Top 10 External Knowledge Base Software in 2025 & How to Choose One?

I used to think knowledge bases were just glorified FAQ pages. I thought I didn’t need them if I had a stellar support team. Oh, how wrong I was!  

My “aha!” moment came when I was desperately searching for a solution to a software glitch at 2 AM, with no support agent in sight. Stumbling upon a help page built with external knowledge base software and a clear answer to my problem was like finding an oasis in the desert.

I realized the true power of a knowledge base. It’s not just about deflecting support tickets but also about empowering customers with instant access to information 24/7. 

In this blog, I will discuss the top 10 external knowledge base software solutions, highlighting their key features and benefits. I’ll also provide a comprehensive guide on how to choose the right platform. Let’s first look at a quick summary of the top 3:

Now, before exploring all the tools, let’s discuss some basics first.

What Is External Knowledge Base Software?

External knowledge base software is an online tool that helps organizations create, manage, and share information with customers, partners, and other external users. It helps create and maintain a self-service portal where users can access FAQs, product documentation, troubleshooting guides, and other helpful resources. 

It is usually equipped with features like an AI-powered text editor, powerful search, analytics, and real-time updates, helping companies maintain up-to-date and easily accessible information. It enhances customer satisfaction, reduces support tickets, and positions businesses as reliable sources of knowledge.

For example, a tech company offering a cloud-based project management tool can use external knowledge base software to host onboarding guides, integration tutorials, and API documentation. When customers have questions about setting up their accounts or connecting third-party apps, they can simply search the knowledge base instead of reaching out to customer support.

Why Do You Need External Knowledge Base Software?

External knowledge base software empowers customers, streamlines support operations and enhances brand image. Here are more reasons why you need external knowledge base software:

Empower Self-Service for Your Customers

An external knowledge base provides a readily available resource where they can find answers to their questions, troubleshoot problems, and learn about your products or services independently without contacting your support team.

This empowers customers to resolve issues on their own, improving their experience and fostering a sense of self-sufficiency.

Reduce Your Support Costs

By providing customers with self-service options, you can significantly reduce the volume of support tickets and inquiries. This frees your support team to focus on more complex issues, optimizes resource allocation, and lowers overall support costs.

A well-maintained knowledge base can deflect a significant portion of support requests, leading to substantial cost savings.

Enhance Your Customer Satisfaction

Customers’ satisfaction levels increase when they can quickly solve their problems. A knowledge base provides readily available answers to common questions, troubleshooting guides, and tutorials, leading to happier customers, reduced churn, and increased loyalty.

Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend your brand and make repeat purchases.

Improve Your Product Adoption

A knowledge base can provide a comprehensive guide to your products or services, helping users understand their features, functionalities, and benefits.

This can lead to improved product adoption as users become more confident using your offerings and are more likely to realize their full value.

Boost Your Brand Credibility

A well-structured and informative knowledge base enhances your brand’s credibility and professionalism. It demonstrates your commitment to customer support and product excellence, building trust and confidence among your audience.

A knowledge base can also be a valuable resource for content marketing, showcasing your expertise, and attracting organic traffic to your website.

Provide 24/7 Support to Your Customers

Unlike your support team, a knowledge base is available 24/7, providing customers with instant access to information and solutions whenever they need it, regardless of time zones or business hours.

This ensures that customers can always find help, even outside regular business hours, improving their experience and reducing frustration.

Maintain Consistent Information

A knowledge base ensures that all customers receive the same accurate and up-to-date information, eliminating inconsistencies and confusion from relying solely on human support. This consistency contributes to a more professional and reliable brand image.

What Are the Top 10 External Knowledge Base Software in 2025?

In this list, I have provided a comprehensive analysis of different options, comparing features, pricing, and use cases to guide them toward the best solution for their specific needs. Let’s start.

1. ProProfs Knowledge Base – Best for Easily Creating Help Sites, Manuals & Private Knowledge Bases 

My team has been using ProProfs Knowledge Base to create and manage comprehensive external knowledge bases, which has helped us enhance customer self-service and streamline support operations. Its user-friendly interface and AI-powered content authoring simplify the process of building, organizing, and sharing knowledge.

We can also tailor the look and feel of our knowledge base to match our brand identity, creating a seamless and professional user experience. This includes adding custom domains, logos, color schemes, and even CSS customization for a truly unique and on-brand knowledge base.

Also, ProProfs Knowledge Base offers robust security features to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with industry standards. Access controls, user authentication, and encryption capabilities safeguard your knowledge base content and maintain user trust. 

What You Will Like: 

• 100+ knowledge base templates to help you create error-free knowledge base articles quickly
• Revision history to track up to 30 recent changes made to your knowledge base, restore previous versions, and compare two different versions of a page or article
• Multi-branding to create different versions of a single site by applying different branding styles to it
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting tools, allowing you to track key metrics, understand user behavior.

What You May Not Like:

• No downloadable or on-premise version
• A dark user interface option is not available.

Pricing:

Forever Free Plan with all the premium features for small teams. Paid plan starts at $49/author/month.

2. Zendesk Service – Best for Zendesk Suite Users

I like Zendesk’s user-friendly interface, WYSIWYG editor, and customizable templates that make crafting visually appealing and informative articles, FAQs, and tutorials easy. Its collaboration features, such as AI-powered article recommendations and content cues, ensure customers are presented with the most relevant information.

Its powerful search functionality, with options for filtering and indexing, ensures that users can quickly find the answers they need. Moreover, features like customizable branding and a clean, modern design allow businesses to create a help center that aligns with their brand identity and provides a positive user experience.

What You Will Like:

• Integrates seamlessly with a variety of other tools, including CRMs, chatbots, and social media platforms
• Lets users engage with customers through various messaging channels, including social media
• Lets you automate tasks and streamline support processes with customizable workflows.

What You May Not Like:

• Gets pricey as you add on features
• No automatic resizing option for the reply text area, particularly noticeable on Chrome.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $19/agent/month.

3. Notion – Best for Creating Internal Wikis for Teams Sharing Informal Knowledge

I had used Notion before for its ability to create a structured and interconnected knowledge base. Its database functionality helped me create pages for different categories, link related content, and build a hierarchy of information that is easy for users to navigate.  

The platform also allows you to embed various media types, like images, videos, and files, to create engaging and informative articles. Also, Notion’s clean and minimalist design ensures that the focus remains on the content, providing a distraction-free reading experience for your users.

What You Will Like:

• Lets multiple team members contribute to the knowledge base simultaneously
• Features like version history and commenting facilitate collaboration and ensure everyone is on the same page
• Lets you organize your content with tags and categories to improve searchability further.

What You May Not Like:

• I found it a little difficult to format text/pages for a first-time user
• Lacks an option for visualizing data – no real offline mode.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $10/seat/month.

4. Atlassian Confluence – Best for Team Collaboration on Documents

Atlassian Confluence helps create well-structured and organized documentation. Its hierarchical page structure, combined with a rich text editor and templates, allows you to present information in a clear and logical manner. You can create dedicated spaces for different product lines or support categories, making it easy for customers to navigate and find the information they need.

The platform allows multiple users to edit and contribute to the same document simultaneously, fostering teamwork and ensuring everyone is on the same page. Features like inline comments and @mentions facilitate communication and feedback, streamlining the content creation and review.

What You Will Like:

• The advanced search functionality supports filters, labels, and even natural language queries
• Can easily integrate it with other Atlassian tools, such as Jira Service Desk, to provide a unified support experience.
• Enables insights on knowledge base usage, such as identifying popular content and understanding user engagement. 

What You May Not Like:

• Some users do complain about its steep learning curve
• Sometimes, the search system is not that accurate at showing relevant results.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $5.16/user/month.

5. ServiceNow – Best for Built-in Community Forum 

ServiceNow‘s key strength lies in its ability to create a centralized knowledge repository. Its Knowledge Management application provides a structured platform for organizing and managing knowledge base articles, FAQs, and other documentation. This ensures that customers have access to a single source of truth, reducing confusion and improving self-service success.

My favorite is the platform’s powerful workflow engine, which can also automate knowledge management processes, such as content approval and publishing, ensuring consistency and efficiency. It also allows multiple agents and subject matter experts to contribute to the knowledge base, fostering a collective effort in building a comprehensive and up-to-date resource.

What You Will Like:

• Its GenAI helps you generate knowledge content from closed incidents and other sources
• Features like version control and knowledge feedback allow seamless collaboration and continuous content improvement
• Its integration with other ServiceNow applications, such as incident and customer service management, enables a unified support experience.

What You May Not Like:

• I felt that the tool was not beginner-friendly
• Its mobile app is complex to set up.

Pricing: 

ServiceNow offers a custom pricing plan starting at $70/user/month.

6. Document360 –  Best for Creating Online Documentation

I was using Document360 five years back for its customizable templates to develop and maintain effective documentation tailored to our brand and audience. This customization ensures that the knowledge base aligns with the company’s identity while providing a user-friendly experience for customers seeking information. 

Analytics is another powerful tool within Document360, providing insights into how users interact with the knowledge base. By analyzing metrics such as page views, search terms, and user feedback, companies can identify areas for improvement, better understand customer needs, and optimize their content strategy to enhance user satisfaction. 

What You Will Like:

• Enables version control to help track changes and revert to previous versions if necessary
• Enables integration with popular tools like Slack and Salesforce 
• Has an AI-powered search engine that returns context-sensitive results in milliseconds.

What You May Not Like:

• Changes to the custom code don’t automatically save and require you to do it each time manually
• Sometimes, it becomes hard to find where a broken link is on a page.

Pricing:

Document360 offers custom plans starting at $124/project/month.

7. HubSpot – Best for SEO-Optimizing Your Help Articles

With HubSpot‘s well-structured knowledge base, companies can reduce the volume of support requests while enhancing customer satisfaction. Its easy-to-use knowledge base editor allows users to create, format, and organize articles without requiring technical expertise.

Businesses can structure their content with categories and subcategories, making it easy for customers to navigate and find the needed information. The platform also supports multimedia elements like images and videos, ensuring a more engaging and comprehensive knowledge-sharing experience.

What You Will Like:

• AI-powered search functionality
• Detailed analytics and reporting tools to track users’ interactions with the knowledge base
• Seamlessly integrates with its ticketing and chatbot systems, enabling a unified support experience. 

What You May Not Like:

• Sometimes, the search engine cannot read the document attached in a pdf format
• The form submissions are a bit complicated to reply to in a ticket and almost always cause two tickets to appear per submission.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $15/seat/month.

8. HelpCrunch – Best for Creating a Structured Help Center

I love HelpCrunch‘s intuitive article editor. It provides a seamless way to create, format, and organize content, ensuring that businesses can present information in a clear and structured manner. The editor supports rich media elements, like images and videos, making complex concepts easier to understand.

The platform’s AI-powered search lets users quickly find relevant articles based on keywords and intent. It enhances the self-service experience by delivering precise answers instantly, reducing customers’ time searching for information.

What You Will Like:

• Lets businesses categorize and tag articles for effortless navigation
• Provides insightful analytics to analyze article performance, identify knowledge gaps, and improve underperforming content
• Seamless integration with HelpCrunch’s live chat and ticketing system.

What You May Not Like:

• Lacks multilingual capabilities
• Cannot edit the message after it has been sent on the app.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $12/member/month.

9. Nuclino – Best for Fast Collaboration to Bring Knowledge, Docs, and Projects Together in One Place

Nuclino’s enables organizations to build a structured self-service hub where customers can access guides, FAQs, and troubleshooting resources. This reduces reliance on support teams while enhancing the customer experience with quick and easy access to critical information.

The platform’s real-time collaborative editor allows multiple team members to edit articles simultaneously, ensuring content stays updated with minimal effort. It also supports rich media, including images, videos, and embedded content, making articles more engaging and visually informative for users.

What You Will Like:

• Powerful linking and structuring capabilities—users can organize information in a connected, wiki-style format
• The search tool indexes content in real time, delivering relevant results instantly
• Integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.

What You May Not Like: 

• The lack of customization options in Nuclino, especially when it comes to the visual appearance of documents
• New users may still need some time to learn the platform’s features and get accustomed to its interface.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $6/user/month.

 10. Zoho Docs/Zoho Writer – Best for Sales-Focused Helpdesk with Advanced Features (Higher Tiers)

One of my ex-colleagues recommended Zoho Writer for its cloud-based document editor. This tool helps teams build a centralized repository of FAQs, guides, and troubleshooting articles, ensuring customers and stakeholders have easy access to essential information. Its clean interface and real-time collaboration features make it a powerful tool for knowledge management.

The platform allows multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously, making it easy for teams to update knowledge base content in real-time. The built-in commenting and review system allows contributors to provide feedback, suggest edits, and ensure accuracy before publishing. 

What You Will Like: 

• Offers extensive formatting and customization options
• Comes with templates, headers, and tables of contents, letting you design well-organized guides 
• It lets you embed images, videos, and links to help enhance knowledge base articles.

What You May Not Like: 

• I have noticed that the style sometimes doesn’t work, and I need to refresh the page
• Sometimes, I find it difficult to convert documents into PDFs.

Pricing:

Paid plan starts at $5/iuser/month. 

How to Choose the Right External Knowledge Base Software

Building a well-structured external knowledge base is a strategic decision that requires careful planning. Here are some steps to ensure the right choice for your business.

Define Your Business Goals

Determine the primary purpose of your knowledge base—whether improving customer support, reducing ticket volume, or establishing a self-service help center. Aligning the software with your business objectives ensures long-term success.

Understand Your Audience’s Needs

Analyze your users’ pain points, preferred content formats, and search behaviors. A customer-focused approach can help you select a tool that enhances user experience and accessibility.

Evaluate Scalability & Flexibility

Choose software that grows with your business. Consider whether it can handle increasing content volume, support multiple languages, and integrate with other tools as your needs evolve.

Assess Content Management Workflow

Identify how content will be created, reviewed, and updated. Opt for a system that supports collaboration among teams, version control, and approval workflows to maintain accuracy and consistency.

Ensure Seamless Implementation & Adoption

A complex setup can slow adoption. To encourage team participation, look for a platform that offers smooth onboarding, an intuitive UI, and minimal training requirements.

Prioritize Data Security & Compliance

Since your knowledge base may contain sensitive information, ensure the software complies with industry security standards and offers user access controls to protect data.

Test Before You Commit

Take advantage of free trials or demos to evaluate usability and performance. Gather feedback from stakeholders to ensure the platform meets both internal and customer-facing requirements.

Enable Self-Service & Improve Product Adoption with External Knowledge Base Software

External knowledge base software is a valuable tool for businesses looking to empower their customers, streamline support operations, and enhance their brand image. By providing a centralized repository of information, readily accessible to users 24/7, you can significantly reduce support costs, improve customer satisfaction, and foster a culture of self-service.

When choosing external knowledge base software, consider factors such as your budget, content needs, team size, and desired features. Evaluate different options and explore free trials to find the platform that best aligns with your requirements.

In my experience, ProProfs Knowledge Base stands out as a robust and user-friendly solution, offering a wide range of features, including AI-powered assistance, customizable templates, and seamless integrations.