External Share for Confluence versus Atlassian’s Guest Users Feature

Atlassian has recently unveiled its Confluence Guest Users capability, and people have been asking us what the differences are between this built-in feature and our software - the External Share for Confluence.

 

Before we dive into further detail, here is a helpful comparison table from Old Street Solutions that highlights the differences.

 

What does the Atlassian's Confluence Guest Users functionality do?

 

You can now add five free guest users per licensed user to a particular space in your Confluence instance using this new feature. With the exception of having access to a single space, these guest users can do so much like internal, licensed users. Within that space, they will have the ability to contribute comments and attachments, as well as create and update pages.

 

What does Confluence's External Share do?

 

The External Share for Confluence enables you to make secure links to particular Confluence pages, page trees, or spaces. After that, you are free to distribute the links to as many unlicensed users as you like. However, it does not allow you to add unlicensed users to your Confluence instance.

What is the difference in user experience for Guest Users versions External Share?

 

With the built-in Guest Users functionality, external and unlicensed users can perform nearly all of the same functions as a licensed user, with the exception of having access to just one space (unless a Confluence space admin will restrict access at the user level).

 

On the other hand, using External Share for Confluence, users can see and post comments and attachments to shared Confluence pages. However, they are unable to add new pages to Confluence or edit the content on existing ones. In essence, visitors to your shared Confluence pages have "read-only" access to them.

 

Which is more useful for external collaboration?

 

It depends on what type of collaboration you intend to happen...

 

Ongoing or permanent collaborations

 

You may want to use Atlassian's built-in capability to add the external user as a guest user to your space if you are often or permanently collaborating with that person.

 

One-off, limited collaborations

 

If you want a contractor, partner, or customer to examine just one Confluence page or page tree but not an entire space, Atlassian's Guest Users feature may not be the best option. In such cases, you would need to use External Share for Confluence to share the pertinent page(s) with them. 

 

External Share only takes a few clicks so it is a more convenient feature for sending content for quick review. The process of adding users to your instance requires additional time, effort and planning.

 

Additionally, using External Share will prevent you from forgetting to delete a user you are working with on a temporary basis from your instance once the project is completed. Many Confluence administrators detest managing issues with access such as adding or removing users so you're also sparing them from that headache.

Collaboration across multiple Confluence spaces

 

There may be occasions when you require your external collaborator to look at data or content that is spread across multiple Confluence spaces. In this situation, you should give the unlicensed user access to all the applicable spaces. With the Guest Users feature, you can't add a guest user to multiple spaces at a time but with External Share for Confluence, you can share the links to an unlicensed user to as many places as you'd like.

On-page collaboration

 

The Guest Users feature of Atlassian gives external users editing privileges. However, in situations where you only want the external user to review content without editing it, External Share for Confluence is more appropriate to use. With External Share, the content is read-only but the user can add comments and attachments. Coming soon in External Share is the option to let an external user edit content, but that is if you allow it to. With Atlassian's Guest Users, editing access for guest users is not optional but inherent to the access given.

 

Collaboration with Jira users

A sister app to External Share for Confluence called External Share for Jira enables you to share entire agile boards and live Jira issues with external users. With this feature, external users can add comments and attachments to every issue. External users can also move issues between statuses. 

 

If you are working on Jira and Confluence, you can delegate tasks to anyone who isn't on your instance using a Jira issue. Additionally, you can get the External Share for Jira for free when you purchase External Share for Confluence (and vice versa).

 

Currently, there are no plans to add Guest Users as a built-in functionality to Jira.

Who can use Atlassian’s Guest Users feature?

 

Only Confluence admins can add or remove guest users to a space.

 

Who can use External Share for Confluence?

Users of Confluence can share their pages with anyone by creating External Share links for their pages. Individual users can also choose whether or not their external collaborators can view or comment on a particular content. (You can choose to limit which internal users can create links and to monitor the created links.)

 

Which is more efficient?

Any user can quickly and easily utilize External Share to generate a shareable link to a Confluence page, page tree, or Confluence space. Checking tick boxes gives you granular control over what your external users can do, such as see or contribute comments or attachments, and see or not see child pages. 

 

Additionally, external users can easily access the pages by clicking the link you shared. You can also limit which external users can access your links, so external users will need an External Share account to log in. 

With the Guest Users feature, only Confluence administrators can add external users to the space and specify their permissions. And if it is a one-off collaboration, admins must also remember to remove them once the project is completed. If you frequently collaborate with multiple external users, it will be an additional task for the admins which could end up happening frequently. Guest users will have to log in to access pages, which requires more time than just clicking an External Share link to open.

Which is better for security?

Although it's fair to argue that External Share offers more security settings than Atlassian's Guest Users functionality, the security is different. For example, guest users must first be added to your instance and are then always required to be logged in. With External Share, you may protect your shared links with passwords and expiration dates. Additionally, you have the choice to limit the external users who can access your shareable links so that links can't be accessed by anyone. 

 

As previously mentioned, Atlassian's Guest Users allows external users to have the same powers as licensed users within the confines of a single space.

Which is more restrictive?

 

With Atlassian's Guest Users feature, you can only add five guest users per paid user to a Confluence space. On the other hand, External Share lets you create an unlimited number of links for pages and spaces and share them with as many external users as you like. You can customize the expiration date and permissions for each link.

 

Moreover, the number of guest users you can add will be counted towards your Confluence site user limit which can't exceed 35K. For large firms looking to collaborate with a lot of outside partners and contractors, this could be an issue. For those companies, External Share for Confluence, which has no such restrictions, would be a better option.

Standout Benefit of External Share for Confluence: Custom Links and Domains

 

One of the standout benefits of using External Share is the ability to create custom links. By setting up a custom domain, you can specifically have all links—to pages, page trees, and entire spaces—come from your website. Each link can also be completely customized by deleting the standard 16-digit number and altering the URL to something more relevant. This implies that you can use External Share to build a comprehensive knowledge base that is entirely branded with your business and can provide continuity of service to clients and partners.

 

The custom links and domains are not available in the Guest Users feature as it doesn't allow creating shareable links.

 

Wrap Up

 

Different types of collaborations can benefit from either External Share for Confluence and Atlassian's Guest Users feature.

 

• It makes sense to add a contractor, partner or customer as a guest user using Atlassian's Guest Users feature if you want them to collaborate with them continuously or permanently in a whole space. 
• External Share for Confluence would be a better choice for one-time or temporary collaboration, or in situations where you only want to share specific pages. 
• With the help of Atlassian's guest users capability, an external user can edit material on Confluence pages just like an internal one. If you only want a customer or collaborator to review content or document without editing it, External Share would be a perfect fit.
• External Share is far easier to use and maintain, gives more sharing and security options, and has the added advantage of allowing you to create unique domains and links for your Confluence spaces and pages.