Decide who your help content is for before you compare anything. Customer help centres are built to be found by search and to reduce support tickets, while internal wikis are built for colleagues to write and update together. A few tools try to do both, so be clear about which reader matters most to you.
Every knowledge base has two possible readers: a customer hunting for an answer late at night, or a colleague who'd otherwise ask the same question in chat for the fifth time this week. Archbee aims at both, with user guides, API docs, knowledge bases and SOPs on one platform. Most alternatives lean one way or the other. Below are eight, in no particular order, sorted by which reader they serve first.
What to test when you leave Archbee
The useful test is how help articles are written, organised and found, and who's allowed to edit them. That sounds obvious, but it's where knowledge base projects quietly fail. A tool can look lovely in a demo and still end up with three versions of the same article, a search box that can't find the word your customers use, and a single person who has to approve every change.
So write down your answers to a few questions before you start a trial. Who writes most of your articles: support agents, product managers or engineers? Do they want a rich editor, markdown or something they already use? How will customers search, and will an AI assistant answer from your articles? And when a feature changes, who updates the help content, and how do they know which pages are affected?
Tools in this category split by who they're built for and how much you set up yourself. Self-hosted options give you control and leave the upkeep with you. Hosted help centres look after the publishing side but have their own ideas about structure. Run the same real task through each: publish one article, update it, and find it from the customer's side.
Archbee alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Built around | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| BookStack | Self-hosted open source wiki | Teams happy to host their own wiki |
| Document360 | AI documentation platform | Customer docs with AI search and a chatbot |
| HelpDocs | Help centre software | Self-service help that cuts repeat support tickets |
| Helpjuice | Knowledge base software | Knowledge bases staff and customers keep using |
| HelpKit | Notion-powered help centre | Turning existing Notion docs into a hosted help site |
| Papyrs | Intranet and internal wiki | A simple company intranet and wiki |
| Slite | Connected team knowledge | Keeping company knowledge dependable for staff and AI |
| Tettra | Internal knowledge base | Answering repeat questions inside the team |
Customer help centres versus team wikis
Help centres for your customers
Helpjuice, HelpDocs and Document360 are built for publishing help that customers read. The common thread is self-service: answer the question before it becomes a ticket, with AI search or AI answers layered on top in most cases. HelpKit takes a different route, publishing pages you've already written in Notion as a hosted help centre, which suits small teams who don't want another editor to learn.
Wikis and knowledge for your team
Tettra, Slite and Papyrs focus on internal knowledge: the answers your team keeps asking for, company processes and the scattered notes that live in chat threads. BookStack sits here too, as an open source, self-hosted wiki for teams that want to keep everything on their own servers. These tools care less about polished public pages and more about how easily colleagues can add and update content.
Eight knowledge base tools, alphabetically
Listed A to Z and in no particular order. Each line reflects how the vendor describes its own product.
BookStack
Best for: Teams with someone technical to host it, since the vendor describes a simple, open source, self-hosted platform for organising and storing information.
Document360
Best for: Documentation teams wanting AI search, an AI chatbot and writing help built in, which the vendor frames as people and AI working together.
HelpDocs
Best for: Support teams publishing a customer help centre while keeping internal docs in step; the vendor's angle is deflecting tickets with AI.
Helpjuice
Best for: Support-led teams focused on getting staff and customers to use the knowledge base at all, which is the problem the vendor says it sets out to solve.
HelpKit
Best for: Anyone already writing in Notion who wants those pages published as a customer help centre or docs site without code, per the vendor.
Papyrs
Best for: Smaller companies wanting an intranet, internal wiki and knowledge base in one site, which the vendor pitches as quick to build.
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Slite
Best for: Teams whose knowledge is scattered across tools; the vendor says it connects to where work happens so people and their AI work from dependable answers.
Tettra
Best for: Managers tired of answering the same internal questions, with the vendor describing an AI knowledge base that curates company information.
Closing advice on knowledge base software
If your main problem is support tickets, start with the customer help centre group and judge each tool by how quickly a customer finds the right article from a real question. If your main problem is colleagues asking the same thing over and over, start with the wiki group and judge by how easily a busy person can add or fix a page. Trying to solve both with one tool can work, but only if the people writing for customers and the people writing for each other agree on structure.
Give one person ownership of the knowledge base, even if lots of people write for it. Without an owner, articles drift out of date, categories multiply and search gets worse every month. With one, you'll have someone who notices when a product change makes ten pages wrong, and someone who can say no to a new category that only duplicates an old one.
Whatever you choose, plan the migration as a content clean-up rather than a copy job. Retire the articles nobody reads, merge duplicates and fix titles so they match the words your customers use. For more options, see my guide to knowledge base software and, if you need a ticketing system alongside it, my list of free help desk software.
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Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a knowledge base and a wiki?
A knowledge base is usually organised for readers looking up answers, often customers. A wiki is built for a team to write and edit together, and it's often internal.
Can one tool handle customer docs and internal docs?
Some can, with separate public and private spaces. Check how permissions work, so internal notes never end up on a public page by mistake.
Should I choose a self-hosted knowledge base?
Self-hosting gives you control over your data and setup. It also means someone on your team handles updates, backups and security, so be honest about who'll do that.
Do AI answers replace a help centre?
No. AI assistants answer from your articles, so they're only as good as the content underneath. Clear, current articles still matter most.
How do I move articles from one knowledge base to another?
Most tools offer an export and an import of some kind. Expect to fix formatting, images and internal links by hand, and use the move to clear out outdated pages.
