Best Knowledge Base Software

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Ever since the internet went public in 1993, you do not have to rely on a trip to the library or to find answers to questions. Now, that information is right at your fingertips. The only problem is the sheer amount of information that you have access to 24/7.

And that is where knowledge base software comes in. This type of software organizes information in a way that employees and/or customers can easily find what they need. 

We researched over 20 different knowledge base software companies to determine which ones are best, and bring that information to you. 

That in-depth research uncovered the best knowledge base software for most users: Document360. It is simple, to-the-point, and made to create organized knowledge base systems.

The Best Knowledge Base Software for Most

Document360 is built for providing support to both employees and customers. It personalizes customer service interactions and also provides quick solutions to support issues. The tools that Document360 provides are simple and easy to use and are presented in a minimal and clean interface. Because of these reasons, among others, Document360 is the best knowledge base software for most.

The Best Knowledge Base Software Options to Consider 

1. Document360 – Best for Most
2. ZenDesk – Best for Customer Support
3. HubSpot – Best for Improving SEO
4. Freshdesk – Best for Companies With Complex Needs
5. Helpjuice – Best for Beginners
6. ProProfs – Best Built-In Reporting System
7. ServiceNow – Best for Creating Workflows 

When It Makes Sense to Invest Into Knowledge Base Software

Does your company have customers? If so, knowledge base software is a tool you need. 

Knowledge base software helps companies to improve the customer experience as well as personalize any interactions with customer service. For example, if you call your phone company to ask a question, a knowledge base software would allow the phone company to take notes on the phone call so that the next time you call them, you have previous information that will make your experience more smooth and personal. This helps to build trust and a long-term relationship with customers. 

This type of software also helps to centralize information so that internal and external problems can be solved more quickly. Internal knowledge base systems help employees find resources to answer their questions, and external knowledge base systems help customers find their solutions to problems. 

As a result of the centralized information for customers, there is a reduction in customer service calls that require an agent to help. Instead, customers can solve many more problems on their own.

Different knowledge base software works for different types of companies. There is software for small companies and software for large companies. So, regardless of the size of the company you’re running, if you have internal information for employees and/or external information for customers, you want knowledge base software.

#1 – Document360 – The Best for Most

Document360 is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that serves as a great knowledge base for both external (customer) use and internal (employee) use. You can set the software up in a matter of minutes and get on the right track to reducing your support requests, among other things.

When it comes to Document360, ease of use is their number one priority, which is one of the reasons why this knowledge base software made the top of our list.

With this software, you get access to all sorts of functions including: 

Category Manager. This allows you to create up to 6 sub-categories to create a strong chain of knowledge base content. The easier it is for the content to be accessed, the better for your employees and your customers. This means they will be able to find, learn, and put into action all sorts of information. 

Landing Page Customization. Make your knowledge base landing page feel like home by adding brand colors, logos, links, and all other kinds of things. Since you, your employees, and your customers will be using this software regularly, you want it to look nice, too. 

Security. With Document360 you can apply various restrictions to different parts of the software. This means that only people who you want to access specific parts of the database can access it. 

Markdown Editor. The editor within this software supports markdown that is simple and lets you style a document using things such as headings, images, links, lists, and more. 

Intelligent Search. Document360’s search system supports auto-suggestions, which will come in handy for everyone. 

Backup. You don’t want this base of information going anywhere, and Document360 knows that. The software automatically backs up your projects every day. YOu can also manually back up your projects at any time, and can also restore an entire project or any part of the knowledge base to the one that was last saved in the most recent backup. 

Document360 is used by several different companies across a variety of industries and some of its top clients include Harvard University, Warner Bros, and Monday.com. 

Here are the different pricing options.

• Startup: $59 per project per month, billed monthly
• Business: $119 per project per month, billed monthly
• Enterprise: $299 per project per month, billed monthly

Get started with Document360 today.

#2 – ZenDesk – Best for Customer Support 

When it comes to customer support, ZenDesk wins the award for the best. The focus of this knowledge base software is customer-facing support, but it also comes with a solid knowledge base for your employees, as well. 

This software is used primarily by larger businesses and provides you with an entire suite of tools and software built for all things customer support. However, it also works for other business sizes as well, depending on your customer needs. 

The setup of ZenDesk is another thing that we love. You simply sign up for an account and follow the step-by-step instructions to get the ball rolling.

The features of ZenDesk that make it a shining star are: 

Integration. Integrate with applications such as SalesForce and Google Analytics to make the experience that much more smooth and successful. 

Online Customer Portal. This feature allows support agents to keep track of all the customer tickets and their status. In addition to that, customers can go through currently existing tickets to see if anyone submitted a query about something similar to their problem, and get the answer from that. If not, they can simply submit their ticket and get customer support quickly there, too. 

CRM. ZenDesk also comes with a CRM (called Sunshine) to help manage customers. 

Multiple Lines of Support. Customers can get support via tickets, email, phone, SMS, and social media. 

The pricing of this knowledge base software is:

• Suite Team: $49 per agent per month
• Suite Growth: $79 per agent per month
• Suite Professional: $99 per agent per month
• Suite Enterprise: $150 per agent per month
• Custom Enterprise: starting at $215 per agent per month

Start your free ZenDesk demo here.

#3 – HubSpot – Best for Improving SEO 

HubSpot’s Knowledge Base comes as part of its Service Hub, which offers all kinds of services and features to improve the customer experience. In this day and age, people are looking for immediate answers to their questions, and Hubspot can help both your customers and your employees find them. 

If you run a company, you have likely heard the term “SEO.” It stands for search engine optimization and is essentially how to drive the quality and quantity of your website traffic via organic search engine results. 

Knowledge base software is a perfect way to help your SEO, thanks to the fact that search engines favor websites that have a lot of information around a specific topic. Thus, the stronger your knowledge base is via HubSpot, the more likely your search engine results will show higher than other knowledge bases that haven’t properly used SEO. 

Additional features of HubSpot’s Knowledge Base include: 

Customization: There are a multitude of options for customizing your knowledge base to look how you want, and get it organized in the way that works best for the users. 

Easy to Use: No matter how familiar you are with knowledge base software, HubSpot makes it easy to learn as they walk you through the process and provide you with a demo to help guide you. 

All-In-One Platform: HubSpot’s Knowledge Base is part of its Service Hub that provides all of the tools a customer service team could possibly need. 

Pricing for Hubspot’s Service Knowledge looks like this:

• Free: $0
• Starter: $50 per month
• Professional: $400 per month
• Enterprise: $1,200 per month

Get started with HubSpot’s Knowledge Base and Hubs today.

#4 – Freshdesk – Best for Companies With Complex Needs 

Freshdesk’s cloud-based customer service software allows companies of all sizes to provide solid customer support. It does so via several different channels. This knowledge base software supports customer requests that come in via email, web, phone, chat, and social media. It turns those requests into tickets and helps to find solutions to those customer problems. 

This is ideal for companies who have a lot of needs when it comes to customer support. The other features you may love that come with Freshdesk include: 

Improved efficiency. Freshdesk provides customer satisfaction ratings, custom reports, and curated reports that help you to get feedback and metrics on how to improve help desk performance. 

Security. All Freshdesk accounts come with custom SSL certifications that allow you to make your domain safe and secure for customers to use. You can also create secure access so that customer service agents can log in from anywhere by linking IP whitelisting to a VPN. 

Efficient Ticketing. Incoming support tickets go to a team inbox where they can be tracked and managed. You can also set deadlines for ticket responses based on categories and other things. There is the option to create canned responses to common questions to save your team time. 

The pricing for Freshdesk is:

• Sprout: Free
• Blossom: $15 per agent per month
• Garden: $35 per agent per month
• Estate: $49 per agent per month
• Forest: $99 per agent per month

You can get started with Freshdesk for free.

#5 – Helpjuice – Best for Beginners 

The learning curve for knowledge base software can be overwhelming at times. Though you know it will make processes for you, your company, and your customers much easier, getting over the hump of learning how to use it can be quite daunting.

Thankfully, that is not the case when it comes to Helpjuice. This software is known to be user-friendly, especially to those just starting in using this type of software. 

Helpjuice is more intuitive than some of its competitors and its clean, elegant look helps with that. The interface is friendly enough to allow you to set up everything on your own – all you have to do is create an account and follow the step-by-step instructions to create your knowledge base. However, if you find you are struggling with it, worry not – Helpjuice’s fabulous customer service will actually set it up for you. 

Here are some of Helpjuice’s features that we love: 

Strong Search. The search function provided via Helpjuice claims to be as innovative as Google search, and thus will help internal and external people find what they need in less time, and more easily. 

Themes. Rather than having one design that everyone has to use, Helpjuice allows you to choose from a lot of different themes to customize your knowledge base design. 

Analytics. It is not enough to simply provide people with the ability to search and find the information they need. To really get the most out of a knowledge base software, you need good analytics that allows you to gain insight into what people are looking for. And Helpjuice does that. 

The different pricing options for Helpjuice are:

• Starter: $120 per month for up to 4 users
• Run-Up: $200 per month for up to 16 users
• Premium Limited: $289 per month for up to 60 users
• Premium Unlimited: $369 per month for unlimited users 

Try Helpjuice free for 14 days.

#6 – ProProfs – Best Built-In Reporting System 

If you are a small business looking to get your knowledge base organized, ProProfs is an ideal solution. The main reason why is its built-in reporting system. Reporting is key to the functionality of a knowledge base. Knowing what people are searching for, and whether they are finding the solutions to their issues via your company’s database is key to the success of this software. 

ProProfs has a strong reporting system that allows you to not only get insights into the performance of your knowledge base but actionable insights that allows you to put the reported information to good use. 

In addition to that, ProProfs offers several different features that landed it a high spot on our list: 

Word-Like Editor. You can write, edit, and upload files with ProProfs’ editor that works a lot like Microsoft Word. This means less time trying to figure out a new program, and more time being efficient. 

Access From Anywhere. No matter where you are, and what time it is, you can access your ProProfs knowledge base from laptops, tablets, and smartphones. 

90+ Languages. ProProfs supports over 90 different languages, so you can create documentation in multiple languages for clients all over the world. 

Conditional Content. Display or hide specific content based on the rules you set up. You can save these rules to use on multiple different sites. 

The pricing options for ProProfs are:

• Forever Free: $0
• Essentials: $60 per month
• Premium: $100 per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing 

Sign up for ProProfs for free and try any plan for 15 days before committing.

#7 – ServiceNow – Best for Creating Workflows 

Sometimes it can feel like getting into a workflow is the hardest part of your job and your employees’ jobs. That’s where digital workflows come in handy by providing you, your company, and your customers with experiences that improve workflow all around. One of the best ways to do this is by using ServiceNow’s knowledge base software. 

The internal side of ServiceNow helps IT teams to efficiently record incoming service requests by saying the interactions to a database. From that, IT teams can create knowledge base articles that answer the common questions that employees have. By doing this, the workflow is automated and rather than employees coming to IT or another person in the company with questions, they can be directed to the knowledge base where they will likely find their answers. 

Some of the features of ServiceNow that landed it on this list are: 

Real-Time Analysis: Get information about what is being searched and by whom in real-time with ServiceNow’s reporting feature. 

CRM: Integrate CRM into the workflow process with ServiceNow and gain access to the CRM’s features as well that include things like anonymous chat and registration. 

ServiceNow’s pricing options are determined by reaching out to the company. Request a quote from them to get the ball rolling.

Methodology for Choosing the Best Knowledge Base Software

Choosing the right knowledge base software for your company depends on a number of different factors. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming with all of the choices, especially if you haven’t yet nailed down exactly what it is you are looking for.

To help you in this decision, we have come up with a methodology that you should use to determine which knowledge base software will provide you the best solutions for your business.

Know Your Current Situation

Before diving into what you want, it is important to take note of what you currently have. Think about where your company’s knowledge and information sits currently. Do you have files saved in Google Drive? Do you have Dropbox folders, physical folders, or another place that you store information for both employees and customers? 

Also take a look at how up-to-date your information is, and how frequently it is updated to keep it relevant. And don’t forget to consider what challenges you deal with in your current way of managing information.

Know Your Basic Requirements

Now that you know where you stand with your company’s knowledge and information, it is time to think about what you want and need in a new system. This step will help you greatly in finding potential solutions and chatting with vendors about whether what they’re selling can actually help you solve your problems. And it will help you determine what is a necessity versus what is just a want. 

Some of the requirements may include:

• Advanced search
• User-friendly interface
• Analytics and reporting
• Document templates

Know Your Deal Breakers

Before you start chatting with vendors, know what your deal breaker needs are – the things that you absolutely need out of your knowledge base software. If a potential solution cannot provide you with those things, then they are an automatic “no.”

Some deal breakers may include:

• Budget restrictions
• Inability to integrate with what you need
• Functionality issues

Summary

What is the best knowledge base software service? 

Document360 is the one that comes most highly recommended from us. It has the features that most people are looking for to do the widest variety of things when it comes to knowledge for your employees and your customers.

However, that does not mean that there aren’t other strong options out there. Use the methodology we share above as well as the reviews of our top picks here to find the best solution to your knowledge base software problems.