30 knowledge base tools for developers in 2022
Tags: productivity, programming, devops, codequality
Published: 2022-08-04 20:14:00

Software engineers need knowledge base tools to create and maintain valuable technical documentation. The [State of Octoverse 2021](https://octoverse.github.com/) report by GitHub stated: 

> *"**Documentation** is good for productivity and culture. Recent research shows that quality documentation improves **performance**. It shouldn’t be a surprise that good documentation practices support not only better cultures where developers feel fulfilled but also **help them do their work**".*
> 

The DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) 2021 [report](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/announcing-dora-2021-accelerate-state-of-devops-report) also mentioned that:

> *[…] documentation is foundational for **successfully implementing DevOps** capabilities. Teams with high-quality documentation are 3.8x more likely to implement security best practices and 2.5x more likely to fully leverage the cloud to its fullest potential.*
> 

That means developers should have access to efficient knowledge-sharing tools designed for the software engineering context. 

Technical documentation for software developers can have multiple forms:

- *Evergreen* documentation, e.g., procedures on how to set up a project.
- Architectural principles that developers should follow in their projects
- Release documentation
- Coding standards and guidelines
- Onboarding guides

and even more. 

Note that in this post, we don’t consider tools that provide end-users documentation such as self-service portals (Zendesk, Intercom, …). We talk about documentation made by **developers for developers**. We also excluded API documentation tools, which belong to a specific domain that deserves its own article.

We gathered **30** **tools** useful to manage technical documentation. We grouped them into 5 categories:

- **Wikis**: these tools provide a platform and a UI to manage content
- **Discussions**: Q&A and forums, coding standards sharing
- **Generators**: documentation creation from source code files

Here is the big picture of the 30 knowledge base tools for developers:

![30 knowledge base tools](http://promyze.com/wp-content/uploads/KnowledgeBaseTools.png)

And here is the full list with the links for each tool, with their tagline.

**Wikis:**

- [Archbee](https://www.archbee.com/) - *Build better product documentation — faster.*
- [Wiki.js](https://js.wiki/) (OpenSource) - *The most powerful and extensible open source Wiki software*
- [ClickUp](https://clickup.com/)- *Save time with the all-in-one productivity platform that brings teams, tasks, and tools together in one place.*
- [Notion](https://notion.so) - *The all-in-one workspace — for your tasks, notes, wikis, and calendar.*
- [Swimm](https://swimm.io/) - *Documentation Platform Built for Engineers*
- [Confluence](https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence) - *Confluence is your remote-friendly team workspace where knowledge and collaboration meet.*
- [Coda](https://coda.io/) *- The all-in-one doc for teams.*
- [Bit.ai](http://Bit.ai) - *Next-Gen Document Collaboration Platform for Teams!*
- [Nuclino](https://www.nuclino.com/) - *A modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate – bring knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place.*
- [Papyrs](https://papyrs.com/) - *The easiest way to create an online intranet for your company*
- [BookStack](https://www.bookstackapp.com/) (Open Source) - *BookStack is a simple, self-hosted, easy-to-use platform for organizing and storing information.*
- [Slab](https://slab.com/) - *Build a culture of knowledge-sharing today.*
- [GitBook](https://www.gitbook.com/) - *Where software teams break knowledge silos*.
- [Developerhub.io](https://developerhub.io/) - *All-in-One Platform for Online Documentation*
- [Tettra](https://tettra.com/) - *The best way to organize and share knowledge with your teammates.*
- [DocsApp](https://www.docsapp.io/) - *Create and publish beautiful, powerful and cloud based developer hub*.

**Discussions:**

- [Stack Overflow For Teams](https://stackoverflow.co/teams/) - *Knowledge sharing and collaboration without distractions*
- [AnswerHub](https://www.answerhub.com/) - *Empowering developers and teams to learn, share, and succeed through online communities and knowledge sharing*
- [Flarum](https://flarum.org/) (Open Source) -  *Forums made simple. Modern, fast, and free!*
- [Forem](https://www.forem.com/) (Open Source) - *Forem is an open source platform for building modern, independent, and safe communities.*
- [CodeStream](https://www.codestream.com/) - *New Relic CodeStream is a free open-source extension for VS Code, Visual Studio, and JetBrains.*
- [Packmind](https://packmind.com) *- Connect Developers’ Knowledge and share best coding practices, fully integrated in developers tools.*
- [Slab](https://slab.com) *- Connect Developers’ Knowledge and share best coding practices, fully integrated in developers tools.*


**Generators:**

- [Docusaurus](https://docusaurus.io/) (OpenSource) - *Build optimized websites quickly, focus on your content*
- [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/) (OpenSource) - *The world’s fastest framework for building websites*
- [Daux.io](https://daux.io/) (OpenSource) *- The Easiest Way To Document Your Project*
- [SkyDocs](https://skydocs.skyost.eu/) (OpenSource) - *SkyDocs is a lightweight static documentation builder with MarkDown.*
- [Sphinx](https://www.sphinx-doc.org/) (OpenSource) - *Sphinx makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation.*
- [Read The Docs](https://readthedocs.org/) (Open Source) - *Read the Docs simplifies software documentation by automating building, versioning, and hosting of your docs for you.*
- [MkDocs](https://www.mkdocs.org/) (Open Source) - *Project documentation with Markdown*
- [GitHub Pages](https://pages.github.com/) - *Websites for you and your projects.*