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Top 7 knowledge base software to look out for in 2022

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The popularity of knowledge bases is increasing in organizations across the world. Every major company has already employed an efficient knowledge base or is on the lookout for the best knowledge base software. This blog will take you through the top 7 knowledge base software for 2022. In this list we have included the top 7 best knowledge management software available in the market today.

But before that, let us discuss some critical aspects you must consider when choosing the right knowledge base.

Choosing the right knowledge base

By now, you already know that a knowledge base is software that can efficiently collect, maintain and serve the information to the right people at the right time.

A lot depends on the nature of the information you want to provide through the knowledge base. It is also essential to consider the people or stakeholders who will be using this information when choosing the knowledge base for your organization.

Here are some crucial parameters you must consider.

Flexibility

Ensure that the knowledge base you employ in your organization is flexible enough to accommodate seamless integration with popular apps and tools such as CRMs and chatbots.

Customizability

It is essential to customize the knowledge base in the best possible way to make it relatable, suitable, and relevant to your company and its stakeholders

Shareability

Internet is all about sharing these days. A knowledge base is a treasure chest of precious information that one should be able to share with several people several times. Therefore, look out for a knowledge base that makes sharing relevant information with customers and agents easier.

Discoverability

Even if your knowledge base is loaded with helpful information, it defeats its purpose if the customers or agents face trouble finding and sharing relevant information. Your knowledge base must utilize powerful search and categorization features to overcome discoverability issues and provide optimal service.

Ease of Usage

The most overlooked feature of a viable knowledge base is its ease of usage. The customers, employees, and other stakeholders will contribute to your knowledge base only if they find it easy to use and add information.

The most critical aspect to consider when selecting it is that the knowledge base must not be a complicated software to install, learn and work on.

Top 7 Knowledge base software for 2022

Now that you know some critical characteristics to look for in a knowledge base let us discuss some popular software options. Let us have a walk through the most popular, efficient, and cost-friendly knowledge bases, along with their features and pricing to find out the best knowledge base software for customer support.

1. PHPKB

PHPKB offers a plethora of features at fantastic rates, making it a favorite among start-ups, SMEs, and MNCs alike. It offers a self-service platform and 24/7 customer support. You can avail of their Cloud (web-based) service and the On-Premises (self-hosted) service. It helps centralize the company knowledge on a single platform that is highly searchable, rich in media, and can be used by support agents to deliver high-quality and timely service to customers. A 30-day fully functional FREE trial can be availed to understand how flexible, customizable, and easy-to-use PHPKB is.

When building the internal knowledge base, one can easily restrict the content to specific groups, use pre-made templates to maintain the structure, utilize drafts to save a work-in-progress article, and use rich formatting options to make the articles readable.

Not only this, you can easily use their smart plugins to boost your knowledge base’s productivity further. PHPKB provides various add ons like the Help & Support widget, Ideas & Suggestions Plugin, Community Forum, Bulk Export, Bulk HTML import, Branding Removal, and many others.

PHPKB Features

Besides the regular knowledge base features like content management, feedback collection, search experience, security enhancement, PHPKB provides bonus features such as Glossary management, third party integrations, administrative management, enhanced backend management, cataloging, categorization, enhanced frontend management tools, article management, easy knowledge publishing and sharing ability, SEO tools, discussion forums and diverse add on widgets.

 Key Highlights of PHPKB

  • Available as Self-Hosted (On-Premises) and Cloud-Hosted (SaaS) license. SaaS is offered on a state-of-the-art infrastructure facility with industry-standard certifications.
  • A flexible platform that offers public and private categories to set up distinct knowledge portals for internal staff and external customers.
  • Multi-language support to set up a multilingual knowledge base while still keeping association between different language versions of the knowledge articles. Features RTL languages, multi-byte character sets, language translator accounts, user locale detection, and the ability to clone all knowledge base content to a new language.
  • A variety of ready-to-insert premade design elements (such as notes, notices, alerts, accordions, and spoilers) are available at a single click for use in the knowledge base articles. This makes content creation super easy and fun.
  • Schedule a knowledge article for publishing - This is a very convenient feature, especially in situations where the article needs to be published on a specific date.
  • Facility to embed PDF files right in the article body.
  • Facility to link articles internally using link markers so there are no broken link errors in case an article’s URL is changed later. All links pointing to that article will be auto-updated.
  • Image Manager and Media Gallery to insert/upload media files (images and videos).
  • Article lock feature to avoid concurrent editing by more than 1 user at a time.
  • Embedding videos from YouTube or private channels like Vimeo is very easy.
  • An event log that keeps a record of all activities happening in the knowledge base so you know exactly what action happened on an article, by whom, and on which date and time.
  • In-depth knowledge base statistics - Section-wise reports to know about important key metrics of individual sections of your knowledge base.
  • Geographic traffic analytics - A detailed report to know where your knowledge base users/visitors are coming from.

PHPKB Pricing

Starts from $25/month (with 1 admin user). $5 per additional user/month.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is a popular help desk software with a very basic knowledge base incorporated. A self-service portal, it is a lean and extensive content solution at the same time.

Zendesk Features

Besides the regular features, it provides Categorization, SEO, AL, and ML-enabled bots, Searches options, and Analytics, to name a few.

Zendesk Disadvantages

  • The only option is a cloud license. Not available as an on-premise system to install on your internal server.
  • Does not support publishing an article in more than one category.

Zendesk Pricing

$19 per user/month

3. Bloomfire

With modern capabilities like a crowd-sourced FAQ section and AI-powered search, Bloomfire is one of the most popular knowledge bases that you can employ in your organization.

The best part about Bloomfire is that it uses a social media style that allows users to like, share, follow and comment on each other’s posts.

Bloomfire Features

One of the best features of the Bloomfire Knowledge base is that it is a self-service portal that includes a Zendesk integration, Auto-tagging content, Customizable Branding, Content and Usage reports, API access, and AI-enabled search.

Bloomfire Disadvantages

  • UI is not intuitive and search is not efficient.

Bloomfire Pricing

$15 per user/month for up to 50 users.

4. Zoho Desk

A unique feature of Zoho Desk is that it along with the knowledge base also includes a ticketing and helpdesk solution.

Zoho Desk is a flexible platform as distinct portals can be set up for internal and external customers, and customized logo/branding can be used along with it.

ZohoDesk Features

Besides the regular features of a knowledge base, the Zoho desk provides secure access, portal customization, chatbots, forums & communities, domain mapping, and ticketing, to name a few.

ZohoDesk Disadvantages

  • Does not offer set up of a multilingual knowledge base

ZohoDesk Pricing

$18 per user/month

5. HappyFox

The knowledge management systems provided by the cloud-based CRM, Happy Fox, have exciting features such as seamless feedback collection, distinct internal and external knowledge management systems, and multi-brand user portals, to name a few.

HappyFox Features

Besides the regular features, it provides more features like community forums, categorization, auto-suggestions, a rich text editor, collaboration tools, and analytics.

HappyFox Disadvantages

  • A significant limitation with HappyFox is that it can be a costlier option compared to its rivals.
  • It lags in its integration ability.
  • Another drawback of Happy Fox is that there is no FREE version for users to get a feel of the product.
  • Implementation is poor from a UX perspective.
  • The mobile application lacks significant functionality and is nowhere near feature parity with the web application.

HappyFox Pricing

$99 per user/month

6. Document 360

Providing a clean interface and rich user experience, Document 360 is a self-service knowledge base that you can employ for your customers. A private knowledge base can be employed for your team.

Document360 Features

Its unique features include a real-time search, markdown editor to simplify content creation, SEO, analytics, version control, and a secure file management area. All of these features are standard in modern knowledge base platforms.

Document360 Disadvantages

  • Does not support publishing an article in more than one category.
  • Does not support scheduled publishing of knowledge base articles. Often, we create content that should be published at a certain date to coincide with the availability of the feature in production. So the ability to configure a publish date while saving an article is a must-have for any knowledge base software.
  • No WYSIWYG authoring support for knowledge base articles once the Markdown option is selected.
  • No support for Named Anchor Tags. Anchor Tags are very important when I want a text or a heading to point to emphasis, a paragraph, or other texts within that page. It’s a must-have feature for any modern-day documentation tool.
  • No notifications on feedback. There are no email notifications for disliked, liked, and commented articles.
  • Not available as on-premises (self-hosted) license. A big turnoff for organizations that do not wish to host their confidential information on outside servers.
  • No facility for content authors to discuss their ideas, share opinions, or comment on knowledge articles.
  • Very costly for companies with the requirement of more than 5 agent accounts.

 Document360 Pricing

Ranges between $49 to $299 per month

7. Stack Overflow for Teams

Some of the unique features of the self-service portal of Stack Overflow are its answer ranking system and seamless integration with Jira, GitHub, Slack, Okta, and Microsoft teams.

Stack Overflow Features

It provides an intuitive interface, cataloging, document management, and remote support. Content grouping, long-form articles, and in-depth analytics are some salient features of its Business Plan

Disadvantages

  • Difficult to use
  • The user interface is not friendly at all
  • Video recordings are difficult to insert

Pricing

$12 per user/month

Conclusion

Each of the knowledge bases listed above has its set of features, limitations, and capabilities. Among all, PHPKB emerges as a clear winner and it encompasses the features of almost all the other knowledge bases plus extras (key highlights listed above) and provides a top-notch 24/7 customer support service. Add to that an extensive 30-day free trial for you to assess its function and operation.

If you wish to employ a knowledge base that thrives on cutting-edge technology and provides enormous ease of usage simultaneously, you must choose PHPKB for your organization!

Top 7 knowledge base software to look out for in 2022
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