Notion vs Confluence: Which is best for your team's knowledge in 2025?

Choosing a home for your team's knowledge is a big deal. Right now, Notion and Confluence are two of the biggest names out there, and picking between them can be tough. Do you go with Notion's build-anything flexibility, or Confluence's structured, enterprise-ready power?

Lately, that decision has gotten even trickier. Both platforms have rolled out their own AI assistants, Notion AI and Atlassian Intelligence, turning this into a whole new kind of comparison. It's not just about where you store your documents anymore; it’s about how smart that storage can be.

This guide is here to give you a clear, head-to-head look at Notion vs Confluence to help you make the right call for your team. But we'll also go a step further and talk about a smarter way to handle knowledge management, one that works across all the tools you're already using.

What is Notion?

The best way to think about Notion is as an all-in-one workspace. It’s a single spot where you can take notes, write docs, manage projects, and build company wikis. Its real strength is its incredible flexibility. Everything in Notion is a "block" (a piece of content like text, an image, or a to-do list) that you can arrange on a page however you want. Combine that with its powerful database features, and you can build custom systems for just about anything.

It’s a favorite among startups, smaller teams, and creative folks who love its clean, minimalist feel and the freedom to build their workspace from scratch. Notion also has its own AI layer, which helps you write, summarize, and brainstorm ideas right inside your pages. The only catch? All that freedom means it's on you and your team to keep things from turning into a digital mess.

What is Confluence?

Confluence, on the other hand, is a more structured knowledge management tool built for larger teams and enterprises. As part of the Atlassian family, its biggest plus is how deeply it connects with tools like Jira, which makes it the go-to choice for software development and technical teams.

Its entire structure is built around "Spaces" (think dedicated folders for teams or projects) and a pretty rigid page tree. This top-down approach enforces consistency and makes it easier to find information, even when you have thousands of documents. Atlassian Intelligence is the AI engine that powers Confluence, helping teams generate and summarize content within its structured environment. It’s less of a blank canvas and more of a well-organized library, designed for clarity and scale.

Notion vs Confluence: A head-to-head feature comparison

While both Notion and Confluence can act as your team's central knowledge hub, they get there in very different ways. Their core philosophies on structure, integrations, and who they're for create pretty distinct experiences. Let's break down the key differences.

Structure and organization: Flexibility vs. hierarchy

Notion’s approach is like playing with digital Lego blocks. You can start with a blank page and build whatever you can imagine, from a simple to-do list to a complex database that tracks all your projects.

• Pro: It's incredibly adaptable. You can mold it to fit just about any workflow your team dreams up.

• Con: But all that freedom has a downside. Without some strict team discipline, it's easy to get lost in endless customization, leading to a disorganized workspace where nobody can find anything.

Confluence takes a more traditional, top-down approach. Everything lives inside a Space, and pages are organized in a strict parent-child tree.

• Pro: This structure forces organization from the get-go, which is a lifesaver for large teams. It makes sure information is easy to find and navigate, even as the company grows.

• Con: For creative projects or less-structured work, it can feel a bit rigid. You have to work within its system, which doesn't suit every team's style.

Integrations and ecosystem

Notion has a growing list of integrations and a solid API, but its real talent is in embedding content from other tools. You can pull in a Figma file, a Google Map, or a Loom video and have it live right on your Notion page, making it a great central dashboard.

Confluence’s main advantage is its spot in the Atlassian family. The Atlassian Marketplace has thousands of apps, but the real magic is the seamless, deep integration with Jira, Trello, and Bitbucket. For technical teams, this creates a powerful, interconnected workflow where documentation in Confluence is directly linked to development tasks in Jira.

Notion vs Confluence: Use cases and target audience

Notion really shines when used for company wikis, meeting notes, managing lightweight projects, and even personal productivity. It’s a hit with startups, marketing teams, and HR departments who need a flexible, all-in-one tool.

Confluence is king for technical documentation, software project planning, and as an enterprise-grade internal knowledge base. It's the default choice for engineering, IT, and product teams who need a reliable source of truth that connects directly to their development work.

Feature	Notion	Confluence
Core Structure	Flexible, block-based pages & databases	Structured, hierarchical Spaces & pages
Best For	All-in-one workspace, creative teams, SMBs	Enterprise knowledge management, technical teams
Key Integration	Slack, Google Drive, Figma (embeds)	Jira, Trello, Bitbucket (deep, native integration)
Customization	Extremely high; build your own systems	Moderate; templates and macros within a set structure
Task Management	Built-in (Kanban boards, lists, timelines)	Basic, relies heavily on Jira integration
AI Assistant	Notion AI (Add-on)	Atlassian Intelligence (Included in higher tiers)

This video provides a full breakdown of the Notion vs Confluence debate to help you decide which tool wins for your team in 2025.

The AI showdown: Notion AI vs Atlassian Intelligence

Both platforms have jumped on the AI bandwagon, hoping to make it easier to find answers and get work done. They've built assistants that can summarize long documents, draft content from a simple prompt, and help you polish your writing. On the surface, they seem pretty similar, but their limitations reveal a pretty big gap for most teams.

What the native AI does well

Both Notion AI and Atlassian Intelligence are genuinely useful for tasks inside their own worlds. Need a summary of a 10-page project plan your team wrote in Confluence? Atlassian Intelligence can handle that. Want to brainstorm blog post ideas on a Notion page? Notion AI is great for it. They are effective for creating and summarizing content, as long as you stay within their walls.

The big limitations of native AI

The problem is, your company's real knowledge doesn't live in just one place. This is where both platforms fall short.

• Knowledge Silos: This is the biggest flaw. Notion AI only knows what's in Notion. Atlassian Intelligence only knows what's in Confluence and Jira. But what about that important conversation that happened in Slack? Or the official company policy that's stored in Google Docs? Neither AI can see that information, so the answers they give are incomplete.

• Limited Context: Your company's most valuable knowledge often comes from conversations with your customers. Just think about all the questions, problems, and solutions buried in your past support tickets in Zendesk or Intercom. Neither Notion AI nor Atlassian Intelligence can access this goldmine of information to learn your brand voice or understand what your customers actually need.

• They Can't Take Action: These AI assistants are passive. They can give you information, but they can't do anything for you in the other tools you use every day. They can't look up a customer's order status in Shopify or automatically tag and escalate a ticket in your helpdesk. They're stuck in their own little bubble.

Pricing: Notion vs Confluence

Let's talk money, because it’s a huge part of the decision. It's important to look at the total cost, including any AI add-ons. Here’s how Notion and Confluence stack up.

Notion pricing plans

Notion offers a few tiers for different team sizes.

• Free: Good for individuals, with unlimited pages and blocks but a 10-guest limit.

• Plus: $10 per user/month, with unlimited file uploads and a 30-day page history.

• Business: $18 per user/month, adding features like SAML SSO and private teamspaces.

• Enterprise: Custom pricing for advanced controls, security, and a dedicated success manager.

The most important thing to know is that Notion AI is a paid add-on. It costs an extra $10 per user per month, which can nearly double your bill and seriously increase the total cost for your team.

Confluence pricing plans

Confluence's pricing is also tiered and tends to get more cost-effective for larger teams.

• Free: For up to 10 users with a 2GB storage limit.

• Standard: Starts at $6.05 per user/month, increasing storage to 250GB and adding permissions.

• Premium: Starts at $11.55 per user/month, offering unlimited storage, analytics, and 24/7 support.

• Enterprise: Custom pricing, designed for global scale and security.

With Confluence, Atlassian Intelligence is included in the Premium and Enterprise plans, but it's not available on the Free or Standard tiers. So, to get AI, you have to commit to their more expensive plans.

Key pricing takeaways

For small teams, Notion's starting price might look good, but the cost scales directly with each new user, and the AI add-on is a big extra expense. Confluence can be cheaper for bigger teams, but getting its AI features requires a pricey upgrade. Both options can be a challenge for teams who need powerful AI without a massive budget.

The solution beyond Notion vs Confluence: Unify your knowledge with eesel AI

The limits of siloed, built-in AI show that we need a different way of thinking. Instead of an AI that’s trapped inside one tool, modern teams need an intelligent layer that connects all of their knowledge, no matter where it lives. This is exactly what we built at eesel AI.

• Unify all your scattered knowledge: eesel AI plugs directly into all the tools your team already uses. That means it can connect to both Notion and Confluence at the same time, along with Google Docs, Slack, your helpdesk, and over 100 other apps. It breaks down those knowledge silos to give your team complete, accurate answers from a single source.

• Train on what really matters: Unlike the others, eesel AI has the unique ability to learn from your team's historical support tickets. It analyzes past conversations to understand your brand voice, common customer issues, and proven solutions. This gives it a level of real-world context that other AIs just can't get.

• Go live in minutes, not months: We believe getting started with AI shouldn't take months and a team of developers. We made eesel AI a self-serve platform with one-click integrations. You can sign up and get a working AI assistant for free in just a few minutes, without ever having to talk to a salesperson.

• Take control with a customizable workflow engine: eesel AI does more than just answer questions. You can fully customize its personality, limit its knowledge to specific topics, and even create custom actions. It can look up order information, tag and triage tickets, or call an external API, giving you a level of control that generic AI assistants can't offer.

Notion vs Confluence: Making the right choice for your team

So, when it comes to the big Notion vs Confluence debate, who wins? The honest answer is, it depends on your team.

• Notion is the clear winner for teams that need an all-in-one, highly flexible workspace and value being able to customize everything.

• Confluence is the best choice for larger, technically-focused teams that need a structured knowledge base with deep connections to the Atlassian ecosystem.

But both of them fall short when it comes to their built-in AI. Because their intelligence is trapped within their own platforms, they can't see the full picture of your company's knowledge.

The "Notion vs Confluence" question often misses the bigger picture. The best solution isn't about picking one tool over the other; it's about finding a system that can bring together the knowledge from all the different tools your team uses every single day.

Ready to break down your knowledge silos and give your team an AI assistant that works everywhere? Try eesel AI for free and see how it can boost your Notion, Confluence, and entire tech stack.