Shared Hosting vs. Confluence Team Hosted

Adaptavist's Shared Hosting service is not the same as Atlassian's Confluence Hosted service - this page explains the difference between the two services...

How to make your decision...

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Requirement	Important to you?	Atlassian	Adaptavist	Notes
Cost				The costing model from Atlassian is per-user, for us it's per-server or by memory consumption - this makes it tough to compare on cost alone. If you already have a license, or are eligible for an academic or non-profit license, treat Adaptavist as a
Host more than 50 users?				Adaptavist's Shared Hosting service scales to Confluence Unlimited license (unlimited users).
10GB disk space?				Adaptavist provide less disk space, but very few customers have ever needed more.
Less than 3 month's hosting?				You can download a free 30-day evaluation of Confluence and host it on your PC.
More than 1 year hosting?				Once you have a license, Adaptavist's hosting is cheaper. Adaptavist's hosting plan is scalable to higher Shared Hosting bands and then to Dedicated Hosting if your site continues to grow.
Segregation from other customers				If this is a critical requirement, also review our Dedicated Hosting service.
Download nightly backups				Use our free Backup Manager plugin. Not possible with Atlassian's service.
Full application functionality				You have complete access to all areas of the application - Confluence Hosted has restrictions, we are equivalent to the installed version.
Installation of plugins				Plugins increase RAM consumption and may require a higher hosting band.
Customisation				Adaptavist's hosting includes Theme Builder free of charge.
License ownership				Adaptavist offer a 10% discount on licenses purchased with hosting.
Performance				If you need maximum performance, see Dedicated Hosting.

Remember that the two services have some key differences, please read this page carefully before making a decision.

Atlassian's "Confluence Hosted"

Atlassian's service is a "Software as a Service" (SaaS) offering where multiple organisations share a single un-clustered Confluence application:

There's one Confluence application and organisations from around the world (which could include competitors and certainly lots of companies you've never heard of) rent space within that installation. You don't get full administration privileges and you can't install plugins. However, set-up costs are significantly cheaper because you don't need a Confluence license - you're just renting space within Atlassian's Confluence license.

Atlassian's service is best suited to organisations that:

• have a tight budget - there's no up-front licensing costs
• don't need to customise the wiki with plugins or themes
• need 50 or less user accounts
• don't require isolation from other organisations
• don't need to retain version history, etc., when moving to a different hosting solution

Adaptavist's "Shared Hosting"

Adaptavist's service is similar but instead of customers renting space in one Confluence application, each customer gets their own individual Confluence or JIRA application, disk space and database:

Each organisation has an individual, self-contained Confluence (or JIRA) application. You can of course allow other organisations to access your application - you have full administrative control over your application and it's users.

If required an organisation can host several individual applications, all of which are under the full control of that organisation and are not shared with other organisations.

Adaptavist's service is best suited to organisations that:

• require ownership of the software license
• require isolation from other organisations
• require 50 or more user accounts
• require full wiki functionality, including installation of plugins and themes

Cost Comparison

This is a difficult comparison to make, as the two services are fundamentally different. With Atlassian's service you're renting space on their wiki, with Adaptavist's service you get a complete wiki to yourself - you own your wiki and everything in it.

Please read the text below carefully so you are fully aware of the cost factors involved should your decision be made on a cost-only basis.

The key cost difference is licensing - you don't need a license with Atlassian's service but you do with Adaptavist's service.

The table below shows the costs for hosting over a 12 month period, which includes the maximum discounts offered by both vendors.

Number of User Accounts	25	50	100	250	500	Unlimited
Atlassian Cost per year	$890	$1,490
Adaptavist Cost per year	$648 Bronze	$1,080 Silver	$1,080 Silver	$1,728 Gold	$1,728 Gold	$2,592 Platinum

Notes:

• Confluence/JIRA license fees are not included in the table above. Adaptavist offer a 10% discount on hosted licenses fees.
• An exchange rate of 1 GBP to 2 USD has been used, whereas the actual exchange rate is often something like 1:1.95 thus making Adaptavist prices shown above more expensive than they actually are - please see xe.com for current exchange rates
• The hosting band shown is based on the average band used by our customers for the number of users. Depending on your use of Confluence you may require a higher or lower hosting band depending on how much RAM you use - we recommend starting on a lower band and only upgrade if needed. For more information see Factors affecting RAM consumption.
• Atlassian's SaaS service does not provide hosting for over 50 users.
• Adaptavist offer a 20% hosting discount for non-profit organisations, this discount has not been included in the figures above.

License Fees

When you host with Atlassian, you do not require a license - you simply rent space on their license of the application.

When you host with Adaptavist, you will require a Commercial or Academic license (unless you are a non-profit organisation in which case the license is free). Adaptavist offer a 10% discount on license fees which are hosted with us.

If you already have a license, you don't need to buy one from us. Simply host your existing license - we'll transfer the data free of charge.

Notes:

• The license is owned by you, not Adaptavist. You can transfer your wiki to any other hosting provider or host it within your own data centre.
• The license key is sent directly from Atlassian, it is a full license and is exactly the same as you would get if you purchased directly from Atlassian, just 10% cheaper.
• The license is perpetual, it lasts forever and does not expire.
• Yes, we have customers who host with us for just 3 months to get the cheaper Enterprise and Unlimited licenses