Speed of the internet dashboard, perceived reaction time

 OK, 1.5 to 3 seconds

 Very fast, mostly < 1 second

Confluence requires considerably less hardware resources, especially with high volume of instances.

Searching within the system: speed, scope of function, good results

 Very basic search functions, partially bad results

Very fast, matured, type ahead, good search results, intuitive filters  

Confluence is clearly the winner, especially with daily use.

General user comfort and usability

 Still a challenge, 2010 considerably better than 2007

Very good. Have already won prices

This is the main difference. Almost everything is somehow possible in SharePoint. However, Confluence is super easy and is being used.

Templates and design for print-outs and exports

Not available

Completely via HTML, CSS for PDF and Word-Export in style  

Direct viewing of Office- und PDF-documents within the browser

Not available

Great solution. Requires Flash

Copying of pages

Not possible

Works

Some functions that are necessary for daily business simply don't exist (yet) in SharePoint.

When renaming a page: Automatic refreshing of links, that redirect from other wiki pages to the renamed page

Not available

Possible

Big and active SharePoint instances are subject to many dead links.

Simple notifications and monitoring of content

Not (easily) possible

Possible

Structuring of documents in a tree structure

Not possible

Possible

XML export of contents for use in other systems

Not possible

Possible

The portability of content in confluence is much higher.

Document templates

Not possible

Possible

Templates are very helpful to structure content and keep the layout consistent.

Number and sophistication of plugins

Almost no Plugins in Standard

In Standard alone >250 Plugins

SharePoint Foundation has almost no plugins.

Comments / Forums / Discussions

Not possible in Foundation

Possible

SharePoint allows for collaboration with comments and likes only starting with "Enterprise" license.

Videos and Multimedia content

Not possible in Foundation

Possible

SharePoint allows for Multimedia-Integration only starting with "Enterprise" license.

Integrate RSS-Feeds

Not possible in Foundation

Possible

SharePoint allows for content syndication only starting with "Enterprise" license.

Folksonomies

Not possible in Foundation

Possible

SharePoint allows for "Folksonomies" only starting with "Enterprise" license.

Editing in simple source text

XHTML-Code is nearly impossible to read

Possible

Especially experienced users (programmer, IT pros) like to use wiki markup.

Privilege settings

Possible, but complex

simply configurable

Confluence is simple and intuitive. With SharePoint, parts of pages can be blocked.

JIRA Integration

 Possible with plugin

 Easy solution

JIRA and Confluence have the same developer.

Political acceptability

Many businesses follow a "Microsoft strategy". SharePoint is often already available or installed

Often unknown, not installed.

It is often times much more complicated to establish Confluence in a business compared to SharePoint.

Excel integration

Partially Online Live Editing

 OK via Office interface