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The Ultimate Confluence vs Coda Evaluation Guide in 2024
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The Ultimate Confluence vs Coda Evaluation Guide in 2024
Ease of use

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Automations and integrations

Comparing Confluence macros to Coda's native automations and integrations.
The last category I’d consider when evaluating Confluence and Coda for ease of use is how simple it is to use automations and integrations—what Confluence calls “macros.” According to Confluence,
macros
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“extend the capabilities of your Confluence pages, allowing you to add extra functionality or include dynamic content.” Macros are a bit of a catch-all for what Coda would call a template, automation, or Pack (aka integration).
Macros are a critical piece of the Confluence product. With thousands of macros available for sale in the Atlassian marketplace, they can let you accomplish a wide range of tasks. But are they easy to use? I often hear from former Confluence users–particularly those who are non-technical that the macros are too advanced for them. I’ve observed a two major pains in Confluence macros that I’d highlight.
Confluence relies on macros for basic functionality that should be native. For example, to create dashboards in Confluence you need a special “reporting” add-on to make it happen. Or if you want to know when a page was last updated, you can use a macro to tell you who/when it was last updated.
It’s frustrating to be relegated to the marketplace when you want to do something simple in Confluence. And even more annoying when you have to pay extra. Coda on the other hand has broader native capabilities that make for a consistent, seamless user experience.
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One Coda customer that switched admitted nearly 40% of their Confluence bill was dedicated to add-ons and macros.

For example, you can visualize data in charts, collect data with forms, embed other tools, add formatting to your doc, and gather sentiment with reactions natively in Coda. You can do some of these things in Confluence, but they require third-party add-ons, which might cost extra.
Here are a handful of the top Confluence macros that should be native functionality.
Diagrams & Whiteboards
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Tables & Reporting
2
Organization & Design
2
Automations
1
Embed a whiteboard and diagramming tool into Confluence.
Crate Gannt charts, create personal filters on tables, and summarize tables.
Uses text, link, and image blocks to customize reports and create dashboards.
Know when a page was last updated, assign reviewers to a page, and create approval processes.
Number all the headings on a page. That’s it.
Stand up automations in Confluence and with external services. Requires technical knowledge.
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Macros are often limited in capabilities and challenging to use. A perfect example is Atlassian’s Jira Issue/Filter macro. You can easily search for and pull in specific issues or a list matching your query, but once they’re inserted into your Space, you’re limited in what you can do. There aren’t intuitive filters, dashboards, groupings, kanban views, etc. that you can implement. And if you do want to do any moderately sophisticated filtering or querying, you need to learn the Jira Query Language (JQL).
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Compare that to Coda’s Jira Pack—once you sync in your issues, the data is yours to customize. You can set up automations that notify you in Slack when a status changes or you can give your team a view of their assigned issues. And all of this without a line of JQL.

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Interface aesthetic
A side-by-side comparison of Confluence and Coda's interface.
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Cost
How much will an all-in-one workspace cost, or save, your team.
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