What is the difference between Confluence Cloud and Confluence On-Premises version?

[Rokesh Lakshmipathy]

I have some knowledge about confluence cloud API but when comes to Confluence On-Premises I can able to get only Confluence Server API rather than Confluence On premise .I need a proper document or explanation that On premise and Server API's are same or they are different.

[Maren · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

We're excited to share updates to Atlassian's cloud products since this question was originally posted. 

Cloud and server APIs

To address the original question, we have two sets of developers docs for Confluence: one for Confluence Cloud, and one for Confluence Server. Confluence Server is synonymous with Confluence "on-premises", as Nic mentioned.

Comparing cloud and server

Atlassian’s cloud and server products provide the same benefits – planning, tracking, collaboration, code repository management, and more – but differ in features and functionality. Check out more features and use cases for Atlassian cloud and server comparisons. For Confluence-specific questions, take a look at Functional differences in Confluence Cloud.

Scalability

With cloud, you get instant access to new feature releases and automatic upgrades, alleviating the need for manual work to your internal systems. Additionally, cloud now supports increased user and storage limits which can support most enterprise teams. At the time of this writing, sites can support up to 5,000 users and 250 GB of data.

Hosting and security

Atlassian's cloud hosting infrastructure is designed to meet the product performance and reliability standards that our global customers need. At the time of this writing, Atlassian hosts data for Jira Cloud in six different AWS regions: US (East and West), Europe (Ireland and Germany) and Asia Pacific (Sydney and Singapore). Atlassian will optimize where customer data is located based on how it's accessed around the world. Learn more about our cloud hosting infrastructure, including any new updates to hosting sites.

More resources

For more info to help you decide if moving from server to cloud is a good option for you, check out our Atlassian Cloud Migration Center. 

Hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to reach out with questions. 

[AnnWorley]

My understanding is that Server and on-premises are synonymous for self hosted Server (as opposed to Cloud) instances. The Server API doc should be accurate for on-premises instances.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

"On premises" is a widely-used but clunky and often unhelpful way to say "Server".

It's come about because a lot of people don't grasp that Cloud means "service run by Atlassian" and Server means "you, or a hosting provider, download it and run it yourselves".  On-premise is confusing because a lot of people are using Server installations running on other people's hardware, so it's not on-premise for them, and many call that "Cloud", because in wider terms, Cloud really does mean "it's on someone else's computer".

I often wish Atlassian had not renamed On-demand to Cloud, it's totally confusing for new people.

[AnnWorley]

I agree that it is counter-intuitive to call a Server instance hosted in a third-party data center "on-premises"

[thais]

The principal difference is where the instance is based: while Confluence Cloud is hosted on AWS, Confluence Server (aka on-premises or hosted version) is hosted on a server on the customer side (which the client may decide to be on their premises or on AWS, for example).

Other differences are in admin restrictions and having no access to the database and file system on the Cloud version.

Another difference is the storage limits: for Confluence Cloud 0-500 users, it is 25GB, for 500+ users, 50GB. For Confluence Server, the value will depend on the customer hardware specifications and storage configurations.

For more information, please check:
Pros and Cons of Cloud vs. Server
Restricted functions in Atlassian Cloud apps