Authoring & Help Tools
Help authoring tools, component content management systems, knowledge bases, screen capture, diagramming and in-app guidance software for producing user assistance.
ClickHelp
A browser-based documentation platform for authoring, hosting and maintaining online user guides, knowledge bases and context-sensitive help.
Author-it
A component content authoring and management platform built around reusable topics, aimed at regulated and enterprise documentation teams.
MadCap Software
The vendor behind MadCap Flare, a long-established help authoring tool for single-sourced online help, print manuals and knowledge bases.
Document360
A knowledge base platform for product documentation and self-service help centres, with versioning, analytics and API reference support.
Oxygen XML Editor
A full-featured XML authoring and development environment with strong DITA and DocBook support, widely used by structured-content teams.
Paligo
A cloud component content management system based on a DocBook-derived model, with topic reuse, versioning and multi-channel publishing.
Whatfix
A digital adoption platform that layers interactive walkthroughs, tooltips and self-help widgets over enterprise applications.
Trainn
A customer education platform for building product training academies, how-to videos and knowledge bases for SaaS products.
Heretto
A cloud-native DITA component content management system with a browser-based XML editor and a deploy-ready content portal.
Archbee
A documentation platform for product and developer docs with a block editor, custom domains and API reference blocks.
Docmost
An open-source, self-hostable collaborative wiki and documentation platform positioned as an on-premise alternative to Confluence and Notion.
Dr.Explain
A help authoring tool that can analyse an application's user interface and generate annotated screenshots for the help topics automatically.
Tango
A workflow capture tool that generates annotated how-to guides from recorded screen actions and can replay them as in-app walkthroughs.
IXIASOFT
A DITA component content management system aimed at large documentation teams that need review workflows and controlled content reuse.
Acrolinx
An enterprise content governance platform that checks writing against configured style, terminology, tone and clarity rules at scale.
Loom
A screen and camera recording tool for quick asynchronous video explanations, often used for walkthroughs and internal documentation.
Zendesk Guide
The knowledge base and help centre component of the Zendesk support suite, used to publish self-service articles alongside ticketing.
MadCap Flare Online
The cloud companion to MadCap Flare, used to host projects, run review cycles and publish output without local build infrastructure.
Snagit
TechSmith's screen capture and annotation tool, a standard part of many technical writers' toolchains for documentation screenshots.
KnowledgeOwl
Knowledge base software for internal and public documentation, with content reuse snippets, versioning and contextual help widgets.
Quanos
The German software company behind SCHEMA ST4, a component content management system used for technical and service documentation.
Fluid Topics
A content delivery platform that aggregates documentation from multiple sources and publishes it as a unified, searchable portal.
Swimm
A tool for internal code documentation that couples docs to the codebase and flags documents when the code they describe changes.
Craft
A document and note-taking application with block-based editing and polished sharing, used for specs and internal documentation.
Doc-O-Matic
A tool that combines source code documentation generation with help authoring, producing both API reference and conceptual help.
Intercom
A customer support platform whose Help Center product is used to publish and surface documentation articles inside the product.
Nuclino
A lightweight collaborative wiki for internal documentation, with real-time editing and graph, board and list views of content.
Tettra
An internal knowledge base tool with a question-and-answer workflow and Slack integration for capturing undocumented knowledge.
PTC Arbortext
PTC's structured authoring and dynamic publishing suite for service, parts and product documentation tied to engineering data.
Scribe
A tool that records a workflow in the browser or desktop and turns it into an illustrated step-by-step guide automatically.
Zoomin
A documentation delivery platform that unifies product content from several systems into personalised self-service portals.
iorad
A tutorial builder that records a process once and publishes it as an interactive simulation, a video and a written guide.
Outline
A team knowledge base and wiki with Markdown support, available as a hosted service or self-hosted open-source deployment.
HelpNDoc
A help authoring tool that generates HTML help, web-based documentation, PDF, Word and ePub output from one project file.
Lucidchart
A collaborative diagramming application for flowcharts, system diagrams and process maps used in technical documentation.
Obsidian
A local-first Markdown knowledge base application that stores notes as plain files and links them into a navigable graph.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What counts as authoring & help tools?
Help authoring tools, component content management systems, knowledge bases, screen capture, diagramming and in-app guidance software for producing user assistance.
What are authoring & help tools?
Help authoring tools, component content management systems, knowledge bases, screen capture, diagramming and in-app guidance software for producing user assistance.
Docs-as-code or a help authoring tool?
Docs-as-code suits engineering teams who want docs in Git with the code. Help authoring tools suit writers producing large, reusable content sets with output to many formats. Many teams use both.