Company Hub licenses requirement

[John Lucero]

To utilize company hub does all my users need a Confluence license?

[Ollie Guan · Accepted solution]

Hi @John Lucero ,

In the official Atlassian documentation, the specific text regarding Company Hub licensing and access is as follows:

1. Regarding Plan Requirements

The documentation explicitly states the plan limitation:

Original Text: "This feature is only offered with Confluence Cloud Premium and Enterprise."

— Source: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/create-and-customize-a-company-hub/

2. Regarding Access Visibility

The documentation describes who can see the hub once it is live:

Original Text: "Once you select Publish, everyone at your company will be able to access and view the hub from the top left of the navigation."

— Source: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/manage-your-company-hub/

3. Key Logic Clarification

• Definition of "Everyone": In Confluence Cloud, the navigation bar is only visible to authenticated users with active product access.

• Unlicensed Access: There is no mention in the official docs supporting access for anonymous users or unlicensed JSM customers. The Hub is defined as an internal tool to "connect teams and resources," which necessitates a Confluence license.

[John Lucero]

Thank you!

[joao zampa]

We are on the same boat here, and it seems that lack of view access is just pushing users away from Confluence.

We are considering using this as an intranet option, but if we have to give everyone in the company to be able to view the content, then it makes it not financial viable and we will try to find a solution that does not involve Confluence. 

I understand Atlassian's concern here, as allowing view access would probably reduce their revenue, I just want to raise awareness that lack of view access or license (maybe a way cheaper license) has been a blocker for us to increase adoption of the tool internally. 

[Rob Hean]

Heya @John Lucero , @Ollie Guan nailed it. The company hub is treated like other content and requires a license to view.

Personally this makes sense given it's intended to be used for people at a company to find information / serve as a hub for internal documentation.

Curious your use case for external access? Asking as many groups do use confluence for that, however, they'll typically open a single space for public access (e.g. product documentation). 

[John Lucero]

I was looking at it as an internal central place for information. I have created SharePoint hub sites for just this use. Internal use only not external but we do not provide Confluence or Jira licenses to everyone in the org so that is why I asked the question. If I have to provide everyone a license to view the content then it will not serve our needs. Granted Sharepoint is no different but at the time I had MS licenses for everyone because it was part of M365 which everyone needed to have a license to use email etc.