This post talks about the best free knowledge base software available for Windows 11/10. A knowledge base software is basically a database that is used for creating, storing, organizing, and managing information on your products, services, topics, and department. It can be FAQs, troubleshooting guides, organization data, manuals, runbooks, and more.
A knowledge database can be powered by artificial intelligence that responds to customer queries and questions. Or, it can be simply an indexed encyclopedia, catalog, record, etc. It consists of several knowledge items that can be a topic, question, answer, article, and more. The knowledge items can be separate entities or can also be interconnected.
What is a Knowledge Base software?
A knowledge base software is a program or application that allows you to prepare and organize a knowledge database. Now, if you are looking for a knowledge base software to use on a Windows 11/10 PC, you have landed on the right page. In this article, we are going to mention some of the better free software that enable you to record, store, and organize your knowledge database with structures or even unstructured information. Some of these free software are mind-map based which let you manage knowledge databases in mind map forms. A few software let you prepare and manage FAQs for organizations, while one software lets you manage a helpdesk with an integrated knowledge base. All in all, these software can be used by different kinds of organizations for managing knowledge databases.
Let us now check out what are these knowledge base software for Windows 11/10.
Best free Knowledge Base Software for Windows 11/10
Here is a list of the best free knowledge base software for your Windows 11/10 PC:
- FreeMind
- Freeplane
- Confluence
- Guru Knowledge Management Software
- HESK
- phpMyFAQ
- DokuWiki
Let us discuss the above-listed knowledge base software in detail!
1] FreeMind
FreeMind is primarily a mind mapping software that you can create and organize a knowledge base. It lets you create and store interconnected knowledge items to make an entire knowledge base. And obviously, the knowledge base is created in the form of mind maps. You can browse through parent and child nodes to look for knowledge items in your knowledge base. The mind maps can be encrypted too.
You can add nodes in any of the following formats: floating node, topic, subtopic, important, question, idea, website, quotation, definition, description, etc. It lets you add hyperlinks, images, text, files, and more data to the nodes. Furthermore, you can assign icons to nodes and customize node appearance. It lets you toggle between HTML and layout view modes.
Some more features provided in it include Assign Attributes, Attribute Manager, Join Nodes, Split Node, Share Map, Join Map, etc. Plus, you can export the mind maps and knowledge base in OpenOffice Writer document, HTML, TWiki, Java Applet, PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG, etc.
All in all, it is a good free and open-source knowledge base software that allows you to easily create, organize, and manage your knowledge base on Windows 11/10.
Read: How to use Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine.
2] Freeplane
Freeplane is a free and open-source knowledge base software for Windows 11/10. This software lets you create a knowledge base in form of informative and interactive mind maps. You can add parent nodes, child nodes, and sub-nodes to your mind map to represent the knowledge items in your information database. The node content may include text, icons, images, hyperlinks, scientific formulas, calculations, and more. You can customize style, layout, map background, node core, edge properties, and more of your mind maps.
More features of it to mention include Approximate Search, Filters, Manage Time, Manage Task, Install Addons, Execute Scripts, Assign Hotkeys, etc. You can export the information and mind maps in various formats including Latex document, PDF, TWiki, Mediawiki, ADOC, HTML, JPEG, PNG, JNLP, XML, XLS, OPML, etc.
It is an easy to use simple knowledge base software for Windows 11/10.
Read: How to create a Mind Map in Microsoft PowerPoint.
3] Confluence
Confluence is a free remote knowledge base software for Windows 11/10. It is a SaaS service where you can work on your knowledge base in collaboration with your team. You can invite up to 10 members of your team when using the free plan of this cloud-based software.
It lets you create how-to guides, troubleshooting articles, blogs, master project documentation, and other resources in your knowledge databases. You can create pages for your knowledge articles and add attachments, files, images, emojis, tables, and more to your articles. It also lets you customize Space Settings like look and feel, overview, and more of your workspace.
You can also export guides to Word or PDF documents. And, it also lets you share the knowledge database via link.
To use this cloud-based knowledge base, head over to its website here.
4] Guru Knowledge Management Software
Guru Knowledge Management Software is a cloud-based knowledge base software. You can sign up for this service and then log in to use it. It is an effective software for enterprises to record, distribute, and use collective knowledge.
You can use its Knowledge section to add a new board or board group for representing a knowledge item. In each board, you can add multiple knowledge cards and sections with text, file links, images, videos, links to existing cards, markdown, and more elements. You can manage individual cards and tasks using Card Manager and My Tasks menu.
It lets you download cards and sections as a PDF document and generate embed code. Plus, you can add a card to your favorites list, copy card URL, and set up privacy and sharing options.
You can get started with this free knowledge base software here. However, the free plan of this service is for at most 3 Core users.
Read: Best Free Mind Mapping software for Windows.
5] HESK
HESK is a free helpdesk and knowledge base software for Windows 11/10. It is web-based software and requires a web server like XAMPP to work. This software is suitable for small size startup businesses to create and manage a knowledge base to resolve customer queries.
To create and organize a helpdesk knowledge base, it offers a Knowledgebase menu where you can create categories with several public and private articles. You can easily build your knowledge database here. Add images to your articles, keywords, canned responses, custom data fields, and more to your articles. Some handy features like Assign Tickets, Ban IPs, Ban Emails, Service Messages, Email Templates, Statuses, and more are also available in it.
It is a good and easy-to-use helpdesk software with integrated knowledge base software. You can download it from hesk.com.
6] phpMyFAQ
As you can guess by the name, phpMyFAQ is a free knowledge base software that lets you create and manage FAQ databases. It lets you create an administrator account and then add users in groups with specific permissions. The users can create new documents and share and print them in PDF. You can create and prepare FAQs by adding the name, question, answer, attachments, comments, glossary items, email, category, keywords, and link to the FAQ. It lets you export FAQs to PDF, JSON, XHTML, and plain XML formats.
Here are some nice features of this free and open-source knowledge base software:
- You can use HTTP authentication or OpenLDAP-based user management to secure your FAQ database.
- The options to backup and restore the database are also available in it.
- It also lets you integrate your Twitter account with your FAQ database and keep your followers updated.
- Some more features to mention include Advanced Search, Search Engine Optimization, Statistics, and Advanced Spam Protection.
phpMyFAQ software can be downloaded from here. But, do note that it works with a web server like XAMPP or WAMP.
7] DokuWiki
DokuWiki is a simple free and open-source knowledge base and wiki software for Windows 11/10. It can be used for corporate knowledge databases as well as have some more use cases like a private notebook, project workplaces, software manuals, etc. It has a lot of good features that include adding and uploading images and media files, embedding HTML syntax, unlimited page revisions, categorizing content in namespaces, customizable Interwiki links, editing sections of a page, and many more.
It also generates an automatic table of content, provides an autosave feature, offers Access Control and Anti-Spam Measures, and has an index-based fast full-text search option. It supports integrating with LDAP, MySQL, Postgres, and others with authentication backends.
You can learn more about it and download it from its official website.
What is open source Knowledge Base?
An open-source knowledge base software is one whose source is distributed freely online. You can download and analyze the source code of an open-source knowledge base software as well as modify it without any restriction. In this article, we have mentioned some open-source knowledge base software. To name a few, you can try Freeplane, phpMyFAQ, and DokuWiki which are completely free and open-source knowledge base software.
Is Confluence a Knowledge Base?
Yes, Confluence is a knowledge base software. It lets you prepare a knowledge database with how-to articles, troubleshooting guides, and more content. We have discussed it in detail, so check it out above in this article.
