ServiceNow is a unique knowledge-based software on the market. Despite being branded as a workflow management tool, it’s packed with sufficient knowledge management features to provide customers and employees prompt and anytime, anywhere self-help. Expect machine learning tools to identify knowledge gaps, article versioning, and feedback management tools that make it easy to boost customer and employee satisfaction. 

The only issue is ServiceNow can be slightly complicated for some, considering its complex setup and complicated integrations and customizations. The Quicksprout research team has compiled a list of the best ServiceNow alternatives that are user-friendly and offer similar high-performing features.

The 8 Best Knowledge Base Software

The best ServiceNow alternative is Heroic KB because it’s easy to customize, flexible, and packed with several valuable features that make it suitable for any WordPress website. Give the Heroic KB plugin a shot without risk, thanks to its 30-day money-back policy. You can also read more about our top picks here. 

• Heroic KB — Best Knowledge Base Theme For WordPress
• Helpjuice — Best Knowledge Base Software For Scalable Support
• Document360 — Best For Technical Documentation
• Zendesk — Best All-in-One Customer Support Suite
• ServiceNow — Best Knowledge Base Software For IT Service Management
• HelpSite — Best For Simple FAQ Support Pages
• ProProfs Knowledge Base — Best Beginner-Friendly Knowledge Base Software
• Tettra — Best Knowledge Base Software For Internal Use

Heroic KB by HeroThemes — Best Knowledge Base Theme for WordPress 

Instead of being a traditional knowledge-based software, Heroic KB is a plugin that lets you create and manage a knowledge base directly on a WordPress website. Thanks to its AJAX-powered instant search, your employees and customers can easily find answers to their queries in seconds.

Heroic KB can seamlessly integrate with any WordPress theme, allowing you to add or edit articles, attach files, create custom categories and tags, and password-protect and hide articles. What’s more, customers can vote on articles to indicate whether they found the article helpful.

Built-in analytics give you more insight into how your articles are performing, helping you create a more robust knowledge base.

How Heroic KB Compares to ServiceNow

If you own a small- to medium-sized WordPress website, Heroic KB should certainly be one of your first choices. It gives you all the functionalities you need to build a well-structured knowledge base, whether it’s adding new features, functions, or integrating third-party apps—all in just a few clicks.

Contrarily, ServiceNow is more suitable for bigger businesses, especially for making onboarding workflows and transitions. Its features are definitely more advanced and include an innovative search, machine learning tools, and a service portal to streamline customer support. 

But these advanced capabilities of ServiceNow make the setup slightly more complicated compared to Heroic KB. Additionally, the latter gives you full control of your knowledge base, meaning you don’t have to abide by the rules of the devs.

The other factor to note is the pricing. While both knowledge base software tools aren’t the most affordable options on the market, ServiceNow has steeper pricing; Heroic KB is cheaper to set up and use.

Helpjuice — Best Knowledge Base Software for Scalable Support

Helpjuice has many things going for it in the knowledge base niche—it’s fully customizable, scalable, and incredibly user-friendly. It’s no surprise that over 130,000 users from a diverse range of companies like Amazon, Virgin Mobile, and WHO trust Helpjuice.

Growing customer service teams will particularly find Helpjuice useful. They can use it to collaborate, comment, and reply to knowledge base content to improve articles in real-time. Moreover, new team members can start using the software almost immediately, thanks to the non-existent learning curve.

Other features include a robust search feature, several knowledge base themes, and intelligent analytics. 

How Helpjuice Compares to ServiceNow

In terms of value for money, ServiceNow is more expensive to implement, but that’s understandable since it offers more features than Helpjuice. 

ServiceNow has built-in AI-powered analytics that identifies knowledge gaps and provides answers for the same. Machine learning tools allow for better reporting, while knowledge blocks ensure all relevant knowledge is grouped together to reduce total search time.

If you don’t need the advanced features ServiceNow has to offer, choosing Helpjuice’s specialized knowledge management solution makes more sense to empower your customers with access to valuable self-service information. (It also saves you money, as Helpjuice is quite a bit cheaper than ServiceNow.)

HelpJuice has an AI-powered search engine that simplifies the search for all types of content, plus it offers analytics tools to help you understand user search patterns and ideal knowledge base usage. Live commenting features promote easy collaboration between the members in real time.

Document360 — Best for Technical Documentation

Document360 is another popular solution in the knowledge base software space and is well-suited for teams looking for a reliable tool for technical writing. 

From how-to guides to release notes to system documents, Document360 is the perfect solution to create top-notch, consistent technical documentation without extra effort. Use it to create technical SOPs, self-service tools for customers, and an internal knowledge base for employees. 

It’s also SEO-friendly and easily integrates with team collaboration tools like Slack. You can expect a user-friendly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, detailed analytics and user feedback, and role-based permissions and SSO.

How Document360 Compares to ServiceNow

Document360 is a robust and scalable knowledge base solution for internal users and customers designed to promote and enable self-service. It lets you expand your content as your business expands while offering a fully automated version control module to avoid putting additional work on your staff. It is, however, somewhat limited once the content it oversees has been created. 

ServiceNow has dedicated workflows to publish and retire articles from the knowledge base for customers, employees, and agencies while also providing distinct access controls for reading and contribution. It allows companies to identify and visualize knowledge gaps—and then assign the said knowledge gaps to users using ML models to enhance customer self-service.

Document360 is excellent for developing technical documentation, but ServiceNow can manage the lifecycle of an organization’s IT assets. Use it to create a central database to present, optimize, and manage your organization‘s entire IT resources.

Zendesk — Best All-in-One Customer Support Suite

Next on our list of the best ServiceNow alternatives is Zendesk.

A well-rounded customer service platform, Zendesk allows companies to provide exceptional customer experience thanks to its robust ticketing system, cross-channel support, email management, and other tools. Easily create self-service knowledge bases, including a complete help center and community forums, and provide AI-powered article suggestions.

Other Zendesk benefits include help desk automation, agent collaboration, real-time data, and custom views.

How Zendesk Compares to ServiceNow

When comparing Zendesk and ServiceNow, the first thing you notice is that ServiceNow‘s dashboard is more complicated. It has several menu options that make it less user-friendly to first-time users. Also, ServiceNow only works in the cloud, while Zendesk offers native apps for iOS and Android devices.

Signing up with ServiceNow will give you access to the Now Platform Apps (nearly 219) and Integration (nearly 326). You can use these integrations to manage and improve customer service. On the other hand, Zendesk’s integration capabilities depend on your subscription. Except for the Essential plan, all other plans provide you access to public apps and integration from the marketplace (Professional, Enterprise, and Elite subscriptions also come with private apps and integrations).

ServiceNow is largely oriented toward IT service management, business automation, and app development, whereas Zendesk is focused on multichannel ticket management and self-service. So which one is better will likely depend on your specific needs. 

HelpSite — Best for Simple FAQ Support Pages

If you want your knowledge base software to be simple, you should definitely try HelpSite.

It’s purposely straightforward and doesn’t come with an overwhelming amount of unrelated features, helping businesses create clean FAQs and knowledge base articles. You can also control the accessibility of each piece by creating a publicly accessible support site, an internal knowledge base solely for employees, or a mix of both.

What’s more, you can fully customize your knowledge base and host it on your own domain name with HelpSite. Smart contact forms with auto-suggest help articles and mobile-friendly, customizable tools add to the software’s usability.

How HelpSite Compares to ServiceNow

HelpSite has responsive customer support and is easy to manage and user-friendly. While ServiceNow also has prompt customer service, it’s more complicated in terms of navigation and usability.

Interestingly, this aligns with both software tools’ target users. 

HelpSite is aimed at users looking for simple knowledge base features, whereas ServiceNow targets big businesses that want advanced and innovative tools. For instance, if you’re a small startup and get overwhelmed seeing too many tools and app engines bundled together, HelpSite would make a better option. But if you want advanced tools like built-in analytics or machine learning functionality, ServiceNow would make the better choice.

This also reflects in the pricing, with ServiceNow having a steeper price compared to HelpSite.

ProProfs Knowledge Base — Best Beginner-Friendly Knowledge Base Software 

With ProProfs, you can easily build a knowledge base in five minutes. You’ll be able to easily create diverse content assets, including wikis, user guides, manuals, and help centers. 

Alongside the excellent speed, it also integrates with 100+ third-party CRMs, help desk solutions, and chat tools like Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Freshdesk. It’s packed with unique features and smart settings to support all aspects of knowledge management, right from content authoring to customizing and finally publishing it on internal or external knowledge bases.

ProProfs is also perfect for users of all technical skill levels. It doesn’t require prior HTML or coding knowledge, nor do you need to download any additional apps. 

How ProProfs Compares to ServiceNow

ProProfs caters to the needs of both small-sized businesses as well as large enterprises, regardless of the industry. On the other hand, ServiceNow focuses on capturing knowledge for enterprises and offers them advanced features, such as analytics and dashboards, guided setup, and group ownership.

In terms of functionalities, both software tools are similar. Expect a shared inbox, live chat, customer surveys, and real-time analytics. 

But ServiceNow is more appropriate for IT teams and is based on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines to help businesses improve service orientation for tasks and processes and automate IT support operations. Contrarily, ProProfs is mostly preferred by B2B and SaaS companies as it lets them configure their knowledge bases however they want.

Tettra — Best Knowledge Base Software for Internal Use

Tettra makes a great ServiceNow alternative if you’re looking to build an internal knowledge base to promote your team’s efficiency. 

You get a centralized location to document crucial policies, procedures, and documents. Having this type of internal resource for self-help also streamlines the onboarding of new team members. What’s more, you can easily manage user roles and permissions and restrict access to certain information to ensure the right people have access to the right info.

An intuitive interface and robust search functionality, along with team collaboration and sharing features, ensure your team easy access to the information they need.

How Tettra Compares to ServiceNow

Tettra helps create internal knowledge bases to facilitate knowledge transfer and collaboration between team members, whereas ServiceNow is a comprehensive KMS suite designed for both internal and customer-facing apps.

While both solutions don’t offer support for forums/discussion boards, they still have enough features that make them a leading KMS solution. However, ServiceNow is definitely way more advanced and offers several features like AI learning, IT asset management, HR service delivery, and ITSM function. 

This also makes ServiceNow more expensive than Tettra. 

On the whole, if you want access to several advanced features, ServiceNow would make a better fit. But if you want an affordable and straightforward tool with an adequate feature set to support your staff, Tettra is a worthy option.

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