Navitabs – Navigation Macros for Confluence vs. Confluence Built-in Tabs: 2026 Comparison

TL;DR

Since July 2026, Confluence Cloud has had a built-in tabs element: type /tabs and split a page into horizontal tabs. For short pages, that’s often all you need.
Navitabs is for documentation that has outgrown that. It builds tabs from pages you already have, supports vertical and nested tabs, and keeps navigation on-brand across spaces. Below we compare both side by side so you can decide which fits your setup.

Availability and plans

Native tabs are part of Confluence Cloud and are rolling out gradually, so you may not see them on every instance yet.

Navitabs runs on Commercial Cloud, Atlassian Government Cloud and Isolated Cloud.

	Navitabs	Confluence tabs (native)
Deployment	Commercial, Government and Isolated Cloud	Confluence Cloud
Setup	Insert with /Tab Wizard (guided)	Insert with /tabs
Cost	Marketplace app, free 30-day trial	Included in Confluence

Feature-by-feature comparison

Capability	Navitabs	Confluence tabs (native)
Horizontal tabs	✅	✅
Vertical tabs	✅	❌ (announced as planned)
Nested tabs	✅	❌ (not at launch)
Content written inside the tab	✅	✅
Tabs from existing pages	✅	❌
Tabs generated from a page tree or labels	✅	❌
Source-page edits flow into tabs	✅	❌
Dropdowns, cards, steps and progress bars	✅	❌
Per-tab styling (colour, emoji)	✅	✅
Central design panel and reusable styles	✅	❌
Brand colours across spaces	✅	❌
Guided setup	✅ /Tab Wizard	❌
Atlassian Government Cloud and Isolated Cloud	✅	❌

More than tabs: one navigation system

Native tabs give you exactly that: tabs. Navitabs puts several navigation elements in one app, all using the same central design:

• Tabs: horizontal, vertical or nested, built from existing pages, generated from parent pages or labels, or written directly
• Cards: visual entry points to key pages or sections with solid or transparent layout
• Dropdowns: compact menus for long lists of pages
• Steps: step-by-step flows for processes and onboarding
• Progress bars: show readers where they are in a multi-step process

Because they all share the same styles and brand colors, a knowledge base, PMO space or intranet looks and works the same across teams.

The real cost of “free”

Native tabs cost nothing in licenses, but they can cost time:

1. Duplicate content. Content gets copied into tabs instead of reused from existing pages, so there are two versions to maintain.
2. Manual styling. Teams style every tab group by hand, page by page.
3. Inconsistent navigation. Each team builds it differently in each space.
4. Rebuilds. You have to redo layouts when you need more than horizontal tabs.

Navitabs moves that work to a one-time setup. Set up navigation and design once, reuse them everywhere, and let changes to source pages flow into the tabs.

Which one should you choose?

Stick with native tabs if your pages are short, need only a few horizontal tabs, and branding and consistency across spaces don’t matter much.

Choose Navitabs if Confluence is business-critical for documentation, onboarding or internal knowledge, if you want existing page trees shown as tabs without duplicating content or if your spaces span several teams and departments. It’s also the clear choice if you run on Atlassian Government Cloud or Isolated Cloud.

You don’t have to choose just one: the two coexist. Most teams keep native tabs for simple pages and use Navitabs where structure, reuse and branding matter most, such as knowledge bases, PMO spaces and intranets.