Best HTML Macro alternative for Confluence Cloud
Most people searching for an HTML macro alternative are not looking for a better snippet field. They are looking for a way to put something real and interactive on a Confluence page — a prototype, a dashboard, a small tool — and the snippet macro is the only tool they have found so far.
If that is you, the honest answer is that you want a different shape of app.
The two shapes
A snippet macro takes markup you paste into a field and renders it. One file's worth of content. Anything else — your stylesheet, your JavaScript, your images, your data — has to be inlined into that one blob or loaded from an external CDN.
A bundle app takes the folder you already have. Mini Sites for Confluence validates it, scans it for accidentally included credentials, provisions it into an isolated sandbox, and renders it inline on the page with relative paths intact.
Comparison
| Snippet-style HTML macro | Mini Sites for Confluence | |
|---|---|---|
| Input | Markup pasted into a field | A folder, up to 2,000 files |
| Multi-file (CSS/JS/images/data) | Inline it, or use a CDN | Native — nested relative paths preserved |
| Per-file / per-bundle size | Practical limit of a text field | 25 MiB / 50 MiB |
| JavaScript | Runs | Runs |
| External CDN / API calls | Usually allowed | Not allowed — bundle your assets |
| Credential scanning before publish | No | Yes — AWS/GCP keys, tokens |
| Isolation | Depends on the app | One non-routable sandbox per macro instance |
| Access control | Page permissions | Page permissions (Forge, inherited) |
| Atlassian API scopes requested | Varies | None |
| Hosting to arrange | None | None |
When the snippet macro is the right answer
Be honest with yourself before you switch:
- You are pasting a third-party embed code — a form, a video, a status badge. Use the snippet macro.
- You need to load a library from a CDN at runtime. Mini Sites' sandbox has no outbound network access; the snippet macro will suit you better.
- You want to inject CSS that restyles the Confluence page itself. That is outside a sandbox by definition.
When the bundle app is the right answer
- The thing you want to embed is a project on your disk, not a paragraph of markup.
- Reviewers should be able to click it, not read a screenshot of it.
- You do not want to stand up hosting, and you do not want a second access list to keep in sync with the page.
- You care that whatever you upload is checked for leaked credentials before it goes anywhere.
What it looks like
Thirty-five seconds, all of it a real capture: a prototype gets published from the page editor, validated and secret-scanned, and a teammate votes in it and settles the decision in the page comments.
Questions people ask
Can I migrate from an HTML macro to Mini Sites?
If your macro content is self-contained markup, save it as index.html, put any CSS/JS next to it, and
publish the folder. If it depended on a CDN, download those assets into the folder first.
Does it work on Confluence Data Center? No — Confluence Cloud only.
What happens to already-published mini sites if the licence lapses? They keep rendering. What stops is publishing new bundles.
Is there a free option? Pricing lives on the Marketplace listing — it is always current there.