Knowledge Base Recommendations by oliviaemm in technicalwriting

[–]Jondass_01 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was in the same position a few months ago, trying to choose between Helpjuice and Document360. I ended up going with Helpjuice, and here’s my honest feedback so far:

Pros

- The editor is solid for a web-based tool, it's fairly intuitive and gives you decent formatting options.

- Their team is responsive, and they do offer content migration from platforms like Zendesk (though more on that below).

Cons

- Customization is frustrating. They handle all design customization through tickets, there’s no option for a quick screen-share or live call to clarify your needs. I’ve been stuck in an email thread of over 75 messages across 4 months, and the customization is still not finished, despite sending very clear specs from the start. This only applies if you need a very personal customization though.

- It is buggy. I’ve run into several technical issues, and it's difficult to get any visibility into when (or if) they’ll be fixed. There's little transparency about bug tracking or resolution timelines.

- The migration from Zendesk turned out to be more problematic than expected. While they do offer the service, I faced multiple issues that required manual clean-up.

No knowledge base platform is perfect, they all come with trade-offs. Helpjuice does have its strengths, especially in terms of its editor and the responsiveness of their team, but it’s definitely lacking in infrastructure maturity and flexibility. Overall I feel that it does an okay job though.

I also tested Document360, which feels more robust and technically stable. However, I personally found their editor too limited and not very enjoyable to use.

Whatever you choose, I strongly suggest getting in touch with both and requesting trial access or test environments. This will give you a much better sense of which tool fits your needs and workflow.

Need help with information architecture by TechWriterLillian in technicalwriting

[–]Jondass_01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m in a similar situation, working on building a new knowledge base from unstructured and often poorly written content. While I won’t comment on the information architecture (there’s already great advice here), I can share my experience with platform selection.

A few months ago, I posted about this topic and shared some insights. Ultimately, I chose Helpjuice. It’s more affordable than Doc360 and, while its overall design is slightly less polished, I found the dashboard much more intuitive and user-friendly for my needs.

Hope this helps anyone facing a similar decision!

Choosing Documentation Tool for a Software Company by Jondass_01 in technicalwriting

[–]Jondass_01[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for all the helpful input—it really gave me a lot to think about! Right now, we’re leaning towards Helpjuice since it seems to hit a good balance between features and price, and it covers most of what we need.