Flexible Space Navigation migration story: moving a Confluence app to Atlassian Forge

Atlassian Forge Migration for Confluence Apps: Why We Rebuilt Flexible Space Navigation on Forge

Atlassian Forge has become one of the most important platforms for building secure and scalable cloud apps in the Atlassian ecosystem. In this post, we share why we migrated Flexible Space Navigation, a Confluence app, to a Forge-based architecture and what we learned during the migration.

What is Atlassian Forge?

Atlassian Forge is a cloud app development platform provided by Atlassian. It allows developers to build apps that run directly on Atlassian products such as Confluence and Jira.

Atlassian Forge architecture for building Confluence apps on Atlassian Cloud

Key features of Atlassian Forge include:

• Serverless architecture powered by Atlassian infrastructure
• Built-in security model for Forge apps
• Deep integration with Atlassian APIs

These capabilities allow developers to focus on building Forge apps without managing infrastructure.

Why We Migrated to Atlassian Forge

Flexible Space Navigation is an app developed by Open Source Consulting to manage navigation in Confluence. As Atlassian Cloud evolved, we needed to redesign the app architecture to better align with the platform.

Migration from external hosting to Atlassian Forge for a Confluence app

We chose Atlassian Forge for three main reasons.

1. Security by default

Forge runs on Atlassian’s platform-level security model, providing strong security controls by default. This makes Atlassian Forge a compelling platform for teams that want to build secure cloud apps.

Atlassian Forge security model for secure cloud app development

2. Reliable and uninterrupted service operations

Because Forge apps run on the Atlassian platform, they provide a stable operating environment without requiring separate infrastructure management. This enables a more reliable and consistent experience for users.

3. Seamless integration with Atlassian Cloud

Atlassian Forge is designed for deep integration with Atlassian Cloud, making it a strong foundation for long-term scalability.

Atlassian Forge Migration Process

Migrating to Atlassian Forge was more than a simple technical change. We restructured the application to fit the Forge environment while preserving existing functionality.

Atlassian Forge migration process for rebuilding Flexible Space Navigation

Our focus was on:

• Maintaining existing Confluence navigation features
• Designing a Confluence Cloud-optimized Forge architecture
• Minimizing changes to the Confluence user experience

Confluence navigation interface after migration to Atlassian Forge

From the user’s perspective, the navigation experience remains consistent, with minimal changes to the UI and behavior.

Real-World Atlassian Forge App Experience

After the migration, the app has been successfully deployed in real customer environments. One notable case involved VDI-based, closed network environments with restricted external access. Despite these constraints, Flexible Space Navigation operated reliably.

Customers shared feedback such as:

The app runs quickly and reliably without requiring external firewall exceptions.

This demonstrates that Forge-based apps can perform reliably even in enterprise environments.

Using Atlassian Forge for Confluence at Scale

Flexible Space Navigation is also being used in large-scale Confluence environments. Typical use cases include:

• Thousands of Confluence spaces
• Multi-team Confluence instances
• Organization-based navigation structures

In these scenarios, navigation management becomes a critical operational factor. Flexible Space Navigation helps manage Confluence navigation in a structured and scalable way.

Conclusion

The Atlassian Cloud ecosystem continues to evolve, and Atlassian Forge has become a key platform for building cloud apps. Flexible Space Navigation will continue to expand its Confluence navigation capabilities based on its Forge architecture. We hope this experience provides helpful insights for teams building or operating apps in the Atlassian Cloud.