Cloud-based Help Authoring Tools (SaaS)
Market overview of recommendable cloud-based help authoring tools (SaaS help authoring tools). This includes tools for creating online help (help sites), knowledge bases, and documentation wikis.
On this page:
Web-based help authoring tools and online documentation tools
Tools with a special focus on building knowledge bases for customer self-service and FAQ
For information on the indicated price levels , see Price Levels.
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Powerful but rather simple to use CMS for technical documentation, including translation management. Follows a structured, topic-based authoring approach based on a built-in DTD. Price level: high ClickHelp Modern online help authoring tool in a web browser. Created manuals can be hosted in the vendor’s cloud. Content management and single-sourcing functionality to produce online and printed documentation from the same source (PDF, DOCX, EPUB, ODT, RTF, MHT, HTML). Can import existing help files from the CHM format, preserving styles and scripts. Supports both WYSIWYG and source code editing of topics. Price level: medium Docsie Online documentation tool with a focus on simplicity and team support. Supports translation and comes with an authoring memory function. Price level: diverse Document360 Easily creates help centers and self-service knowledge bases (no printed documentation). Provides a markdown editor, support for team authoring, versioning, analytics, access restriction, and more. Price level: high MadCap Central Cloud-based platform for content and project management of documentation projects authored with the desktop-based help authoring tool Flare. Also provides a simplified, web-based editor for subject matter experts and other contributors to review and edit content written in Flare (requires AMS license). Price level: high https://www.madcapsoftware.com Sonat (NEW ENTRY) Basic web-based documentation tool to create and publish user manuals, user guides, knowledge bases, and other forms of instructions. Supports languages and versions. Price level: low DeveloperHub Hosted documentation portal for product and API documentation. Price level: high Manula Easy-to-use manual authoring tool. Creates public and private online manuals for desktops, tablets and phones. Also generates downloadable PDF manuals. Price level: medium snazzyDocs Out-of-the-box help site solution with a very basic set of features. Price level: medium HelpServer Web-based CMS for help and documentation. Supports structured authoring and team authoring. Creates various output formats, such as HTML, video, and PDF. Price level: not published ReadMe.io Hosted online documentation solution with a special focus on API and developer documentation. Price level: diverse tomehost Specialized content management system for creating and publishing online user manuals. Price level: medium Typemill Self-hosted flat-file CMS for text-driven websites, such as documentation web sites. Price level: free (open source) Grav + Documentation theme for Grav Open source flat-file CMS that can also be used for creating documentation web sites. Other than many similar site generators, Grav is easy to set up. You only need to copy its files to a web server. There is no other installation required. Price level: free (open source) |
The following wikis are especially recommendable for technical documentation and user assistance purposes. Confluence, Enlite, and other add-ins Commercial wiki that, in particular in combination with the SCROLL add-ons of K15t Software meets the requirements of a professional help authoring tool. There are also some plugins available for code and API documentation. Enlite is essentially a preconfigured, bundled version of Confluence plus some of the plugins. Price level: diverse https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/net.meixxi.confluence.docs.docs-plugin/server/overview https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/142/comala-document-management?hosting=server&tab=overview Archbee (NEW ENTRY) Web-based documentation platform with built-in collaboration support for developer guides, API references, and also product documentation. Can integrate content from various other development and collaboration tools. Price level: diverse Dokit Based on MediaWiki. Can use templates, forms, and metadata to structure and organize content. Built-in translation features, version management, rights management, semantic search, social functions, PDF export. Price level: not published Outline Team knowledge base for internal documentation. Price level: medium (Self-hosted version is free (open source).) https://github.com/outline/outline Dozuki Guidebook Price level: not published BlueSpice Price level: high MediaWiki, Semantic MediaWiki Price level: free (open source) https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org dokuwiki Price level: free (open source) Tiki Wiki Price level: free (open source) TWiki Price level: free (open source) Ponydocs MediaWiki-powered documentation platform. Price level: free (open source) https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Ponydocs/latest/Content/WhatisPonydocs |
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This page was last updated 05/2022
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