per-user Standard or Premium subscriptions, and capabilities like advanced permissions, analytics, and AI concentrate in the higher tiers. Marketplace apps — often necessary for diagramming, exports, or workflow — add their own per-user fees. The wiki itself is rarely the whole bill.
AFFiNE's shape is simpler: free locally and self-hosted for up to 10 seats per workspace, and a Team tier at $10 per seat/month billed annually ($12 monthly) when you outgrow that. Whiteboards, databases, and the editor are part of the product, not add-ons. For 100+ seat deployments, regulated environments, or OEM licensing there are custom enterprise agreements — scoped on a call rather than a pricing page.
AFFiNE vs Confluence: Migrating from Confluence
There is no one-click Confluence importer in AFFiNE today — treat any tool that promises a lossless wiki migration with suspicion.
The realistic path: export Confluence spaces (HTML or XML), convert to Markdown with one of the widely used converters, and import the Markdown into AFFiNE. Structure and text carry over well; macros and app-specific content need review.
The approach that works is a pilot, not a big bang: pick one team, migrate its most-used space, run it for two weeks, and validate search, permissions, and daily editing against real work. AFFiNE's enterprise team walks migrations like this with customers — including the honest assessment of what will and won't carry over.
Pricing side by side
AFFiNE
Confluence
Frequently asked questions
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