XWiki vs Confluence
XWiki is a European alternative to Confluence: same office & collaboration use case, headquartered in France and governed by EU GDPR, while Confluence (Atlassian) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- Yes
- Free tier
- No
The default wiki for teams already deep in Jira, with page trees, whiteboards and integrations that make leaving feel expensive. A free plan covers 10 users, then Standard runs about 5.42 dollars per user per month billed annually. Atlassian moved its incorporation from the UK to Delaware in October 2022, so the parent is now an American company.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
XWiki vs Confluence at a glance
| XWiki | Confluence | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need office & collaboration built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Atlassian ecosystem |
Choose XWiki if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- Open-source code and self-hosting matter to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Confluence if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Atlassian ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About XWiki
XWiki is an open-source structured wiki platform that helps organisations capture, organise, and reuse internal knowledge through collaborative pages, nested spaces, and app-like structured data. Teams replace siloed docs and shadow knowledge with one searchable knowledge base where content survives staff turnover and employees stop wasting the 20% of their time spent hunting for information.
Under the hood XWiki is a fully extensible platform where pages can be enriched with custom applications, forms, macros, and workflows, turning a wiki into an intranet, CRM, or compliance system. Available as XWiki Cloud or fully self-hosted on-premise, it integrates with LDAP/SSO, Office, and Matrix, and ships with curated editions: Standard, Pro, and Business Apps for ready-to-use solutions.
Key benefits:
- Structured wiki with nested spaces, rich macros, and powerful full-text search
- Open source core fully auditable and free from vendor lock-in
- On-premise deployment for sensitive, air-gapped, or regulated environments
- Business Apps deliver CRM, meetings, procedures, and compliance out of the box
- Extensible platform build custom internal tools with forms and workflows
- LDAP and SSO for enterprise identity and granular access control
XWiki SAS is headquartered in Paris, France, and hosts XWiki Cloud inside the European Union with full GDPR compliance. Customers can alternatively self-host on their own infrastructure to meet sovereign, defence, or health-data requirements, giving European organisations a credible alternative to US-owned knowledge platforms like Confluence or Notion.
Trusted by 800+ teams worldwide, including Amazon (~20,000 active users), SNCF, SCOR, CNFPT, Lenovo, and Naval Group for mission-critical knowledge management.
Why choose XWiki over Confluence?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Confluence is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
XWiki removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.