Open Source Knowledge Base Tools
Maybe you’re looking for a new knowledge base software, both because you want to encourage internal knowledge management inside your organization or offer public documentation to your end users. You’ll no doubt be facing a dilemma: which open-source, knowledge-base tool should you use?
A knowledge base is important for boosting data sharing across your company and supporting your team to achieve their goals. Some benefits can consist of fewer tickets to your support team, fewer churned customers, or an improved worker experience. So businesses want to know where they must invest their assets when selecting knowledge-base tools. Open-source software can provide giant benefits, but they’re not easy to install, use, and maintain.
In this article, we’ll consider the benefits of open-source knowledge base software.
What is Knowledge Base Software?
A knowledge base software program, also usually referred to as help center software, is a device that facilitates the creation, organization, and management of self-service content for a target audience. Essentially, a knowledge base lets you offer users beneficial content on how to easily find documents on their own without having to reach out to other people or your customer service crew for assistance.
Knowledge bases created through a business usually contain frequently asked questions (FAQs), video tutorials, and how-to articles; however, it’s not uncommon for people to create knowledge bases for private use as well. A personal knowledge base might include such things as notes, studies for a project, magazine entries, and so forth.
Benefits of Open-Source Knowledge Base
Self-Hosting Options
As we’ve mentioned, you may host your open-source knowledge base software program on your personal servers, which means you can be responsible for security and maintenance. In evaluation, SaaS knowledge bases are hosted through the software program company, so if you need the reliability of your personal servers, open source is a good option.
It is Often Free or Cheaper
Many open-source solutions are free for agencies to use as they see fit, as long as they fall within the terms of the open-source license. Even if there's a price, open source is commonly cheaper than its SaaS counterparts. While SaaS solutions regularly require an ongoing subscription fee, open-source software is usually a one-time price if you’re a corporate user.
Flexibility to Modify Code, Innovate and Integrate
Even if your open-source solution isn’t exactly the best fit for your needs, you have the ability to modify the code and the software to fit your own requirements. Most times, if you modify the code, then the open-source license calls for you to make the source code publicly available. Instead of having to build a solution from scratch, you have a running model of a knowledge base that you can integrate with your other structures.
Excess Freedom for the Users
With SaaS software, you're bound to the selections of the provider. In the case of open source, you could construct a completely customized platform that is desirable to your desires and that works exactly as you need it to. You can also make a contribution to the original source code and help the project become what you want it to be.
6 Best Open Source Knowledge Base Tools
Outline
The Outline app is an extremely good, self-hosted wiki engine and collaborative knowledge base for teams. Its glossy and sophisticated interface elevates productivity to new levels. With a plethora of functions that allow greater efficiency in collaborative writing and editing, it is the appropriate device to be used by even the largest of teams.
Price
Starter: $10 per month for up to 10 users.
Team: $79 per month for up to 100 users.
Business: $199 per month for unlimited users.
Appflowy
AppFlowy.IO is a free open-source note-taking software program for people working in teams. It lets you create almost everything you need in a writing canvas, which includes tasks, kanban forums, and more. AppFlowy is written in Flutter/Dart, and it makes use of Rust for the backend. Compared to Notion, AppFlowy lets you prepare your textual content and paragraphs and use Markdown with a straightforward WYSIWYG editor. AppFlowy supports tables, boards, and sub-pages and permits users to create and import their own templates.
The forums can be prepared in a grid, on a board, or grouped by topic or tag. You can easily add a new block or column to your website. Attachment is also supported for pages and files; you could easily add or import your pictures, films, and documents. Deleting any record or page will send it to the trash, which you can replace later within the documents. You can set up AppFlowy from the source or use its installable binaries for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It additionally offers Docker installation assistance, which takes a few minutes to get everything up and running. Users can export their documents in a Markdown textual content layout.
Price: Free
Logseq
Logseq is a privacy-centered open-source platform for knowledge management and note-taking. It's designed to aid in the implementation of non-linear and network thought processes. This technique of note-taking is sometimes called “linked thought”, where every note or piece of information can be connected to others, creating an interconnected web of information. For users who are seeking to support the open-source ethos or who just need a platform focused on security for their knowledge management, Logseq is a splendid choice.
Price: Free for non-public use.
Mediawiki
MediaWiki will look familiar to most as it's built on the same platform that the net’s most famous wiki, Wikipedia, is built on. The user interface is smooth and easy to read and navigate, and content material is written in wikitext format so that users can edit content material with no HTML or CSS expertise.
One component to be privy to with MediaWiki is that it's designed for open content, so it’s not a great choice if you need to keep your content private. In addition, because it was designed to serve high-traffic websites, it may not be the best option for smaller websites in which disk or memory space is a concern.
Price: Free
Obsidian
Obsidian is a knowledge-base solution that is the best for non-public use. While most alternatives are cloud-based, Obsidian’s Personal Plan stores all of your statistics regionally in your device. The files are written in markdown, making the source documents easy to read and edit. Your content material is likewise handy offline, making it feasible to work even when your internet connection is spotty.
For individuals who prefer to have access to their notes across gadgets or need to submit some articles publicly, Obsidian offers Sync and Publish add-ons. These features do require cloud-based data access and include a monthly price. Obsidian’s Personal Plan is free for non-commercial customers, though customers who desire to support the software program’s development could make a one-time payment of $25 to acquire early access to new features. Commercial licenses are also to be had for corporations employing two or more people.
Price: Free trial and plan available. Commercial plans begin at $50 per user yearly.
BookStack
BookStack is a free, open-source, self-hosted knowledge base platform. It has an easy interface and lets users pick between a WYSIWYG or markdown content editor. When it comes to organization, the software program lets you shape your expertise into three color-coded parts: books, chapters, and pages. In this hierarchy, books are your broad classes, chapters are subcategories, and pages are the individual articles. Once you've got several “books,” they can be organized on bookshelves.
Content on BookStack is fully searchable, and the platform has effective features like multi-lingual assist, dark and light modes, function permissions, and integration with diagrams.net which makes it easy to add diagrams to your documentation.
Price: Free
Conclusion
Before deciding on a platform, you want to know more about your knowledge base requirements. You need to remember what number of customers you’ll have, in how many languages you want to help all people concerned, and what sort of control you need over the layout elements for branding functions. You’ll additionally need to pay close attention to your crew’s IT competencies and the software program’s user-friendliness. If your knowledge base tool takes too long to research or is too complicated to construct and prepare, it is more trouble than it’s worth.
The best method of understanding if an open-source knowledge base tool is the best for your company is to check out other knowledge base software alternatives, and pay attention to the providers who offer free trials. Then, consult with your group members to see if they’d be willing to experiment with a brand-new platform. Whether you make a decision to move to an open-source, free knowledge-base software program, the key is to ensure that your solution is able to scale with your business.
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