7 Best Alternatives To MadCap Flare
Tags: madcapflare, alternatives
Published: 2023-02-16 09:51:22

Many technical writers and developers are concerned with creating technical documentation for their users. These content creators want to teach customers how to use their product, comply with regulations, and help them seek assistance when they run into trouble.

And when you have a large volume of content to create, you’ll want to seek the assistance of a help authoring tool (HAT).

MadCap Flare is one such solution. Why do users like Flare? Because it has a plethora of useful features that help you single source your content. At the same time, Flare is very complicated and requires an advanced learning curve. For these reasons and more, we’ll discuss the seven best alternatives to Flare in this article.

## What is a Help Authoring Tool?

A Help Authoring Tool lets you create, manage and distribute content for the purpose of helping your users. It enables different authors to collaborate on content and distribute it on various mediums. It’s often possible to import previous documentation from other tools and work with it in your new HAT.

HATs make it easy to work with large amounts of content and publish your documents to a professional-looking format.

Some of the basic features that a HAT must offer is:

- Editor for working with text or code
- Analytics for assessing how customers are interacting with your documentation
- Single source authoring for documentation in different formats
- Review process for collaborating on documents
- Capabilities for working with images, video and audio
- Customization to fit your brand

## What does MadCap Offer?
 
MadCap Flare offers the capabilities to single source your documentation and publish to different formats. Topic-based and micro-content authoring gives creators ultimate control when it comes to managing and distributing their documents. Your problem when using Flare may not be what it can do, but how exactly to utilize its features to best support your documentation efforts.

**Content Development**
Flare gives you many ways to manipulate your content, allowing you to [create technical documentation](https://document360.com/blog/technical-documentation/), application programming interface or [API documentation](https://document360.com/blog/api-documentation/), [software documentation](https://document360.com/blog/software-documentation/), interactive eLearning courses, learning and development programs and much more. The ribbon toolbar mimics Microsoft Word, giving users an interface that they will be familiar with.

**Multichannel Publishing**
Flare users can create content once, and then publish instantly to a number of different channels. You can update content in a single location and then re-publish to your preferred formats, giving users a consistent experience and minimizing re-work. This feature also allows you to cater your documentation to different audiences, such as beginner and advanced users.

**Project Management**
With Flare, you can easily manage documentation projects from beginning to end. Flare allows you to keep track of your progress, and lets you see all items relating to your project at a glance. Project templates allow you to create beautiful web and print-based outputs in minutes.

**Collaboration**
Your team can contribute to and review documentation directly within the cloud. Contributors don’t need access to the whole of MadCap Flare to review documents and get them ready for publication. Flare keeps track of changes made so you can stay up-to-date with different versions of your documentation. Changes can be made simultaneously so you don’t need to worry about version conflicts.

**Translation**
MadCap Flare gives you the capabilities to translate your documentation into multiple different languages. Flare supports Unicode language characters, double-byte Asian languages and Eastern European languages, as well as bi-directional language authoring and publishing including Hebrew, Arabic and Persian. Integration with MadCap Lingo gives you support for the translation process.

**Hosting and Development**
With Flare, you can host your documentation on your own servers to give you unparalleled control over the security of your documentation. You can also use MadCap Flare to securely host your web-based documentation without the need for IT resources.

**Analytics**
MadCap Flare does come with some capabilities for analytics with real-time end-user statistics. It shows you how users interact with and find your content, so you can improve overall content quality. You can run tests before you publish to identify critical technical issues.

**XML Editor**
The XML editor is the primary editor used for topic-based authoring as well as snippets. Flare does not require you to know anything about XML in order to be able to use it. For example, it allows you to fix broken links without opening the file in Flare.

**On-premise and Cloud Application**
Flare can either be used on-premise or through the cloud. The cloud version of Flare offers slightly limited features when compared with the on-premise solution. On-premise could be preferable because it doesn’t rely on accessing an internet connection to work with Flare. Bearing in mind Flare deploys your documentation with secure hosting through the cloud.

**Preview Option Available for Multiple Outputs**
Before you publish to your outputs, Flare gives you the option to preview your content before you deploy to web, print, tablet and mobile. You don’t need to publish your documentation to see what it looks like using the WYSIWYG editor to preview content.

**Style Sheet Customization**
Flare uses HTML and CSS to customize documentation before it is published. Flare requires in-depth knowledge of CSS in order for users to present their documentation for final publication.

## Limitations of MadCap Flare

Despite being a fantastic tool for help authoring, Flare has some significant shortcomings,  let’s discuss it.

**Limited Search Feature**
The search feature in MadCap Flare may be slow, especially when searching large amounts of content. This can be frustrating for users and impact the overall user experience. Also, the search feature in MadCap Flare may not always return complete results, especially when searching for complex phrases or combinations of terms. Another limitation is that MadCap Flare search function may not always behave consistently across different projects or documentation sets, making it difficult for users to understand how the search feature works and how to use it effectively.

**No Markdown Editor**
Flare doesn’t offer a native Markdown editor which means you can’t create your documentation in the most popular language used by developers.

**Home Page Designer**
Flare offers limited functionality for customizations from its home page designer, meaning you can’t tailor your documentation for your particular brand. Your Flare documentation sites are likely to look very similar to other users who are taking advantage of Flare.

**Feedback Manager**
There is no option in Flare to capture feedback from the users of your documentation. You are unable to understand the quality of articles and which are most useful to your end users.

**Notifications**
In Flare, notifications can be sent to Slack/ Teams. However, Flare has limitations to number of events that can be sent as a notification. Flare notifications offer updates on users, teams and projects. Granular notifications for each activities cannot be set

**Redirect Rules**
There are no capabilities in Flare to redirect your former pages to new articles in your documentation site. This means your URLs will break if you move to a new location.

**Ticket Deflector**
Flare can’t tell you how many tickets have been deflected by your knowledge base that would formerly have been directed to your support team. You don’t know which customers have chosen your documentation over submitting a support ticket.

**Fairly Steep Learning Curve**
Flare requires knowledge of HTML and CSS in order to use its functions. It’s aimed at deeply technical teams and may not be suitable for those who want to produce simple documentation.

## Top 7 MadCap Flare Alternatives

**Document360**
If you want a much simpler alternative to MadCap Flare, then look no further than [Document360](https://document360.com/). Document360 is a help authoring tool that allows you to create documentation in HTML or Markdown to build an engaging [knowledge base](https://document360.com/blog/what-is-a-knowledge-base/) for your users. Document360 makes it easy to collaborate with other authors and review content to get it ready for production.

Most help authoring tools take days to get up and running. Document360 is functional within minutes and you can create beautiful help sites for your users. Document360 sets itself apart by having a Markdown editor that you can use to create your documentation, alongside the WYSIWYG editor which means both developers and non-technical team members will be comfortable using it.

With Document360, you have the capabilities to analyze your documentation and make sure it is up to scratch. You can find out who your users are and what they require from your documentation. Document360 gives you powerful imports from multiple tools which makes it easy to deploy your new documentation site.

Document360 gives you the opportunity to review who is making changes to your content. You can compare versions of different articles to make sure you’re on top of the latest changes, and revert back to previous versions if necessary. The user groups comes from technical writers, documentation experts to product managers who can work easily and effectively avoiding complexities.

Document360 integrates with many third-party applications and services, making it easy for users to manage their documentation. These integrations allow users to utilize documentation with an external application such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Intercom, Zapier, Salesforce, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and more. Additionally, you can integrate with any product using JavaScript Snippet.

**Adobe RoboHelp**
[RoboHelp](https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/robohelp.html) is Adobe’s answer to MadCap Flare, a help authoring tool for technical content that will improve the productivity of your authors and compliance for online help, policy and procedure, knowledge base, and self-service content. With RoboHelp, you will definitely need to know HTML and CSS as this is used for designing all your help content. It enables single-sourcing of content so you can create content once and then reuse it across all your channels. You have the option to create microcontent that will fuel chatbots and claim the featured snippet in search engines.

**Clickhelp**
[ClickHelp](https://clickhelp.com/) is an good option for companies looking for a new help authoring tool. ClickHelp is an up-to-date cloud-based documentation platform for teams who want to create, host, and maintain online software guides, knowledge bases, context help, and instructions. ClickHelp lets you to collaborate effectively with subject matter experts using the online portal, and publish documentation to a range of web-based outputs. It’s not too complicated to set up and integrates with all your favorite tools such as Google Analytics, Zendesk and YouTube. The users can export content to different file types including CHM, PDF, RTF, or EPUB.

## Click [here](https://document360.com/blog/madcap-flare-alternatives/) for more alternative options for madcap flare