Confluence’s most popular scenario among teams is acting as a repository for team documentation. Whether it’s a team hub, PRDs, or onboarding materials, teams typically employ Confluence for its familiar ‘look and feel’ compared to traditional wikis. Coda not only does team hubs well but as you’ll see below much, much more.
Coda can be used simply as a team hub or repository for documentation too, but its core features and connectivity ensure that teams never outgrow Coda. I’ll cover the most fundamental differentiators for Coda below, but for a full view, check out
Here are a few of the most fundamental differences between Confluence and Coda.
Real-time collaboration.
You’ll quickly notice that you don’t have to ‘edit’ and ‘publish’ your changes to push updates to your team. You and your team can collaborate in real-time through Coda.
Plus, the more you use Coda, the easier it gets. Confluence has ‘macros’ to create re-usable templates, but their set up and configuration process is overly complex. In Coda, you can turn any doc into a template, then quickly add it to future docs through the slash menu (aka typing ‘/’ anywhere in your doc).
Tables as simple as a list, deep as a database.
In Confluence tables, you can’t do much other than add rich text to a static grid.
Coda, on the other hand, lets you:
Set column-wide formulas that automatically compute calculations.
Connect views of the same table (no more copy and paste!).
Filter rows based on custom criteria.
Visualize your data with native charts, graphs, and even word clouds.
For instance, if you’re tracking the status of a project’s tasks, you might want the project name, due date, and directly responsible individual (DRI).
In Coda, you can make each of these column types dynamic and filter completed tasks into a connected view. When your tables talk to each other, you avoid duplicate data entry and you make sure everyone is on the same page.
Take a look (and even play around!) with the table below to see what I mean. Try changing the Status of
The most notable differences between Confluence and Coda is Coda’s high-utility formula language. Confluence is good for creating standard, wiki-esque documentation. But Coda’s superpower is connecting both structured and unstructured data through
Coda’s formula language lets you reference and connect all the different building blocks in Coda to create incredibly powerful docs. You can simply reference a task in doc like
. I found this resource very helpful when I created my first doc in Coda.
Simplify your workflows with automations.
Another advantage of using Coda over Confluence is the ability to create powerful automations in a handful of clicks. You can decide to trigger automations when a row is added to a table, at a time of day, or through webhooks.
Plus, you can connect Coda to all of your favorite tools through Packs. Once you’ve combined the power of Packs and automations, you’ll never create another Zap. As always, Maria has you covered with