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After our recent article comparing Notion vs WordPress for creating knowledge bases, our curiosity has been piqued to explore how other documentation builders and content hosting tools stack up against WordPress.
To kick off this series of comparisons, today we’ll delve into Document360 vs WordPress, another widely used SaaS-based knowledge base platform.
We’ll cover the following topics:
Choosing the right platform is crucial when creating comprehensive documentation for your products or services. In this article, we’ll explore two popular options: Document360 and WordPress.
Analyze these platforms for their distinctive strengths and weaknesses. And test what makes them ideal for different use cases. By comparing Document360 vs WordPress, you can make an informed decision to create a powerful knowledge base that serves your audience effectively.
On one side WordPress is extremely efficient in creating and hosting small to large websites with all the necessary features to operate a business and market products like contact forms, community building, on-site marketplace or payment gateway, ability to embed every kind of media format, documentations, knowledge bases and more.
But it can be limiting in the sense that WordPress does have a learning curve and your business might require hiring a dedicated WordPress enthusiast to get past certain issues.
However, for most tech-savvy people that wouldn’t be necessary since WordPress is by far the most widely documented program on the web with a large user community, and online educators creating tutorials and how-to guides for WordPress.
If you would like to avoid this, Document360 could be more up to your speed. It features a powerful SaaS platform in an elegant layout. Although there isn’t as much content available for Document360 compared to WordPress, we found that the available content produced by the Document360 team is sufficient for most scenarios.
Document360 is a dedicated knowledge base SAAS software offering an intuitive user interface and features specifically designed to manage product documentation, large corporate guidelines, product wikis, user manuals, and more.
It is suitable for businesses that require a simple and efficient solution for creating and organizing their knowledge base.
A key selling point for large corporations on Document360 is the fact that it’s so easy to use and train team members on. Traning large teams on software can quickly add up costs but Document360 can ease that pressure.
Document360 is specialized knowledge-base software designed to streamline the process of creating, managing, and sharing product documentation.
It offers a range of features tailored to meet the needs of businesses looking to provide detailed and user-friendly documentation for their products and services.
Some of these are:
Document360 provides a modern and visually appealing interface, making it easy for users to navigate and find information. If you have ever used a dashboard SAAS software with a sidebar menu, then getting familiar with Document360 won’t be an issue.
All the necessary features such as documentation/brand dashboard, Document360 analytics tool, content editor of your preference, etc. will be neatly organized on the left-hand side of the screen. Additional features associated with each feature can be accessed from each option.
WordPress on the other hand features all of its major features, plugin menus on the dashboard making it confusing for novice users.
One of Document360’s lesser-known features is its Setup Wizard link configuration screen. This is an excellent example of a user-friendly system. The Setup Wizard link screen walks new users through selecting key features and customization options, creating a subdomain name, and selecting an editor screen.
This is a great way to get started with the documentation creation process, especially if you’re starting from scratch. The Setup Wizard takes the guesswork out of the process and helps you create a knowledge base that is tailored to your specific needs.
Document360 currently offers three different content editors with varying features and difficulty levels for users. All three editors are excellent for training large teams on and standardizing best practices.
However, their features are also limited compared to the WordPress default block editor/classic editor.
The WordPress default block editor has a much wider range of features, including third-party add-ons, shortcodes, block embeds, and more. This makes it a better choice for users who need more flexibility and control over their content.
Document360 still has some advantages over WordPress. For example, it is more user-friendly for non-technical users, and it offers better search capabilities.
The newly released Beta Document360 Block Editor is likely to introduce more advanced content creation and formatting tools to the platform.
This is an excellent example of a detailed and well-explained analytics monitor layout. It has powerful capabilities such as user interaction, internal keyword search, user feedback, link analyzer, and more. However, it is only available from the Professional subscription tier and above.
While Document360 is a great option for many businesses, there are a few drawbacks to consider, including:
Document360 is very limited in terms of customization for free users they can only customize their logo, and landing page colors, choose between two simple knowledge base layouts, favicon, etc.
Since the Document360 free version is so limited in functionality, businesses must opt-in for premium plans. And even then businesses must decide between different premium Document360 plans since there are a few differences between each plan.
For example, a custom email domain is only included with the Enterprise plan, which costs $599/month. Businesses also have the option to opt-in for monthly add-on packages for features such as additional storage, SEO metadata generator, and AI-powered auto translation.
Each add-on package costs a different amount, and some even require credits. For example, the SEO metadata generator add-on requires credits that are priced at $10 /100 credits. A better explanation of the add-on packages and their pricing would be helpful for businesses to make an informed decision about which plan to choose.
Are you concerned about whether Document360’s free plan is indexable on Google or Bing? rest assured you’re content on the free plan can be indexed with SEO titles & metadata. But you’re missing out on pro features such as website schema.
WordPress, on the other hand, is a widely popular content management system (CMS) that can also be used for creating product documentation. It offers extensive customization options and is suitable for businesses that require flexibility and a highly customizable platform.
Since WordPress is a barebones CMS platform users are required to use a third-party documentation plugin. This is the best thing about WordPress the wide variety of plugins to choose from. Users can choose between any of the Best Documentation Plugins for WordPress for 2023.
For example: Some of the best documentation/knowledge base plugins for WordPress are:
As we mentioned in our previous blog on this comparison series on Notion vs WordPress: WordPress is unbeatable in some of its strengths such as:
WordPress provides a high level of flexibility, allowing users to customize their documentation website to fit their specific brand and requirements. Say for example your business needs to create product documentation, but you don’t want to create a separate website. In this use the EazyDocs documentation plugin to create an informative documentation library with your current website.
or
Say, for example, you need to create a knowledge base website, You can simply choose any of the best knowledge-base themes for WordPress.
The platform is truly flexible and can be customized to meet the needs of both seasoned veterans and novice users. Whether you prefer to use Gutenberg blocks, Elementor page builder, or Beaver Builder, the options are endless.
With thousands of plugins available, WordPress offers a wide range of extensions to enhance the functionality of the documentation website. This plugin library allows developers to create and operate any kind of website with ease.
The combination of WordPress and EazyDocs can help users create a robust documentation management system that can be managed and customized from both the front end and back end of the website.
Even if you are not able to create your content layout, you can use any of EazyDocs’ Elementor templates to start a structured documentation page and customize it to match your brand style.
Another important point that can be made for WordPress is its ease of updating. For example, if you already have an existing documentation site, you can use Elementor to update the page style without affecting the content.
Or, if you want to focus on managing the published content and keeping documentation up to date, you can use EazyDocs for ease of management.
We believe that custom support portals are essential for any documentation site. If a customer runs into issues while trying to self-serve through documentation, they should be able to quickly and easily get in touch with a support representative via live chat, AI-powered assistant, or by opening a support ticket directly from the website.
WordPress can be a great asset for creating a fully functional support portal using any of the popular form builder plugins like WP Form, Ninja Form, Contact Form 7, etc. to set up an email form/ticketing system. And for setting up a support portal/live chat using EazyDocs’ doc assistant.
WordPress is known for its strong search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities, helping documentation websites rank higher in search engine results.
Users are open to using any number of free SEO plugins to best optimize their content to rank on Google with the added ability to create a custom schema for their website, which is missing on Docment360.
Using WordPress can be challenging at times. There are a few reasons for this:
WordPress has a steeper learning curve compared to dedicated knowledge-base software like Document360. Users may need some technical knowledge to fully utilize its features. And this issue can go much deeper as businesses need to train a larger workforce on WordPress.
As an open-source platform, WordPress is constantly evolving and requires regular updates and security measures to protect against vulnerabilities.
However, updates are not always released regularly, as the WordPress core team must carefully test and validate each update before it is released.
This can be a challenge, as WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world, and any update that breaks websites can have a significant impact. As a result, update and fix rollouts can sometimes be slow for WordPress.
Choosing the best platform for your product documentation depends on your specific needs and resources.
Document360 excels in providing a user-friendly interface, collaboration capabilities, advanced search functionality, and version control. It is an excellent option for businesses that prioritize ease of use and simplicity.
And it’s easy to train a large workforce with this simple software.
Having said that we can recommend Document360 as a good choice for large businesses that require no-fuss documentation services and are willing to invest in a good solution.
On the other hand, WordPress offers flexibility, extensive customization options, a large plugin ecosystem, and strong SEO capabilities. It is suitable for businesses that require a highly customizable platform and have the resources to manage and optimize their documentation website effectively.
Of course, WordPress can be an excellent tool for creating and managing any kind of website with extensive documentation using a popular documentation tool such as EazyDocs.
We can easily recommend WordPress for businesses of any size and capacity. As long as the business is willing to adopt and train on WordPress. And on the plus side maintaining a WordPress website doesn’t require a large sum of investment.
Ultimately, consider your organization’s specific requirements, budget, and technical expertise when deciding between Document360 and WordPress for your product documentation needs.
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