Gitbook is a secure solution in the list of top documentation software. In the world of SaaS and tangible products, solid product documentation, user guide creator platforms play a vital role in product management tools used today.
GitBook is an all-in-one software documentation tool that can serve as an internal wiki, a knowledge base for customers, and a personal note-taking tool.
Gitbook is a nice open-source documentation creation platform but they are not as adaptable as some other documentation generating software on the market. Gitbook is lacking in essential capabilities such as categorization, comment boards for collaboration, and content management capabilities.
Top GitBook Alternatives for Documentation
GitBook is a popular documentation tool, but several alternatives offer unique features:
- Docsie: Powerful platform for product documentation, user guides, and knowledge base portals
- HelpDocs: Specializes in customer-facing documentation
- Bloomfire: Great for sharing research and thought leadership
- Freshdesk: All-in-one solution with knowledge base and help desk
- Guru: Focuses on internal wiki solutions
- Archbee*: Ideal for SaaS companies and startups
- KnowledgeOwl: Strong for internal knowledge bases
- ProProf: Offers both private and public knowledge bases
- Zendesk: Integrates knowledge base with customer service tools
Key features to consider when choosing an alternative: - Search capabilities - Collaboration tools - User interface - Security options - Analytics - Permission management - Translation features
Docsie stands out with its robust features, including version control, AI-powered translation, and customizable portals. Select a platform that best fits your specific documentation needs and workflow.
So what are Gitbook’s strengths?
Using the Gitbook editor, you, your users, and your team can easily record everything from products to APIs to internal knowledge bases. GitBook supports importing from websites or Markdown files. It employees a straightforward folder structure.
Gitbook improves the efficiency of your company's documentation by creating relatively simple yet effective knowledge-sharing of your services or products. It does, however, give an interactive approach to process documents, although at times there are some difficulties with customer service.
Although it lacks customer service, some collaboration capabilities, such as real-time collaborative editing, it excels in others. GitBook may be an excellent alternative if you're searching for a tool to combine all static documents in one location.
As a result, you'll come across a plethora of Gitbook alternatives. However, for your convenience, we've compiled a list of the finest options, along with their benefits, that will be available in 2022 to assist you in making the right decision for your company.
Docsie
**Docsie** is a strong and powerful platform for creating, managing, designing, and publishing product documentation, user guides, help desk documentation and knowledge base portals. It has collaboration features that enable users to collaborate, assign tasks, and comment on digital documentation as it is written. User roles and permissions enable administrators to exercise fine-grained control over data access. All modifications in Docsie are timestamped, which enables you to track what your users are doing and where they are making changes. Additionally, Docsie allows a practically infinite number of versions and translations with its AI-powered ghost translator, which ensures a high degree of accuracy when translating documents.
What is Docsie used for?
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Internal and external documentation capabilities
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Ability to translate documentation with a click of a button
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Internal and external search capabilities for all documentation.
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Docsie portals can be hosted natively as part of a Docsie plan, or self-hosted using Docsie Script.
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Has a feedback, web analytics tool to see how your customers is using your documentation
Docsie provides five tiers of pricing:
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Startup – Free
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Startup Plus– $39 /month
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Small Teams – $79 /month
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Business – $249 /month
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Oraganization – $699/month
Advantages and Disadvantages of Docsie
Pros:
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Everything is time-stamped
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Has many useful integrations
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Allows for style customizations
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Easy to use once you get started
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All documentation is dynamic and versatile
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Excellent and quick to respond technical support
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Docsie comes with a plethora of plugins and add-ons
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The online documentation looks modern and has a sleek design
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Has useful tools for collaborating with your team to complete documentation
Cons:
- Some minor restrictions with formatting and page layout.
Archbee
Archbee is a fantastic knowledge management system for your staff and consumers. This solution is ideal for SaaS firms and startups since it can consolidate all of your company's information so that your staff and customers can benefit from it.
Archbee is one of the finest Gitbooks alternatives since it allows you to create a centralized knowledge library for developers and other specialists. As a result, the technology may be utilized as an internal wiki, self-service, and technical documentation tool.
With Archbee, you can:
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Reduce information islands and improve knowledge interchange
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Provide a model support experience to consumers
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Close the knowledge gap between workers
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Improve developer efficiency
Archbee has three pricing options:
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Starting – Basic features at $0
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Growing – $20/month
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Scaling – $60/month
Archbee's advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
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Mention team members to view, share or update knowledge
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Use custom blocks to publish information in different forms
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Embedded comments for easier collaboration
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Unlimited revision history
Cons:
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You have no choice but to multi-brand your knowledge base
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There is no SEO tailored feature in Archbee
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There is no workflow approval mechanism
Boomfire
It is not unusual for knowledge bases to provide access to both internal and external knowledge. Bloomfire may be an excellent option for businesses wanting to share research or thought-leading material to create a manual, user guides, or product documentation. However, some users believe Bloomfire's scalability is restricted, in part owing to the absence of connectors.
The cloud-based platform enables users to upload material in any format including word documents, PDFs, videos, audio recordings, and slide presentations, or generate new content directly in the platform. Bloomfire thoroughly indexes every word in every file, to ensure that users can easily locate what they're searching for.
What is Boomfire used for?
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Data encryption, safe hosting, and numerous backup sites are all included in the security features.
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To enhance interaction, Bloomfire has features for producing newsletters and custom lists.
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Employees and consumers benefit from AI-driven search with recommended content.
Boomfire provides Two tiers of pricing:
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Basic – $25/user/month
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Enterprise – Requires a Demo for pricing
Advantages and Disadvantages of BoomFire
Pros:
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Bloomfire is constantly improving its features, such as spoken word search.
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Capability to enhance the quality of the material by flagging it for review.
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AI-powered search and content tagging capabilities.
Cons:
- Bloomfire integrates with a restricted number of third-party applications.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is another all-in-one solution that includes a knowledge base, help desk, user guides and chat capabilities, allowing you to communicate with customers via multiple channels. Powerful analytics, self-service, and a smart help desk can all help you provide a 360-degree support experience to your customers.
You can do the following with Freshdesk:
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Establish a community forum where customers can ask questions and receive prompt responses.
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Automate workflow and respond to customer questions more quickly.
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Provide 24/7 self-service support for your customers
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Boost the effectiveness of your support staff
Freshdesk provides five tiers of pricing:
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Sprout – Basic features at $0
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Blossom – $13.70/agent/month
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Garden – $35.70/agent/month
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Estate – $49.40/agent/month
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Forest – $98.90/agent/month
Advantages and Disadvantages of Freshdesk
Pros:
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Answer bot to help customers find the right answers quickly
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Convert agent responses into knowledge base articles
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Rich insights into article and agent performance
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Content review workflow approval system
Cons:
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No option to export your entire knowledge base
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Freshdesk doesn’t support multi-branding
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No co-editing or internal comments
Guru
Guru is primarily concerned with assisting businesses in optimizing corporate documentation with internal wiki solutions. This guarantees that workers have access to the necessary knowledge to perform their job duties. Guru facilitates the production, sharing, and modification of online documentation from other sources directly on the platform, while also integrating with current workflows.
What is Guru used for?
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Copying information directly from the cards into support chat allows for a more streamlined customer care experience.
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Special "knowledge alerts" are used to warn staff of significant changes to the knowledge base.
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Guru is mainly used as an internal documentation wiki.
Guru provides five tiers of pricing:
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Starter – $5/user/month
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Builder – $10/user/month
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Expert – $20/user/month
Advantages and Disadvantages of Guru
Pros:
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Project management tools assist in integrating the knowledge base into daily workflows, improving the likelihood of knowledge capture.
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Excellent for capturing knowledge while working in other online apps, using both the Slack capture feature and the browser extension.
Cons:
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Verifying cards can get overwhelming if the database is mismanaged for an extended period of time or if just a few persons are responsible for examining and updating the information.
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Limited card editing capabilities complicate document collaboration.
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Limited integration capabilities
HelpDocs
HelpDocs is a cloud-based knowledge management system that can be used to create internal and external knowledge databases but mainly concentrates on help documentation to create user guides and online manuals. This master option includes everything you'll need to give your customers and staff a better self-service experience. Multi-language support, complex access control systems, and eye-catching customizations are all available with HelpDocs, which is feature-rich and integrated. HelpDocs's quick self-service options seem to be very beneficial to customers.
You may use HelpDocs to:
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Enable your agents to react to customer inquiries more quickly
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Provide a quick source of information for your support team
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Provide customers with rapid self-service help
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Reduce the number of support tickets
HelpDocs offers three different price options:
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Starter – $39/month
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Pro – $79/month
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Growth – $169/month
Advantages and Disadvantages of HelpDocs
Pros:
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Hand-made templates allow you to build your knowledge base in minutes
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Fully modifiable knowledge bases styles with CSS
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Improve knowledge base SEO features
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Easy import and export of articles
Cons
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You can't clone your knowledge base and tag it differently
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There is no way to add internal comments to a project
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There is no workflow approval mechanism
KnowledgeOwl
KnowledgeOwl focuses on internal knowledge bases, whereas many of the other alternatives on this list focus on external customer-centric knowledge bases or product documentation. This is a low-level coding option with a lot of features. It is industry-independent and is particularly beneficial to human resources (HR) and customer service departments. It assists users in categorizing and sub-categorizing information. Users can use tags to group articles together based on keywords or phrases to increase their discoverability. Customers may use KnowledgeOwl to store and distribute information in the form of online manuals, handbooks, portals, user guides, and software documentation. Its analytics and reporting capabilities enable users to overcome knowledge gaps by analyzing user demands.
What can you do with KnowledgeOwl?
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Customers may use KnowledgeOwl to store and distribute information in the form of online manuals, handbooks, portals, user guides, and software documentation.
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When someone contributes new information to the knowledge base, webhooks and Slack webhooks are utilized to automatically alert you.
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Functions that may be customized, such as the table of contents and homepage buttons, making it simpler to navigate quickly.
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Users may access the knowledge base from your main website using the contextual assistance widget.
KnowledgeOwl provides three tiers of pricing:
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Flex – $79/month
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Business – $299/month
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Enterprise – $999/month
Advantages and Disadvantages of HelpDocs
Pro:
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KnowledgeOwl's many API keys and Zapier connectors make it simple to link with other apps.
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Users applaud KnowledgeOwl's prompt customer support service.
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it has a simple, appealing user interface.
Cons:
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Users have expressed issues with the design, desiring a more modern design of their oinline documentation layout
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No free tier
Proprof
ProProf knowledge base platform is used to establish separate private and public knowledge bases for workers and consumers who want to see the product documentation and help docs. It aids in the reduction of customer tickets, the enhancement of internal documentation for corporate teams, the simplification of company operations, and the enhancement of customer service. By centralizing access to information across different devices and browsers, ProProfs simplifies and streamlines information collection for both staff and consumers. ProProf offers a comprehensive collection of tools to make life simpler for your organization, including a learning management system, a quiz creation tool, and real-time chat. ProProfs is popular among marketers, human resources professionals, and customer service teams because of its tool package.
What can you do with ProProf?
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Instantly translate your online documentation into other languages
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Use its MS word-like editor to create documentation
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Use its templates 25 templates to get set up
ProProf provides five tiers of pricing:
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Free – Basic features at $0/20 pages
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Professional – $13.70/100 pages/month
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Team – $35.70/200 pages/month
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Business – $49.40/300 pages/month
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Enterprise – $98.90/unlimited pages/month
Advantages and disadvantages of ProProf
Pros
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Users may quickly browse and understand the product due to its simple and straightforward user interface.
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Perfect interaction with other ProProfs products—ideal if you're already a ProProfs user.
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A free plan with up to 20 pages is available.
Cons
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The cost per page ranges from $0.30 to $0.50, which adds up rapidly.
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Not as advanced as other options on this list.
Zendesk
Zendesk is a software company that specializes on helping businesses improve their customer service. Although Zendesk has an internal knowledge library, the company is primarily focused on developing a robust help desk ticketing system.
What can you do with Zendesk
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Drag the knowledge base's information into the chat support feature.
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A simple, easy-to-use interface.
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Translation capabilities
Advantages and disadvantages of Zendesk
Pro:
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·is completely integrated with Zendesk's range of tools, including help desk and live chat. chat.
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The following are some of the elements of the knowledge base: a simple, easy-to-use interface.
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·Drag the knowledge base's information into the chat support feature.
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More than 40 languages have been translated into kinds.
Con:
- The internal knowledge database lacks sophisticated functionality.
Now that you have viewed 9 alternatives to Gitbook it’s a good idea to see what you are looking for in a knowledge base for your own needs
Now it is time to consider the knowledge base functionalities you will need for your next project. When making a decision on which documentation platform to choose it is critical to keep an eye out for include the following:
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Search navigation capabilities: This can be within the platform or external searching within the online documentation. Also, a good search navigator makes sensible suggestions and helps you find information quickly by suggesting various locations within the written content.
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Tools For collaboration: Good collaboration tools are equipped with editing capabilities with collaboration, commenting capabilities, version control, and assigning tasks?
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A Nice Looking Interface: It has to be simple, straightforward, and yet dynamic, and versatile.
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Password Protected Documentation Capabilities: Is the knowledge base tool provide security such as password protection, and JWT tokens to your documentation?
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Web Analytics: Are you able to measure how people access and interact with your documentation?
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Permission Management: Are you able to easily manage who has access to or edits certain files, get them time-stamped, and make sure you control who does what on the documentation?
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Translation Capabilities: Is your documentation platform able to translate your documentation into various languages?
Select a Knowledge Base platform that Works For You!
Now that you know what you are looking for it's time to pick a suitable option that will help you checkmark all these features, and capabilities you require to make good-looking documentation that is dynamic and works for your customers and/or employees.
We'll offer you a tip: Docsie is an excellent fit for all your documentation needs! It's a knowledge base platform that's simple to use yet sophisticated. It checks all these needs above and it is suitable for internal and external documentation.
Docsie’s knowledge base is completely customizable to match your brand's look and feel. Try Docsie now and you will see why many businesses choose Docsie as an alternative to Gitbook.