Guide As of October 2026
Confluence Data Center is ending. Here is how to plan the move.
Atlassian is retiring its Data Center products, Confluence included. Teams that cannot or will not hand their docs to someone else’s cloud have to decide now. This guide covers what happens when, which paths exist and how to move without downtime.
The timeline
No new sales
New customers can no longer buy Data Center subscriptions or Data Center apps from the Marketplace.
Last renewal
Until then, existing customers can renew and add users. After that, neither is possible.
End of life
Subscriptions and Marketplace apps expire. Confluence Data Center becomes read-only; no new content can be added.
Until end of life, Atlassian says it provides technical support and security fixes for critical issues.
What it means for you
The deadline is closer than it looks
A grown Confluence has spaces, permissions, macros, attachments and thousands of links. Selection, approvals, a pilot and the move take months. With renewals ending in March 2028, the realistic decision point is 2027.
Read-only means no more runbook updates
Incident runbooks, onboarding, compliance evidence: docs live by staying current. From the cutoff, nothing can be added in Confluence Data Center.
The intended path is Atlassian Cloud
That works for many teams. Others may not put their content in a US cloud, because of contracts, industry rules or internal policy. They need an alternative.
Alternatives to Confluence Data Center
Three paths, compared plainly. Which one fits depends mostly on where your data may live and who runs it.
Atlassian Cloud
The path Atlassian intends. Features and apps partly differ from Data Center. Check data location and contracts with your data protection team early.
Run another tool yourselves
You keep running your own, but take on selection, setup, updates and the migration yourselves.
UpSpec
A knowledge platform with a real-time editor, tasks and AI. Hosted exclusively in Germany or on your own servers. SSO, roles and audit log included.
From Confluence to UpSpec
The names change, the way you work hardly does. This is where your team finds things:
| In Confluence | In UpSpec |
|---|---|
| Space | Project with its own page tree |
| Page restrictions | Permissions on projects and single pages |
| Groups | Teams, optionally from your identity provider’s groups |
| Code, info and note macros | Code blocks and callouts |
| draw.io and Gliffy | Excalidraw drawings and Mermaid diagrams |
| Excerpt and include | Synced blocks |
| Page properties | Tags, status, owner and review date |
| Jira issues in pages | Tasks on the passage and boards |
| Page history | Named versions, compare and restore |
| Templates | Templates for the organization or a project |
| Public spaces (anonymous access) | Sites: public docs as a published release, with search, your design and your own domain |
There is no automatic Confluence import yet. We guide Enterprise customers through the move.
Migration checklist
Whatever the target: these steps save weeks later.
Take inventory
Spaces, page counts, attachments and how much of it was read or changed in the last twelve months.
Clean up before moving
Archive what is outdated instead of carrying it along. What nobody opens does not need to move.
Map permissions
Carry identity provider groups, space permissions and restricted pages over to the new role model.
Review macros and apps
Which are really used, and which does the new tool replace, such as diagrams, status or tables of contents?
Pilot with one team
One team, one space, real work. Then space by space, not everything at once.
Redirect links
Redirect old Confluence addresses to the new pages so bookmarks and tickets keep working.
How UpSpec helps
UpSpec is not a Confluence clone but a lean wiki for engineering, product and ops teams. For the move, this is what counts:
- Hosted in Germany or on your own servers (self-hosting in early access)
- Sign-in with OIDC SSO, roles from your identity provider’s groups
- Fine-grained permissions down to single pages, permission and structure changes in the audit log
- Import from Markdown and Notion exports today; we accompany Enterprise customers moving from Confluence
- Public docs as a site straight from the wiki, with preview, rollback and your own domain
- No lock-in: export pages, trees or the whole organization as Markdown
Let’s plan your move.
One conversation, your requirements, a realistic timeline. No obligation.