Stack Internal vs Q&A inside Confluence

First, the name

Stack Overflow renamed Stack Overflow for Teams to Stack Internal in November 2025 (Stack Overflow: Introducing Stack Internal). Its own features page says "formerly Stack Overflow for Teams". Whichever name you search for, it is the same product.

Two different approaches

• Stack Internal is its own application, separate from Confluence, built around Stack Overflow's question-and-answer format. Stack Overflow lists integrations with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, GitHub and Okta (Stack Internal FAQ), and describes bringing in content from tools such as Confluence, Slack and Microsoft Teams (Introducing Stack Internal).
• Q&A inside Confluence means an app that adds questions and answers to Confluence itself, such as Atlassian's own Questions for Confluence or a Marketplace app. Questions sit where your documentation already is, and people use the Confluence account they already have.

When Stack Internal is the better fit

• Many teams, many tools. If large parts of the company don't work in Confluence, a separate Q&A tool doesn't ask them to.
• Questions in chat. If people should ask and find answers from Slack or Microsoft Teams, Stack Internal has integrations for both.
• One Q&A place across tools. If you want questions and answers that draw on Confluence and other sources together, that is what Stack Overflow's content connectors are for.
• It already works. If your company has Stack Internal and people use it, moving usually costs more than it saves.

When Q&A inside Confluence is the better fit

• Your documentation is in Confluence. Most questions are about that documentation. With questions and answers in the same place, nobody has to guess which tool to look in.
• No extra tool. People ask where they already work, with the login they already have. There is no second tool to roll out, connect or keep in sync.
• Permissions you already manage. A Confluence app can work with the spaces and groups you already have. In AskSpace, for example, who may ask and who may answer is set per space: everyone in the space, space admins only, or chosen Confluence groups.
• Questions per team. With an app that works per space, each team keeps its own questions next to its own pages.

Four questions before you choose

• Where do the people who ask spend their day: in Confluence, or in chat and code tools?
• Where does the documentation live that the questions are about?
• Do answers need to show up in Slack or Microsoft Teams?
• Is there already a Q&A tool? Then the real question is whether people use it, not which tool is better.

An example: AskSpace

Full disclosure: I build AskSpace at Dortus. It is a Q&A app inside Confluence Cloud, per space:

• Per space. A space admin turns Q&A on in the spaces that need it; nothing changes anywhere else.
• Separate permissions. Who may ask and who may answer are set separately. Moderator groups can edit or delete any question or answer.
• Votes and one best answer. Answers get up and down votes. The person who asked, or a moderator, marks the best answer.
• Finding answers. Search looks in questions and answers, questions can carry tags, and similar questions show up while you type a new one.
• On a page. The AskSpace questions block shows the latest, unanswered or solved questions of the space on a Confluence page.
• Import and export. A space admin can import questions from a CSV file, including a simple format for any other tool (one question per row, with at most one answer), and export the questions and answers to CSV.
• Where the data lives. Questions and answers are stored in Atlassian's Forge app storage, not on Dortus servers.

AskSpace is on the Atlassian Marketplace. Getting started with AskSpace walks through the setup, and Q&A in Confluence Cloud: your options compares it with the other ways to run Q&A in Confluence.

Questions

Spotted something wrong on this page, or a way we missed? Email support@dortus.com.

See also: Questions for Confluence vs AskSpace and How to build an FAQ in Confluence Cloud