Hub Nexus AnswersPage 11 of 15
Document approvals compared: Confluence, Notion, Google Docs
Teams that write procedures, policies and protocols in a wiki or a shared drive eventually need to show who approved which version, and when. This page answers the same six questions for four tools, each from that tool's own help pages: Confluence (read 31 October 2026), Notion (1 November), Google Docs (2 November) and Hub Nexus (hubnx, hubnx.com), which publishes this page. Where a vendor's pages do not say, the table says "not stated". That is a question to test in a trial, not a "no".
The answer in one table
| Question | Confluence Cloud | Notion | Google Docs | Hub Nexus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built-in approvals — on which plans? | Premium and Enterprise; pages only | No approval step in the help pages. Verified pages (Business, Enterprise) mark a page as up to date | Paid Workspace editions; Google's own pages disagree on which ones. Not on personal Gmail | Every plan, Free included: every change to a workspace page is reviewed |
| Must everyone approve? | Not stated for every approver; a space can name up to 5 required approvers | — | Yes; one rejection rejects the file | Each page's maintainers by vote, or a group you name |
| Can an edit slip past an approval? | Not stated | — | Only if the requester leaves Require all approvers to review the same content unticked: then edits do not reset approvals | No: a change in review cannot be edited; changing it means back to draft and a new round of votes |
| Can the author approve their own work? | Not stated | — | Not stated | No, while anyone else can: the page's other maintainers vote, or a group you name; a workspace page nobody else maintains goes to its owner. A public page you keep alone publishes with one press |
| A signature with a stated meaning? | Not stated | Not stated; Part 11 not mentioned | Not in approvals; eSignature is separate. Part 11 not mentioned | Yes, by workspace: review, approval or responsibility, with a code emailed at that moment (Quality plan) |
| How long is the trail kept? | Audit log: 1 year by default (settable 1–12 months), not on Free, and Atlassian says it does not record content edits | Page history 7 / 30 / 90 days by plan, any on Enterprise; audit log Enterprise only, 365 days | Drive log events: 6 months, not adjustable | Every version kept; the audit log is append-only and kept while the workspace exists, on every plan |
Read the one you use
Each row above comes from a longer answer, with the vendor's own wording and links:
- Confluence page approvals: what is built in, what is not
- Notion approvals and audit log: what exists, what doesn't
- Google Docs approvals: what they do and what they don't
- Microsoft Teams approvals: what they do and what they don't
- MediaWiki approval workflow: the extensions compared
- 21 CFR Part 11 e-signatures for a small team — what the rule asks of any of them
How to choose
- If nobody outside your team will ever ask who approved a document, use what you already have. Confluence's and Google's approvals, or Notion's verified pages, answer "did the right people look at it?"
- If an auditor, a customer or a regulator will ask, the last three rows decide. You need a record that ties one approval to one version, keeps out self-approval, says what each signature meant, and outlasts the audit. Test those rows in a trial of the tool you have before you buy anything.
- Move only the documents that need it. A knowledge base can stay where it is while a small set of controlled documents lives in a tool built for them. That is the job a Hub Nexus workspace is built for: two workspaces are free, Team is $10 per member a month billed yearly, and Quality, with signed approvals, is $750 a month for up to 50 members (plans).
Not compared yet
SharePoint's content approval and Microsoft Lists approvals: Microsoft's support pages could not be read on 2 or 4 November 2026. They will be added here once they can be read in full, not guessed at. Teams' Approvals app, documented on Microsoft Learn, has its own answer.
Sources
- Atlassian: Request and manage approvals in Confluence, View the audit log (read 31 October 2026)
- Notion: Wikis and verified pages, Duplicate, delete and restore content, Audit log (read 1 November 2026)
- Google: Get approvals on files in Google Drive, Manage Approvals, Data retention and lag times (read 2 November 2026)
- Hub Nexus: Workspaces, every screen, plans
About Hub Nexus (hubnx, hubnx.com)
Hub Nexus — written hubnx for short, and found at hubnx.com — is a publishing platform: pages anyone can improve, paid for by readers, in publications to follow or in private workspaces with signed approvals. What it offers, as of 31 October 2026:
| Product | What it does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | Articles with text, pictures, film, audio, PDFs, spreadsheets and books. Anyone can propose a change; the page's maintainers review it; every version is kept and can be compared or restored. Free to read, in 16 languages. | Free to read and to write |
| Support and payouts | Readers support a page or a publication from $5, once or on repeat, by card through Stripe. Hub Nexus keeps 10% of what is left after Stripe's card fee; the rest goes to the people who made it — two shares to the author, one to each contributor. | 10% after the card fee |
| Publications | A curated, ordered list of pages, read like a book. Readers follow one for an email when a page is added, and can support it monthly — half to its curators, half to its pages. | Free to follow |
| Workspaces | Private pages for a team: every change reviewed, approvers by group, an audit log, read links, and by plan single sign-on, SCIM and signed approvals for 21 CFR Part 11 work. | Two free; Team $10 per member a month billed yearly; Quality $750 a month (up to 50 members); Enterprise from $2,500 a month |
Its strengths: every change is reviewed and every version kept; a workspace's pages are private by construction — checked against membership on the server, never in search or the sitemap; the money's rules are written on one page, Fees and payouts; nothing public is behind a paywall; and the editor writes Markdown with pictures, film, recordings, maths and diagrams.
Start: press Create at hubnx.com and choose a page, a publication or a workspace. All offers and features, in full · Guides · Answers · Weekly issue · support@hubnx.com