Is there still a strong case for using Miro?

[Staffan Redelius]

Hi Community,

I work in a organization that have used Miro for whiteboards for some time. Mainly because there was no such functionality in Confluence earlier.

We are looking at streamlining the application portfolio and would like to use Confluence whiteboards going forward.

I hope you can help me with some input since I am not a heavy user of Whiteboards. 

• Is there still some good arguments for keeping Miro or has Confluence whiteboards cathced up feature-wise? 
• We are currently on Confluence Standard, would we need to upgrade to Premium to be able to do a fair comparison and/or replace Miro standard functionality?

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

Best regards,
/Staffan

[Markus Witschi]

Yes. I prefer Miro because auf its usability. Furthermore, I started to establish a whiteboard in confluence, but now I can’t edit anymore due to atlassian‘s suboptimal management of licences. I will never get back to whiteboard in confluence.

[Ken Power]

I agree, can only use one or two per space

[Kristian Klima]

Hi @Staffan Redelius 

It depends on your needs, really. I hope that the following will make your decision making more focused.

Speaking from experience, it's usually couple of people who need advanced diagraming features and they would make a good case for buying an app like that.

But unless the entire operation lives and dies on diagraming and charting (yes, I'm exaggerating :) ), the app gets criminally underutilized. Those few ocassional use-cases can be addressed by a dedicated app away from Confluence and only shared on Confluence/Jira etc. when needed as PNGs or PDFs or via iFrame, etc.

And of course, there's the cost - is buying an app subscription cheaper than upgrading Confluence to Premium?

Would Premium upgrade provide better value overall (with all other features) than an app? Or are the app's features so important that I'm willing to sacrifice Confluence Premium features?

Over time, my decisions went both ways - Standard with apps, Premium without apps.

[Staffan Redelius]

Thanks for your input @Kristian Klima 

We are using the Draw.io plugin in Confluence for process diagrams and system sketches. I think that works very well and it is easy to embed the diagram directly in the Confluence page. (it is not live or die, but it is very convenient and easy to update 😂)

It feels like Whiteborads are more used as a doodle board for distributed teams during brainstorming sessions, planning or retros. It might not be the strongest argument to upgrade to Premium

[Martin Vali]

I used also Draw.io but was eager to get to whiteboards because of the collaboration feature. I use WB for process mapping. It gives possibility to embed on WB as process to other WB process and if you have risk you make risk register in Jira and add that risk to correct place in the provcess. The same way for nonconformities happening in process can be higlighted

[Frode Nilsen]

Re: your two questions.

a) price

b) yes

[Martin Vali]

I have not used Miro myself but have seen others use it.

So you would not have @Markus Witschi problem of 3 whiteboards you need to get Premium and then you have I think 3000 whiteboards or so.

Why to move to confluence whiteboards

1. You can make tasks with couple of clicks from all the notes to Jira
2. You can connect Jira tasks to whiteboards with being up to date
3. Try to do that in Miro with all the connections to Jira

[Debbie Jolley]

We use Miro extensively.
Yes, we have Confluence Premium - and yes, the whiteboard functionality is improving, BUT Miro is way ahead of the game wrt whiteboard functionality.
Plus you can easily collaborate on Miro with other members of the organisation who have no other reason to consume an expensive Confluence license.
And within the Confluence the whiteboard feels kind of constrained within the boundaries of the Atlassian ecosystem whereas Miro feels exactly what it is - infinite and unfettered.

And for anyone who hasn't done so, the Miro/Jira integration is very simple - you can export/view cards (work items) on your Miro board - using JQL to determine which tickets to show on the board - and you get to see the real time updates on status/assignee etc.  Plus you can create a Jira ticket direct from Miro.
And the Dependency links display nicely in Miro

For me, Miro will remain my tool of choice for whiteboarding for a multitude of different meeting types - including using frames in a slideshow view for presentations.

[Markus Witschi]

@Martin Vali : its unacceptable, that you start using these 3 licnence and then someone else is creating a 4th whtiebord, which blocks my whitebord form editing. If i have basic, 3 licence for whiteboards are included, i want to use them!

[Staffan Redelius]

@Markus Witschi I understand that the limitation is three active whiteboards per user so it is not affected by someone else creating a whiteboard.

You can create additional whiteboards but in that case you need to make one of your existing whiteboards read-only.

But I agree, three whiteboards is a ridiculously low number if you are on Confluence standard. 

[Staffan Redelius]

Thanks for your input @Debbie Jolly 

Miro has been around for a while and have a strong userbase.

You have a good point regarding collaboration with members of the organization that are not in Confluence, they still need a Miro license i guess or can they use the free edition? 

Last time i checked this you needed the Miro Business edition ($16/month/user) to be able to integrate with Jira but that might have changed?

[Daniel Park]

Overall Miro is more capable than confluence whiteboards in many areas, however the teams may or may not be using the capabilities supplied by Miro and if they are not then confluence whiteboards will be a good fit. 

Below is a rough guide of the difference

• Retros e.g. capturing sticky notes in boxes - Confluence is good enough, no huge advantage in miro 
• Simple diagrams (From a presentation perspective) - Confluence will do, there are some limitations with sizing of text and colour selection that can be problematic 
• Working with and reviewing documentations .e.g import a PPT or PDF and add notes across it - Miro
• Working with excel like tables on the board (These miro tables integrate nicely/two way with jira) - Miro
• Creating high fidelity ppt like presentations on the board - Miro
• Complex diagrams or with user defined colors - Miro
• In board documents that don't look separate - Miro
• Reuse of board elements in multiple locations / boards - Miro
• Clearly identifiable board sections - Miro

In short look at what they are doing, if they are doing the bottom half of above stick with Miro.  If they are hardly using Miro for what it can do and just capturing sticky notes in retros and then linking them to jira issues then confluence is better and you would also get the premium features. 

I've tried to get off Miro and onto the confluence whiteboards a few time and keep returning to miro. The biggest issue is the lack of flexibility with text sizing for most of what i've been doing. 

[srivera]

I like confluence, it's getting better in a very slow pace.  But let's face it, it's still way beyong Miro or Figma.

[John Elder]

I concur completely with some of the thoughts being posted here.  For years, my organization used a 3rd party whiteboard app that integrated with Jira and was flawless in it's performance and flexibility.  When Confluence whiteboards was announced, unfortunately the app vendor chose to end-of-life their whiteboard offering and Confluence whiteboards has proved to be a pretty significant downgrade, according to my users.  Active board restrictions, lack of custom templates, usability and performance issues, and overall flow and UI have been the major complaints... and when Atlassian Sales has responded to my inquiries in the past, I have been pointed to Confluence Premium as an upgrade that will solve a number of my challenges... however that is a $30k upgrade for my org, which makes Miro a much better investment for its cost (still expensive) and performance.  

Overall, I would stick with Miro... I have not seen anything that makes me feel Confluence Whiteboards is the right direction to go when you have a high performing tool already.  Disappointed.

[James Rickards _SN_]

I've been using Confluence Whiteboards since the closed beta as well as Miro.

The cost to upgrade to Premium is cheaper than miro licenses, assuming 1:1 user ratio. 

Functional wise... Miro was superior, but now it's mostly the user's familiarity with the tool that impacts their productivity with one over the other, and where Miro seems to have stagnated, whiteboards is receiving investment.

I personally tend to lean towards Confluence Whiteboards, simply because it seems to keep a consistent scale to the boards, and the close integration with jira allows things like shifting your Daily Standups to a custom built kanban board with a full 2D story board backlog.

The setup I've seen work well is : 

- Confluence Whiteboards for simple conceptual diagrams and workshops (95% of the time this is enough).

- Lucid charts for the few technical users that need really advanced diagrams.

I'd avoid Draw.io and similar plugins as you need to license this for every confluence user making it overall more expensive than lucid charts where you only need to license the document editors.