At KnowledgeOwl, we know that picking the right knowledge base tool in a sea of options and review sites is rough.

Your knowledge base is like a virtual nest where you gather and store all of your collective product wisdom. If that’s true, your knowledge base software is the tree to your nest. It provides the structure, the organization, and the means to keep your content useful, navigable, and up to date for your audience.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s really important to find the best solution for your team and your customers.

But maybe you're a barn owl, and a hay loft is the perfect place for you. Or you're a city owl, and you prefer a skyscraper windowsill for your nest. Just like with owls, your company has unique needs and requirements, which means that not just any knowledge base tool will do.

We've created this guide to make finding that perfect solution for you just a little bit easier.

It will help you scope out what you need from your help center software, while also giving you the basics on some of the best tools out there today—a jump start on comparing knowledge base solutions without having to hit up all the review sites (unless you really want to!).

Figuring out what you need from your knowledge base software

There are so many options out there for knowledge base software, and trying to wade through them without a clear purpose and audience is like throwing a dart at a dartboard with a blindfold on—you'll still probably hit something, but probably not the bullseye.

There are three questions we recommend asking yourself before you start scouting knowledge base tools:

1. Who will be your authors?

2. Who is your audience?

3. What features are most important?

Who will be your authors?

Will you have a dedicated team of knowledge creators writing and managing your help center content? Will you have a single person writing most of your content? Or will your knowledge base be built by a team of folks in their spare time (for instance, by a support team who is adding knowledge when they're not in the queue)?

The answer to this question will greatly influence the solution you choose, because some tools specialize in wiki-style knowledge bases which are created and curated collaboratively (think Guru or Notion), whereas others focus on being used as a single source of truth (such as KnowledgeOwl or Document360).

Who is your audience?

Are your primary users employees of your company, or are they customers seeking help with your product? Are they technical users, like software developers? 

Understanding the audience for your knowledge base is key, because while some tools offer solutions for both internal and external knowledge-sharing (like KnowledgeOwl), many cater to one or the other. And if you're working with a technical audience, you'll want to pick a public solution that can handle specialized content like code and API documentation.

If you're struggling with this step, check out our guide on defining the purpose of your help center. It'll walk you through some helpful questions for figuring out what you want your knowledge base to achieve, which is closely tied in with who you want it to help.

What features are most important?

Once you understand who will be creating content and who will be consuming it, you'll have a better idea of what features you'll need in your knowledge base software.

But if you've gotten to this point and you're still not sure, don't worry! Unlike with the first two questions, your approach to this question can be more relaxed and exploratory. 

You may even want to look at a few KB software options in the audience category you need to get an idea of their features, making lists of the features that are must-haves for your team, the ones that are nice-to-haves, and which features, if any, are must-not-haves.

We also have a great resource that can help you accelerate this step. Our guide to common knowledge base software features divides features up into five easy-to-digest categories: navigation, content, integrations, metadata, and permissions.

Researching and comparing knowledge base solutions

Before we dive into the good stuff—the KB software!—let's talk about how our list is organized and how you can use it to compare your top picks.

We've divided these help center solutions by the main audience each serves: both internal and public audiences, for internal audiences, or for public audiences. Under each solution, we'll tell you what type of software it is (for instance, if it's standalone KB software, wiki software, etc.), what the best use case is for the software, and quotes from real customers if they're available.

As you work through these knowledge base software options, you can use our Tool Comparison Rubric to note your favorites (we recommend no more than five), whether they include your desired features, your score for how the solution handles each feature, and any notes you have. 

We've pre-populated the spreadsheet with some of the most common requirements we've seen organizations look for, but edit those to match your requirements. We haven't weighted the feature scores, but you may want to do so if there are certain features that are more important to you than others.

Once you've settled on your favorites, we recommend getting demos or creating trial accounts so that you can see the software in action and whether the features are implemented in a way that makes sense for your team.

Lastly, if you're needing to make a case for implementing your knowledge base software of choice, we've created a Knowledge Base Brief template to help you do just that. 

Now, without further adieu: let's get to the software!

The Top 25 Knowledge Base Software Solutions

Tools for both public and internal audiences

KnowledgeOwl

Best for: Teams of all sizes who need a powerful help center solution that can be set up quickly and managed with little fuss.

KnowledgeOwl offers a standalone knowledge base software platform, with pricing plans for small, medium and enterprise companies. The software supports all kinds of content (text, video, GIFs, PDFs, and embeddable content), and allows you to make content accessible by user role, meaning some content can be hidden for internal eyes only and some can be public. 

A standout feature is the Glossary tool, which allows you to quickly and easily define organization or product-specific terms for your customers and have those definitions appear as tooltips in articles on mouseover. Customer reviews frequently mention KnowledgeOwl’s excellent customer service and how easy it is to get up and running and to use.

Real Customer Feedback: “We began the migration of our entire knowledge base to KnowledgeOwl in 2022, and had an amazing experience. Their support is unmatched, as proven by the detailed help we got for the transfer of our content and design. They went above and beyond to make sure our transition was as smooth as possible. Since our move, we've received compliments from our clients and employees about all the positive changes in the search and usability. Our documentation team has also saved time with the back-end functionality such as article tagging, file labels, article versioning, and bulk actions.

Their own knowledge base is exceptional: they have gone to great lengths to provide their customers with answers and their support team is incredibly responsive when additional help is needed.” (source)

Document360

Best for: Enterprise-level organizations who need to manage large amounts of organizationally- or technically-complex content.

Document360 is a standalone knowledge base software platform that can be used to create a variety of documentation: a standard knowledge base, technical documentation like API documentation, wiki-style content, user manuals, and more. Features like a category manager and advanced user and security management make it an ideal solution for organizations who need to scale up their documentation quickly and securely. Users review its convenient and powerful organization options highly, as well as the many available integrations to other tools.

Real Customer Feedback: “The intuitive nature of Document360 stood out to us immediately. Initially, we integrated an open-source solution that boasted impressive features, yet it posed several challenges hindering seamless scaling for our entire department. However, withDocument360 seems effortlessly smooth. Crafting and modifying content is a breeze as is the construction and adjustment of navigation. Additionally, the consistently responsive customer support has further cemented our positive experience.” (source)

Helpjuice

Best for: Organizations that need a solid, standalone knowledge base for an affordable price.

Helpjuice is a dedicated knowledge base platform. It offers standard help center features, such a variety of content types, category management, and user permissioning. Standout features include allowing multiple versions of the same article and live article collaboration and commenting. Users appreciate the search functionality and customization options.

Real Customer Feedback: “Helpjuice is user friendly to use and easy to learn. It provides our customers with a knowledge base that is attractive and has a robust search feature, which is important to us. Their support team is fabulous! They are friendly and knowledgeable, and willing to help with anything.” (source)

Shelf

Best for: Organizations looking to build internal knowledge bases to use with generative AI.

Shelf is a knowledge management solution that uses generative AI to improve and update your knowledge base, assist your agents, and share its content with your customers. The platform offers a range of knowledge base products, from an AI search companion to a self-service AI chatbot. Customers often cite the search function as their favorite feature, and also like the content data insights capability.

Real Customer Feedback: “My overall experience with Shelf has been amazing. It is empowering our organization and managers to make educated decisions for their customers. Shelf has provided a platform to effectively manage the content and support power users in categorizing it efficiently.” (source)

Zendesk

Best for: Organizations needing a robust knowledge base that’s already well-integrated with a suite of customer service software.

Zendesk is a customer service platform that offers many different solutions, a knowledge base tool among them. Their knowledge base tool provides many organizational options, team publishing options, and it connects seamlessly with Zendesk’s other offerings (like its ticketing software, which can suggest help center articles to both agents and customers, depending on your organization’s subscription plan). Customers like the help center’s interoperability with other parts of Zendesk Suite and the help center’s customizability.

Real Customer Feedback: “We're handling requests originating from a variety of surfaces, web form ticket submission, web widgets in our app including in-app chat, email support, help center. Integrating this into a seamless experience for our agents is top priority as it allows our agents to live in a single environment. This plus the tight integration with the help center for public and internal-facing documentation is critical in assuring our agents have quick access to all of the resources they and our customers may need to be successful.” (source)

Help Scout

Best for: Small to medium-sized teams needing a well-built knowledge base alongside their customer conversation platform.

Help Scout is a ticketing platform (although they refer to customer emails as conversations rather than tickets) that includes a robust knowledge base tool. The knowledge base tool supports a variety of content, is highly customizable, and integrates closely with their email and chat products, allowing both agents and customers easy access to help articles. Customers value the help center product, the intuitiveness of the platform, and the platform’s affordability.

Real Customer Feedback: “Help Scout is the primary platform we use for our clients, most of our clients need knowledge bases for their businesses, also the live chat support. So, we set up a knowledge base using Help Scout for them, and also enabled the live chat option. The main use case is to provide self service support to the users without asking a support person, and it is working great so far.” (source)

Zoho

Best for: Organizations that need a suite of customer service and relationship management software at an affordable price.

Zoho is a business software company that offers a knowledge base product through its ticketing software, Zoho Desk. Their knowledge base product offers standard features for a help center, such as help centers by brand and category management, but stands out for its localization features. Customers compliment its affordability and wide range of features, as well as its ease of use.

Real Customer Feedback: “The knowledge base functionality of Zoho Desk is remarkable. It allows you to create and maintain a comprehensive repository of articles and FAQs to address common customer queries. The knowledge base is easily searchable and can be customized to match your brand's look and feel. This feature significantly reduces the number of repetitive inquiries, empowering customers to find answers on their own.” (source)

Freshdesk

Best for: Organizations looking for a complete customer service software solution with an AI twist.

Freshdesk is the customer service software arm of its parent company, Freshworks, a business software company. Freshdesk offers an integrated knowledge base tool that includes an AI-powered help widget and a customizable help center that doesn’t require coding. It also offers collaborative content tools, versioning, and publishing controls. Users like the platform’s full-bodied features and its application of AI. 

Real Customer Feedback: “As a daily user, what I appreciate most about Freshdesk is its user-friendly interface, the impressive new AI summarize feature, and the comprehensive integration of tickets, chats, phone, and knowledge base, all in one platform. Additionally, their great support team adds immense value to the overall experience, providing excellent assistance and guidance when needed.” (source)

Stonly

Best for: Organizations wanting a more interactive knowledge base experience for their customers.

Stonly is a digital adoption platform that provides guided tours and interactive help experiences. Their interactive knowledge base solution supports text, images, and video, can be embedded into a web page or directly in an app, and provides interactive guides to customers looking to self-serve. Reviewers say Stonly’s interface is easy to learn and that the app is easy for developers to implement in apps and websites. 

Real Customer Feedback: “The approach to guides is very intuitive and user-friendly, breaking things down into multiple easy-to-follow steps! The backend interface is very easy to use but powerful at the same time. The need to refocus how you approach guides using Stonly really helps to simplify the content for end users!” (source)

ReadMe

Best for: Software companies looking for a dedicated API documentation solution.

ReadMe is developer documentation software that specializes in interactive API documentation. It supports technical reference documentation, help guides, and tutorials. It also allows developers to try an organization’s API directly from the knowledge base and see a log of their attempts. Customers love its clean interface and powerful customization options.

Real Customer Feedback: “From the moment we started using it, we were impressed by its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with various tools. One of the standout features of readme is its powerful customization options. We were able to tailor our documentation to match our brand's identity, giving it a professional and polished look that resonates with our users. Additionally, the platform's analytics and insights have provided valuable data on user engagement, enabling us to continuously improve our documentation and meet our users' needs effectively.” (source)

Notion

Best for: Organizations who need a small, affordable public knowledge base and small to large companies looking for a collaborative corporate wiki.

Notion is a notes app, company wiki, knowledge base, and project management tool all-in-one. Featuring many templates and a robust community of power-users swapping tips and tricks, it offers a free plan for small teams (under 10) and affordable plans for small, medium, and enterprise-sized businesses. Reviewers praise its AI writing assistant and versatility, especially for individual users.

Real Customer Feedback: “What I like best about Notion is its flexibility and versatility. It's a tool that adapts to my needs rather than the other way around. I can use it for note-taking, project management, task tracking, and even as a knowledge base. The ability to create custom databases and templates makes it incredibly powerful and customizable. It's a one-stop solution for organizing my personal and professional life.” (source)

Obsidian

Best for: Individuals looking for an highly-customizable, all-in-one notes and knowledge base tool or organizations looking for an alternative to Notion.

Obsidian describes itself as a writing app, offering features like inter-linkable notes, graphs showing the relationships between documents, multimedia canvases, and many community-built plugins that expand its use beyond note-taking. It’s favored by individual users, but offers a commercial license for organizations as well as the ability to publish wikis, knowledge bases, documents, and digital gardens to the public.

Real Customer Feedback: “Probably one of the most customizable and straightforward tools out there. I find it particularly useful for taking long form notes and when combined with the AI plugins it can become a robust tool for brainstorming and projects.” (source)

Knowledge base software for internal audiences

Confluence

Best for: Software teams looking for a highly-configurable knowledge base tool with project management features and many integrations.

Confluence is a well-established internal knowledge base platform with robust documentation templates, organization options, and user provisioning and permission management features. As part of the Atlassian ecosystem, it also offers integration with Trello and Jira, making it useful for project management as well as documentation. Reviews commend its wide range of features and functionality as well as the abundance of templates and integrations.

Real Customer Feedback: “As a software developer, Confluence is extremely user-friendly. I can easily create and organize documents, share code snippets, and track project progress. The flexibility of templates and the ease of adding content, whether text/Code/Images is truly amazing. It is a go to tool for keeping processes documented and keeping everyone in the team and organization on the same page without any headaches.” (source)

SharePoint

Best for: Enterprise-level organizations looking for a full-featured internal communication platform, particularly if they’re already using the Microsoft suite of products.

SharePoint is another well-known internal knowledge base and content management system. Deeply connected to Microsoft’s extensive suite of software, it offers options for team sites, file sharing, collaboration, company news bulletins, and more. Users seem to love how easy it is to follow and collaborate on documents across very large teams, the functionality of team sites, and its security and provisioning features.

Real Customer Feedback: “Microsoft SharePoint is a powerful and intuitive tool that is used to create very interesting and creative websites and it allows a big team to work together on the same project or work. It comes with Microsoft 365 so no need to buy it separately and the document can be shared among different Microsoft tools for better productivity. Large files are uploaded very quickly.” (source)

Bloomfire

Best for: Enterprise-level organizations looking for a complete internal knowledge base and community solution.

Bloomfire is a knowledge management platform that also incorporates AI to create, organize, and manage large amounts of documentation. A feature to highlight is its enterprise search function, which can find terms and phrases in text, slides, PDFs, audio, and video files. Users comment on how easy Bloomfire is to use, its powerful search capabilities, and the community experience.

Real Customer Feedback: “We love Bloomfire's ease of use and user-friendly search function. It's incredibly helpful for creating new posts, archiving old ones, and finding specific information quickly with minimal effort. By bringing in other authors to discuss details or make revisions, it allows us to save time and money on projects that might otherwise be overwhelming. Bloomfire is a valuable resource for keeping the accounting department up to date on software implementations, and it's proven its worth by making the process easier than ever.” (source)

Tettra

Best for: Organizations looking for an AI-powered company knowledge base with integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Tettra is a standalone company knowledge base with an AI bot named Kai who can answer questions posed to it in the knowledge base itself, in Slack, or in Microsoft Teams. It also offers verification features that prompt content creators to confirm their content is up to date, allows users to ask for new content, and can identify duplicate content. Customers say articles are easy to organize and find, integrations are many, and translated content is handled well.

Real Customer Feedback: “Our team is scattered all over the place, but Tettra makes sharing our company's internal knowledge and content a piece of cake. It's like the black hole of information, where every employee can easily access and contribute to the collective knowledge. And nobody over here needs to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, either. Tettra is designed to be user-friendly, so that every member of our team can launch ideas. Honestly, the sky's the limit with Tettra.” (source)

Guru

Best for: Organizations looking for a highly-accessible intranet and knowledge base with universal search capabilities.

Guru first became known for its internal, wiki-like knowledge base product, and has since expanded to include an AI-powered enterprise search function that will use sources from any connected software to answer questions as well as a company intranet product. Also notable is Guru’s Chrome extension, which allows users to search for and use content from content cards wherever they are on the web. Reviewers enjoy its accessibility, how easy it is to create content, and its verification features.

Real Customer Feedback: “Guru is one of our most used tools in the company. It helps us in the customer support team organize our knowledge base and articles that help us to work efficiently and effectively on a daily basis. What I like most is the part where before publishing a card, it needs authorization from someone other than the creator. This gives us the confidence that every published card is authorized by the management. It is easy to use and friendly for the startup businesses. The features where you can organize everything you want in a folder is also a feature that helps me find the cards I usually use in a much easier way.” (source)

Slab

Best for: Small teams (up to 10) looking for a free, dedicated internal knowledge base with unified search; organizations looking for the same with enhanced user provisioning features.

Slab is a standalone internal knowledge base product which also boasts a unified search function that will pull answers from any integrated tool. It provides standard content creation and organization features and a solid stack of integrations (however, integrations are limited on the Free plan, and some are only available on its Business subscription plan). Customers like the simplicity of the user experience and the unified search functionality.

Real Customer Feedback: “We love that it integrates with other office software like Google Drive and Slack, and that articles can be "nested" under several different tags. It's a great space to keep internal records on company standards, document templates, etc. to maintain consistency across employees and offices.” (source)

ScreenSteps

Best for: Organizations needing a knowledge base solution that’s optimized for teaching employees processes, procedures, and workflows.

ScreenSteps describes itself as a knowledge operations solution that focuses on helping you prioritize what training topics employees need to learn and deliver that information to them through digital guides and job aids. The tool allows for notifications when documentation has been updated and for tracking who’s seen and acknowledged the update. Users compliment how easy it is to create documentation and the ease of searching and finding content.

Real Customer Feedback: “What I like best about ScreenSteps, is that it makes it fast and easy to create consistent product documentation. Authors do not have to worry about fonts and colours and line-spacing, or how best to format call-out boxes. And grabbing, incorporating, annotating and updating screenshots is simple. Authors can focus on sharing their knowledge, not formatting it. ScreenSteps support is great too - the guys know their stuff and are very responsive.” (source)

Slite

Best for: Organizations looking for an affordable knowledge base tool that incorporates project management and team meeting features.

Slite is a knowledge management tool that also includes other internal company solutions like employee onboarding, team meeting agendas and templates, and project management. It has a fairly robust free plan that allows up to 50 documents but unlimited members and integrations, while its affordable Standard and Premium include AI features and SSO and user provisioning capabilities. Customers seem to love Slite’s content editor and intuitive user interface.

Real Customer Feedback: “I love how Slite effortlessly blends simplicity with functionality. It's like the Swiss Army knife of wikis—easy to use for quick notes, yet robust enough for comprehensive team collaboration. The clean interface and intuitive design make organizing information a breeze. Plus, real-time collaboration ensures everyone stays on the same page (literally!).” (source)

Stack Overflow for Teams

Best for: Software developers who love the crowd-sourced collaboration experience of Stack Overflow and want to emulate it in their knowledge base.

Stack Overflow for Teams brings the beloved, community-curated question-and-answer experience from their main product to one made just for developer teams. Team members can ask their colleagues questions and receive an answer verified by the author, avoiding duplicate questions through a wizard that suggests related answers. Users love the ability to support each other while allowing for private Q&As.

Real Customer Feedback: “I love using Stack Overflow for Teams, it is like an in-house wiki/forum, where we can share and support colleagues by providing solutions to various problems, sharing useful tips and offering guidance on how certain bits of code function. It has helped me with day to day tasks and problems.” (source)

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Best for: IT teams looking for knowledge base software that makes managing and answering cases easier.

ManageEngine is an information technology operations company. Their knowledge base solution is provided through and integrated with their case management software ServiceDesk Plus (which is a Zoho product). The knowledge base tool is purpose-built for documenting IT solutions, workarounds, and FAQs for IT workers. Users comment on the tight integration between the ticketing software and knowledge base and its user-friendly interface.

Real Customer Feedback: “I like ServiceDesk Plus because of the ease of use, highly intuitive interface and features to manage assets, changes and more in one platform. We are currently using it in 80% of our company and have had promising results, it has allowed us to effectively manage all incidents and IT in the organization. Striking quality is how effective it is at tracking tickets and the garden of knowledge that can be retained to provide quick solutions to common problems that our internal users and customers may have.” (source)

Knowledge base tools for public audiences

HelpDocs

Best for: Organizations looking for a straightforward, affordable public knowledge base.

HelpDocs is a standalone public knowledge base platform. It’s highly customizable (allowing companies to customize their help center’s CSS or JavaScript) while also providing a range of help center templates and an embeddable help widget. Customers enjoy the content editor, the SEO optimization features, and the ability to export articles (or the entire KB) to PDF.

Real Customer Feedback: “HelpDocs is incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. It’s a no-nonsense platform that doesn’t add a bunch of fluff to your documentation. At the same time, it’s completely customizable to your specific business needs.” (source)

Intercom

Best for: Small to enterprise-level organizations looking for a public knowledge base as part of an omni-channel customer service platform.

Intercom is a customer service platform that offers a knowledge base product that’s integrated with its ticketing system, chat widget, and embeddable in-product and in-app. The knowledge base allows for interactive content, articles can be segmented by audience, and reporting will suggest new articles based on what customers are searching for. Users appreciate the ease in which they can create articles and the accessibility of help articles in the widget.

Real Customer Feedback: “Intercom allows our help center and support team work seamlessly. Having multiple communication channels in a central location is invaluable, and the Intercom support team is always ready to help. Integration and implementation was easy.” (source)

WordPress

Best for: Organizations of all sizes who want maximum control and flexibility over their content management system.

WordPress is a website builder and content management system most well-known for its blogs and e-commerce capabilities. However, the ability to build a website from the ground up or to choose a WordPress theme and helpful plugins from its massive marketplace makes it a good choice for teams who want to exercise more creativity and control over their public knowledge base.

Real Customer Feedback: “WordPress is one of the most minimalistic and intuitive content management systems I have ever used. It is super versatile in nature. I have built sites on WordPress that range from a simple portfolio to a very complex ecommerce platform all with the help of its wide variety of plugins and themes.” (source)

The best knowledge base software meets your needs

Picking a tool that you know your team and customers can rely on requires some work.

While it can help to view that time and effort as an investment, we also hope this guide helps make that work a little easier for you. And while we think KnowledgeOwl’s a hoot, we genuinely wish you the best in finding knowledge base software that fits the needs of your team and customers.

Because that’s what it’s owl about.