9 Best Knowledge Base Software Compared (2025 Guide)

The search for good guides and tutorials has grown significantly (over 25%¹) after the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Most companies and employees have embraced remote work, which has reduced the overall socialization and knowledge sharing that happened at work.

If you run a remote business or sell any type of product, it is hard to survive without a good knowledge base.

Whether it’s for customer support or creating internal SOPs, knowledge base software can help here.

After diving deep into the web, we picked out 9 standout knowledge base software, both free and premium options. Which will offer you necessary and advanced functionality (like AI chatbot ✨) to build and manage your online knowledge base website.

But first, let’s learn a thing or two about knowledge bases. Which will help you in the long run.

What Is a Knowledge Base?

A knowledge base is a platform that includes a collection of questions, answers, guides, and documentation related to a product or service. Users can type in a few words and find answers to common questions about the product.

Back in the old days and before the Internet, manufacturers used to ship products with a giant manual. It’s like a book with hundreds of pages that includes instructions about how to use the product. Of course, no one bothers to read them anyway.

Today, we have online knowledge base systems. Unlike those old bulky manuals, a knowledge base web site is much more innovative. It provides users a place to find answers to questions and guides related to a product, all by themselves.

What Is Knowledge Base Software?

A knowledge base software is a cloud-based tool designed to create, organize, store, and manage information in a centralized location, making it easily accessible to users.

There are hundreds of free and paid knowledge base software programs available in the market, each with a different set of features and pricing. And we are here to help you pick the best.

Main Features of Effective Knowledge Base

It’s important to know what kind of features to include in your knowledge base to make it more effective. Start by making sure your KB software supports these features.

Search Function

Search box is a must for a knowledge base system. Users need to be able to search for articles and guides to find solutions to their problems.

Simple Backend Dashboard

You should always put users first, but you shouldn’t disregard the importance of your own experience. You’ll be handling hundreds of articles, guides, tutorials, questions, and much more using the knowledge base system.

Being able to easily create all these types of content using a simple and easy-to-use back-end system will go a long way to serve your customers better.

Easily Manageable Categories

With lots of knowledge articles in one database, you could easily get lost while updating and adding new content. A simple archive and categorization system help keep the entire system organized. As well as make it easier to browse.

File Attachments

Sometimes when creating guides you need to include additional downloadable content. Like PDF files, templates, video files, etc. If your knowledge base software supports file attachments, you can attach these additional files directly in the articles.

A User Feedback System

A great way to improve your knowledge base is to get feedback from users. A simple thumbs-up system is more than enough to learn if that specific guide was helpful to users or not.

Analytics & Reports

With analytics, you can learn which guides are performing better and which are generating more bounces. This will allow you to keep improving your content and create more helpful guides.

By incorporating these features, you can ensure that your knowledge base is user-friendly, promotes customer satisfaction, and maintains web accessibility for all users.

Types of knowledge base

Knowledge bases can be divided into two types:

Internal knowledge base

A password-protected system that can only be accessed by employees or with login credentials.

This can include resources such as company policies, training guides, SOPs, necessary tools access, and news.

For example: A knowledge base that is created specifically for the HT and recruiting team that contains all the requirements for hiring and onboarding new employees.

External knowledge base

A public system that anyone can access. This can include help articles, FAQs, user manuals, product documentation, online community and forum.

For example: A knowledge base that is created to solve common customer issues and answer FAQs about their product.

Best Knowledge Base Software

Note: All the tests were performed, or data is from Sep 2024.

Here’s a quick comparison of the knowledge base software mentioned below:

#	Software	Best for	Standout feature	Free option?	Pricing
🥇	Heroic Knowledge Base	Self-hosted knowledge base	AI Assistance and integrations	❌	Starts at $149/year
🥈	Document360	Teams & Collaboration	AI-powered search and automation	✔️	Paid plans start at $5/user/month
🥉	HelpSite	Small Businesses & Startups	Simple and user-friendly interface	✔️	Paid plans start at $29/month
4	LiveAgent	Help Desk with Knowledge Base	Integrated ticketing system & live chat	✔️	Paid plans start at $15/agent/month
5	Helpjuice	Internal & Customer Knowledge Bases	Knowledge base analytics & reporting	❌	Paid plans start at $49/month
6	HubSpot Service Hub	CRM with Built-in Knowledge Base	Connects knowledge base with CRM data	✔️	Paid plans start at $45/month
7	Zendesk	Enterprise Customer Service	Scalable and customizable platform	❌	Paid plans start at $19/agent/month
8	ServiceNow	Large Enterprises & IT Service Management	IT-focused workflows and integrations	❌	Custom Quote Required
9	ProProfs Knowledge Base	Affordable & Easy-to-Use	Cost-effective solution	✔️	Paid plans start at $10/month

Let’s dive in and find out the best knowledge base software for your needs.

1. Heroic Knowledge Base

A 13 year old WordPress knowledge base plugin with the most advanced features. Features that you can expect from advanced SaaS platforms can be achieved with this plugin.

From a user friendly dashboard to an AI chatbot, Heroic KB gives you complete control over your knowledge base.

Heroic KB has changed a lot over the years and is powering over 29,560 customers.

Built for WordPress

Usually when you build a knowledge base with SaaS software you only get the features mentioned. That’s not the case with WordPress.

Heroic KB is just another plugin that enhances WordPress functionalities. Meaning you get all the WordPress CMS features to use.

Blogging, customization, users, or other CMS features. You name it — with WordPress it’s possible.

WordPress(.org) is a free CMS solution that can be installed on any web hosting platform.

Heroic KB also comes with a setup wizard that will import a demo knowledge base site like this within a minute.

You can follow our guide to setting up a knowledge base with WordPress, to make things easier.

Easy to use

Heroic KB has a beginner-friendly user interface, simple category management, and a great customizer to align the design of your knowledge base with your branding.

It’s all plug and play, no coding knowledge needed. Thanks to its smooth editor you’ll be able to create hundreds of knowledge articles with ease.

Benefits of Using Heroic KB

• Affordable Pricing: Compared to other knowledge base software, WordPress is much cheaper to set up and use.
• Extensibility: You can easily add and extend features using WordPress plugins. Including third-party integrations like Zapier and HubSpot.
• Choose Your Own Design: With thousands of WordPress themes to choose from, you can change the knowledge base design however you like.
• Easier Management: Easily manage articles, media, and categories using the beginner-friendly WordPress admin dashboard.
• Full Control: When using WordPress, you’re in full control of your knowledge base. You don’t have to abide by the rules of a corporate company.

Downsides of Using Heroic KB

• Small learning curve and WordPress environment can be overwhelming for new users.

Pricing

Heroic KB offers premium plans only. Starting at $149.50/year. There is no user limit on any plan, so if you have 4-5 support agents, you can easily save hundreds of dollars compared to other SaaS alternatives.

Try it with confidence with a 14-day money back guarantee.

2. Document360

Document360 is an extremely simple knowledge base solution, designed for doing nothing but creating well-organized knowledge base systems. It is trusted by many leading brands such as Microsoft and Harvard University as well.

The cloud-based app features a beautifully minimal and clean user interface for making both private and public knowledge bases. It also includes an easy-to-use markdown editor.

Document360 features a very beginner-friendly setup process. And it provides tools to serve both content creators and customer support representatives.

To set up your knowledge base using Document360 all you need to do is signup for an account. The platform works completely online and lets you access it even from mobile devices from anywhere in the world.

Benefits of Using Document360

• Ease Of Use: Document360 puts a complete focus on content and offers a very simple user interface to manage and organize your knowledge base.
• Markdown Editor: Document360 editor supports markdown for easier content writing and editing.
• Intelligent Search: The search system supports auto-suggestions when typing in the search box.
• Private Or Public: You can also create private knowledge bases to serve your team as well as public knowledge bases for customers.
• Analytics: Going beyond the user analytics to collect the feedback on the article, it is more granulated to the team, search and user analytics. Search analytics collects all search queries, also the failed searches.
  The team analytics features give some important metrics at the individual employee level including a number of article contributions, popular and latest

Downsides of Using Document360

• Limited Features: Unlike WordPress and ZenDesk, you can’t use Document360 as a complete customer support system.
• Lack of Integrations: Document360 third-party integrations are limited to just a few apps like FreshDesk and Google Analytics.

Pricing

Document360 includes multiple plans including a free plan starting at $0 per month with 2 team accounts. And the paid plan starts from $149 per month for 3 team accounts and 50GB storage, suitable for large enterprises.

3. HelpSite

HelpSite is simple knowledge base software that helps you publish a beautiful KB with your FAQs and articles, within minutes.

It can create publicly-accessible support sites, a private internal-only KB, or a mix of both. It offers a powerful and fast search box, is mobile friendly, and provides a contact form that automatically suggests users answers as they type.

Your KB can be fully customized and hosted on your own domain name. HelpSite is an affordable knowledge base SaaS and even includes a forever free plan. They offer helpful support via email.

To get started, simply sign up for a free (no credit card required) account. You’ll get a 30 day trial of HelpSite’s premium features but after that your account will just default to their free plan unless you decide to pay.

Creating your KB is very simple – give your site a name, follow the provided instructions to set up a custom domain (optional), and just start adding articles in their easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor. You can optionally customize your site’s privacy or layout/design, or just use it out-of-the-box and you’re all set!

With HelpSite, you can also create multiple KB sites under the same account in case you have multiple products or want to split up public versus private content.

Benefits of Using HelpSite

• Easy to use: HelpSite is probably the easiest way to get a knowledge base site online in minutes and has a very simple user interface. It has a very fast search box which makes it easy for your visitors to find what they need.
• Private or Public: HelpSite offers an extensive set of options for choosing between making your content public, partially private, or fully internal-only.
• Fully Customizable: The layout of your HelpSite KB can be fully customized (using HTML/CSS) to match your organization’s brand and the site’s URL can use your custom domain.
• Smart Contact Form: HelpSite provides a contact form that automatically suggests relevant articles as users type their message, saving time for both you and them.

Downsides of Using HelpSite

• No ticketing tools: HelpSite is a hosted knowledge base and nothing else. If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution with a ticketing system and live chat, HelpSite is not for you.
• No built-in analytics: HelpSite doesn’t offer built-in analytics, so you’ll have to plug in an analytics provider like Google Analytics if you want to track your article view stats.

Pricing

HelpSite offers a forever free plan if you’re just getting started or paid plans starting at $15/month.

Its most popular plan is Gold at $50/month which allows full design customization, up to 5 knowledge base sites, 50 team members, 2500 articles, and options between public or private KB access.

4. LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a fully featured help desk and live chat software. It enables you to streamline all of your communication channels into one unified dashboard, which can be easily accessed by your whole customer support team.

The software is a great choice for businesses of all sizes and industry types.

It integrates with over 40 third party applications and has over 150 million end-users worldwide. LiveAgent is equipped with over 179 help desk features including a built-in call center, gamification features, reporting and analysis tools, automation, as well as knowledge base/customer portal management tools.

To start building your knowledge base in LiveAgent, either sign up for a free account or purchase a paid plan. You also have the option to sign up for a free 14-day trial.

You can start building your knowledge base which can consist of articles, videos, FAQs, feedback and suggestions, as well as community forums.

LiveAgent’s knowledge base is fully customizable and therefore gives you full creative freedom. Easily modify colors, change themes, upload logos, or edit the HTML to match the style of your knowledge base to your company’s website.

Benefits of using LiveAgent

• Fully Customizable Software: Almost everything in LiveAgent is fully customizable. Customize your dashboard theme and colors, alert sounds, app language, live chat buttons, pre-chat forms, customer portals, and knowledge bases.
• Advanced Tools: In addition to being a knowledge management solution, LiveAgent is a fully-featured help desk software with over 179 features.
• Competitive Pricing: LiveAgent offers three paid plans, as well as a forever free plan.
• Stellar Customer Support: LiveAgent’s customer support is available 24/7 with an average email response time of 30 minutes.

Downsides of using LiveAgent

• Advanced Software: Might require a bit of a learning curve for some users.

5. Helpjuice

Helpjuice is a popular SaaS platform that specializes in knowledge base software. They provide software that’s geared towards companies with big teams. It also features a very beginner-friendly knowledge management system.

One of the best features of Helpjuice is its customer support service. They even provide free customization to set up your knowledge base fast and easy. And promises a 5-minute response time to your support tickets.

Helpjuice is a cloud-based knowledge base system. This means you don’t have to do any heavy work to get your knowledge base up and running.

In fact, Helpjuice customer support team will even set it up for you. All you need to do is sign up and create an account. Then follow the step-by-step instructions to create your knowledge base.

You can also self-host Helpjuice on your own servers as well. Their team offers to help with the transition if required.

Benefits of Using Helpjuice

• Beginner-Friendly: Helpjuice features a very simple user interface and a beginner-friendly editor. You can use it to create, format, and edit content without an effort.
• Google-Like Search: Helpjuice claims its search function to be as innovative as Google search.
• Multiple Designs: Unlike most other platforms, Helpjuice lets you choose from dozens of themes to customize your knowledge base design.
• Analytics: Helpjuice provides deep insights into your knowledge base statistics, including for searches.

Downsides of Using Helpjuice

• Expensive: At $120 per month, Helpjuice is the most expensive option on our list. Which is not very friendly toward small business owners.
• Limited Features: Helpjuice is limited in features compared to WordPress. It supports only a few third-party integrations as well.

6. HubSpot Service Hub

HubSpot’s Service Hub brings all of your customer service data and channels together into one central place.

Customers of all sizes trust the product for its knowledge base, conversational tools, help desk, customer feedback surveys, reporting, and more.

With Service Hub’s Knowledge Base functionality, you can easily build a library of help articles so customers can help themselves.

Customize the look and feel of pages, make adjustments for different device sizes, and structure your pages to rank highly on Google. You’ll also get built-in reporting dashboards to manage your performance all-in-one place.

Getting started with the cloud-based HubSpot platform is easy. Create a free Service Hub account — or schedule a demo to have the HubSpot team help you quickly get started with Knowledge Base.

Once you’re in the app, HubSpot is designed to make it easy to get started, regardless of your experience with creating a knowledge base. You can import articles with one click from other tools, create templates, and start building out answers to your customer’s questions.

Benefits of Using HubSpot

• Easy-to-use and customizable: Easily create knowledge base articles and templates. Customize the look of the knowledge base to match your brand, and organize everything using categories & tags.
• All-in-one platform: Service Hub includes all the tools a customer service team needs — from help desk to live chat and surveys. Plus, everything is built on top of HubSpot’s CRM, giving your business one unified view of customer interactions from Marketing to Sales to Service.
• Multi-language support: Create and manage a knowledge base to answer your customers’ in their preferred language.
• Analytics: See what terms customers are searching for, monitor performance of articles, and see video engagement — to analyze your efforts and see where you need to create new articles.
• Private or public: Restrict article access to make pages accessible by only certain people.

Downsides of Using HubSpot

• Expensive for smaller companies: While Service Hub starts free, Knowledge Base is only available on the Professional and Enterprise plans, which can be expensive for smaller companies.

7. ZenDesk

When it comes to creating customer support platforms and support ticketing systems, ZenDesk is one of the leading experts available today. The platform also doubles as a knowledge base system as well.

The ability to set up feature-rich knowledge base systems is not the only use of ZenDesk. You can also manage customer support and integrate your knowledge base with support tickets as well.

All of this can be done using the same platform. This makes ZenDesk one of the best choices for setting up advanced knowledge base portals.

ZenDesk is a complete suite of tools and software made for companies for managing all-things customer support. The platform works completely on the cloud and offers many services catered for various sizes of businesses.

Much like Helpjuice, you can easily get started with ZenDesk by signing up for an account and following its step-by-step instructions.

Benefits of Using ZenDesk

• Complete Suite: ZenDesk comes with a complete list of tools for creating an effective customer support system.
• Support Tickets: In addition to creating knowledge base systems, you can use ZenDesk to manage customer support tickets, chat, and more.
• Advanced Tools: ZenDesk also includes a CRM tool called Sunshine for managing your customers as well.
• Better Designs: ZenDesk features modern and beautiful knowledge base designs.

Downsides of Using ZenDesk

• Expensive: Compared to Helpjuice, ZenDesk is much cheaper. But it still asks for a greater price to provide customer support.
• Advanced System: It requires a bit of a learning curve to get started using the platform.

8. ServiceNow

ServiceNow is a complete platform that allows companies to digitize their customer management and workflows. It includes solutions to cover IT, Employee, and Customer workflows.

You can use the ServiceNow platform to create a private knowledge base for your company team. As well as public knowledge bases to serve customers.

However, ServiceNow is much more than just a knowledge base software. It even includes an app store with integrations made specifically for creating advanced knowledge databases.

ServiceNow is a platform that’s more suitable for bigger businesses. It’s especially ideal for making onboarding workflows and transitions.

When it comes to creating knowledge bases, the platform uses an old-school design. It’s familiar and user-friendly. And includes many useful functions for organizing the knowledge database.

ServiceNow will walk you through the process of setting up your knowledge base on the cloud. Along with your automated workflows and customer support system.

Benefits of Using ServiceNow

• Advanced Tools: In addition to knowledge bases, you can use ServiceNow to offer better customer support with automated workflows, chatbots, and more.
• Innovative Search: The platform also features a brilliant search function that matches terms with previous incidents to provide better results.
• Machine Learning: With machine learning, the platform will also offer similar articles to customers and employees to find solutions to problems more easily.
• Service Portal: With Service Portal integration, you can create a portal where users can access your knowledge base, customer support, support tickets, and more from one place.

Downsides of Using ServiceNow

• Too Advanced: With so many tools and app engines bundled together, the platform can be overwhelming to small startups and businesses.
• Expensive: With pricing well hidden from the public, the company is likely to charge different rates from different customers.

9. ProProfs Knowledge Base

ProProfs Knowledge Base is a powerful tool that’s noted for its unique features, smart settings, and robust integrations.

The tool is of immense help when it comes to creating an online knowledge base, documentation, manuals, help sites, FAQs, and more.

It assists you in all aspects of knowledge management right from content authoring and designing to customizing and finally publishing it.

The software is extremely easy to use – no HTML or coding skills required and plays well with powerful tools like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Wufoo, Salesforce desk, Google Analytics, and more.

The convenience and flexibility provided by ProProfs Knowledge Base software make it the favorite of small firms as well as large enterprises.

To get started, all you have to do is sign up for a free enterprise-level account that will be active for a period of 15 days. After signing up, you will get a variety of templates to choose from. The templates come with a set format with placeholders. All you have to do is replace the placeholders with your content, and start configuring your knowledge base.

In case you don’t need a set format and want to do everything from scratch right from its HTML and CSS, the tool also provides that option.

You can even self-host your knowledge base by setting up its domain name, just so it has an identity of its own. Also, if you require a fully customized knowledge base as per your requirements, the customer support team of ProProfs will help you do that easily.

Once your free account is over, you will get a message to upgrade it with a plan of your choice.

Benefits of Using ProProfs

• Easy to Use – Thanks to its simple user interface, setting up a knowledge base is a breeze with this software.
• Feature-rich – The tool has almost all features you can think of. From content authoring and publishing to customization and collaboration, name anything you want, and ProProfs has got it covered.
• Plays well with other tools – ProProfs integrates beautifully with third-party tools like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Wufoo, Salesforce Desk, Google Analytics, and more.
• Simple Pricing – ProProfs offers two paid plans and a forever free plan.

Downsides of Using ProProfs

• Advanced Customization – Users might be required to have some knowledge of scripting (Javascript, HTML, CSS) to make use of the advanced features.

Best Third-Party Integrations for Knowledge Bases

With third-party app integrations, you can bring more unique features to your knowledge base to make it more useful to both you and your customers.

Here are just a few great third-party apps you should be able to integrate with your knowledge base. Keep in mind that not all knowledge base software will support these apps and services.

• Heroic Inbox: A WordPress plugin to create a self-hosted helpdesk system and manage email inboxes.
• Zapier: Zapier is like a hub of all the apps you can ever think of. It allows you to connect your website with more than 1500 popular services. With this integration, you’ll be able to connect all the other apps with ease. WordPress supports Zapier as well.
• Salesforce: With Salesforce integration you’ll be able to connect your knowledge base system with your customer support and marketing systems.
• AIOSEO: AIOSEO is another useful WordPress plugin that will help optimize your knowledge base articles to rank well on search engines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Create a Knowledge Base?

Knowledge base systems provide a convenient self-help service to users. More importantly, it helps save businesses lots of resources otherwise spent answering common user questions.

“51%² of customers prefer support through an online knowledge base.”

Another benefit of making a knowledge base is discoverability. A knowledge base gives your business a huge boost in SEO to rank well on Google. You can rank for search terms like questions related to your product using your knowledge base articles as well.

Difference Between SaaS and WordPress Knowledge Systems

The SaaS knowledge base services and platforms that allow you to manage your database online through their own website fall into the category of web-based apps. The self-hosted category includes software such as WordPress that you set up and manage by yourself.

In addition to the management differences, another key difference between these two systems is pricing. Self-hosted WordPress-powered systems are much cheaper and more flexible than cloud-based apps and SaaS platforms.

How To Create a Knowledge Base With WordPress

Setting up a knowledge base website using WordPress is really easy.

1. Find a host (we recommend Kinsta).
2. Install WordPress. You can also get help from your hosting provider.
3. Install the Heroic KB plugin and follow the setup wizard.
4. You are done!

We also have an in-depth guide to build a knowledge base with WordPress, check that out.

Which Knowledge Base Software Is Best?

If you’re just starting out or planning to switch knowledge base software, we’d recommend using WordPress to build your knowledge base.

With the flexibility WordPress provides, you’ll be able to easily extend your knowledge base further as your business grows. Also, you can save a huge chunk of your budget as well.

Software like Heroic KB will provide you with all the necessary functionality at a moderate cost.

Other than this, all the mentioned knowledge base software in this list will do the job just fine.

Let us know your thoughts below and keep exploring our blog to learn more about knowledge bases and customer service.

References

1. Growing demand for “how to” search, Google Trends data
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2. Customer support data from Social Media Today ↩︎