The Best Free Knowledge Base Software in 2025
Empower your employees and customers to find the information they need when they need it.
Want to create an online knowledge base for free? You've come to the right place.
We've all been there: searching through endless Slack messages and email threads for that one crucial document. According to McKinsey, employees spend an average of 1.8 hours every day searching for information they need to do their jobs. That's nearly 20% of their work week lost to inefficient knowledge management, translating to over $25,000 per employee annually in lost productivity.
But what if you’re on a tight budget?
Here's the good news: you don't need an expensive solution to solve this problem. Free knowledge base software can be just as powerful as paid alternatives – if you know which ones to choose.
In this article, we’ll explore the best free knowledge base tools, their unique features, and how they can help you build a free online knowledge base for your team or audience. By the end, you’ll know which option suits your needs best.
What is a free knowledge base?
Imagine having all your most important information neatly organized and easily accessible, like a virtual encyclopedia built specifically for your needs.
That’s essentially what a knowledge base is — a centralized hub of information that allows users to store, retrieve, and manage knowledge in one place. Whether you’re running a business, collaborating on a project, or assisting customers, a knowledge base streamlines the process of sharing and accessing information.
When it comes to free knowledge bases, the key difference is cost: you get all the fundamental features without spending a dime. These tools cater to individuals, small teams, or organizations that want to improve knowledge sharing without investing in expensive software.
The best free knowledge base tools strike a balance between functionality and simplicity, making them accessible even for non-tech-savvy users.
Types of free knowledge base tools
Before we dive into specific tools, let's look at the main types of free knowledge bases out there. Each one serves a different purpose, and understanding these differences will help you pick the right solution for your needs.
Free internal knowledge base
This is your team's home base for internal documentation. It's where you keep all the stuff your team needs to know: how things work, who's responsible for what, and those unwritten rules that usually take months to figure out.
When implemented right, a free internal knowledge base can cut new employee training time in half and save your senior team members from answering the same questions repeatedly.
Free help desk knowledge base
Free help desk knowledge base software focuses on customer-facing content. They’re essential for businesses that want to offer self-service support, reducing the workload for customer service teams. FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and tutorials often fall into this category.
The best customer service knowledge bases don't just answer questions – they anticipate them. They're written in plain language, easy to search, and regularly updated based on real customer feedback.
Free open-source knowledge base
Think of these as the DIY option. They're free to use and completely customizable, but you'll need some technical know-how to set them up and maintain them. The upside? You have total control over how everything works and looks.
Free open-source knowledge base platforms are perfect for teams that want to build something unique or have specific security requirements. Plus, there's usually a helpful community of other users you can turn to for support and ideas.
Free self-hosted knowledge base
Want complete control over your data? Free self-hosted knowledge bases let you keep everything on your own servers. It's like having your own house instead of renting – you make the rules and don't have to worry about landlord issues.
The main advantage here is privacy and security. You know exactly where your data lives and who has access to it. This is especially important for companies dealing with sensitive information or those in regulated industries. Plus, you're not stuck with someone else's bandwidth limits or storage restrictions.
Free AI knowledge base
The new kid on the block, AI knowledge bases are shaking things up in interesting ways. They're like having a smart assistant that helps organize and find information. These tools can automatically categorize content, suggest related articles, and even help write documentation.
Early adopters are seeing some impressive results. According to recent studies, teams using AI-enhanced knowledge bases spend 40% less time searching for information. The technology can spot gaps in your documentation and even predict what information users might need next.
Best free knowledge base software
There is a wide variety of different free knowledge base solutions to choose from. No single tool can be objectively called the best fre knowledge base software — the right choice depends on your organization's unique requirements and preferences.
To make your decision easier, we have put together a comparison of the best free knowledge base systems, based on real user reviews.
Check out the list below and find the best software for the knowledge base you want to build.
1. Nuclino
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $6/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.7/5
Nuclino is a unified workspace where teams can bring all their knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a great solution for building a lightweight, simple free knowledge base for your team. Unlike other free knowledge base software that is packed with complex and rarely used features, menus, and settings, Nuclino focuses on the essentials. Its interface is clean, intuitive, and distraction-free, allowing anyone to quickly get started with the tool.
Related pages can be easily linked together using internal links. This will allow your team to explore your knowledge base in a more intuitive way and help them discover relevant information more quickly. Simply type "@" and the name of the page you want to link to.
Every interaction in Nuclino is optimized for speed. All content can be edited collaboratively in real time, with every change instantly saved and preserved in the version history. The search is just as fast, allowing you to quickly retrieve the information you need.
Nuclino comes with powerful AI features that make finding information quick and easy. It comes with an AI-powered assistant Sidekick that can instantly answer any question based on your team's collective knowledge documented in the knowledge base.
Nuclino offers built-in visual collaboration and allows you to add an infinite collaborative canvas to any page of your knowledge base. You can use it to create diagrams and flowcharts, brainstorm ideas using sticky notes, build moodboards, and much more.
You can also turn any Nuclino workspace into a public knowledge base website, accessible to anyone on the web and discoverable via search engines.
The free version of Nuclino allows you to create a full-fledged free knowledge base and add as many collaborators as you need. Advanced features, such as AI tools, more granular permission settings, and version history, are available on the paid plans, but the free plan is more than enough to get started and see if this is the right tool for your team.
It's also worth noting that while Nuclino can be used exclusively as knowledge base software, it's a highly versatile tool that is capable of much more. It offers a variety of ways to structure and visualize your content, including a nested list, a Kanban board, a table, and a mindmap-style graph.
This makes Nuclino a great solution for many additional use cases, including project collaboration, sprint planning, asynchronous communication, and more. It works like a collective brain, allowing you to bring all your team's work together in one place and collaborate without the chaos of files and folders, context switching, or silos.
What users say about Nuclino:
"Great knowledge base for capturing information. We use Nuclino daily to make sure we're documenting everything — from sales playbooks to HR processes to specific data collection checklists. It's easy to use, update, comment, and share."
— Capterra review (read more reviews of Nuclino)
2. MediaWiki
Pricing: Free, open source
Rating on Capterra: 4.5/5
MediaWiki is a free open-source knowledge base software platform that powers some of the largest wikis in the world, including Wikipedia. It's incredibly powerful and battle-tested at massive scale.
The learning curve is steeper than something like Nuclino, but the payoff is worth it. You get incredible flexibility in how you organize information, robust version control, and a huge ecosystem of extensions. Plus, it handles multiple languages beautifully if you're working with an international team.
Best part? It's completely free and open source. The catch? You'll need someone technical on your team to set it up and maintain it.
Looking for more tools similar to MediaWiki? Check out this list of MediaWiki alternatives.
What users say about MediaWiki:
"MediaWiki is open source, has a lot of features out-of-the-box, and many plugins. It powers Wikipedia so it is secure and scalable. However, it is hard to use for most people, and the wiki structure needs to be learned."
3. Zoho Wiki
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $2.70/user/month
Rating on G2: 4.1/5
Zoho Wiki is a free knowledge base platform offered as a part of the Zoho Office Suite and integrates well with other Zoho Products, such as Zoho Analytics and Zoho Projects.
The free version of Zoho Wiki is fairly generous and includes almost all of the core features except custom domains and public sharing. Note that you will be limited to 3 users unless you upgrade to the Business plan for $2.70 per user per month. Nonetheless, it may be a great option for small teams, educators, and anyone who is working on a personal project with a limited budget.
What users say about Zoho Wiki:
"The pricing structure of Zoho Wiki is great! Complete value for money considering that some of the best features are available for free. The ready-made platform for easy sharing and collaboration is really good for small businesses and branding your new products or startups."
4. Confluence
Pricing: Free, advanced features starting from $5/user/month
Rating on Capterra: 4.4/5
Atlassian Confluence was originally designed as a software documentation tool, but it can serve as a knowledge base just as well. It's part of the Atlassian product suite and is particularly popular among teams using other Atlassian products, such as Jira and BitBucket. The free plan gives you most of the essential features that larger companies pay for.
Confluence is one of the oldest solutions on the market — it was launched in 2004 and has been continuously developed since. Today, some find that it has become too overengineered, complex, and slow to be used effectively in a small team. However, larger enterprises appreciate its flexibility and extensive feature count. Note that it comes with a certain learning curve, so be prepared to dedicate enough time to training your team.
Note that the free version only supports up to 10 users. But for small teams, it's hard to beat.
Looking for more tools similar to Confluence? Check out this list of Confluence alternatives.
What users say about Confluence:
"We use Confluence for a knowledge base and it works very well. We also put our software documentation in there as well. It is a great system with fantastic versioning and we never have any trouble with it. However, it can be really complex for the uninitiated."
5. DokuWiki
Pricing: Free, open source
Rating on Capterra: 4.0/5
DokuWiki is another free, open-source, and self-hosted knowledge base platform. In many ways, it's similar to MediaWiki, but while MediaWiki is primarily designed for building large and complicated knowledge base websites, DokuWiki is best suited for smaller wikis. DokuWiki is relatively simple to install and maintain.
Like most open-source knowledge base software, DokuWiki doesn't have the most modern or elegant interface. But appearances aren't everything, and if you value function over form, DokuWiki may be worth evaluating. It might not be flashy, but it gets the job done, and if you need something dependable and customizable, DokuWiki delivers.
What users say about DokuWiki:
"As the name implies, DokuWiki is made for documentation, manuals, and descriptions. This is also, where the software can score its most points. It is possible to create nicely formatted and easy-to-read documentation and information. In addition, the installation and menu are quite easy. But while DokuWiki does certainly perform its duties more than well, the design looks a bit dated and simple."
6. TiddlyWiki
Pricing: Free, open-source
Rating on Capterra: No reviews yet
Here's something different: TiddlyWiki is a complete free knowledge base in a single HTML file.
You can carry your entire knowledge base on a USB stick, save it in Dropbox, or host it on a web server. It's incredibly flexible and has some die-hard fans who've been using it for years to manage everything from research notes to project documentation.
Unfortunately, collaboration isn't its strong suit. It's better for personal use or small teams where people can maintain their own copies.
What users say about TiddlyWiki:
"I am a TiddlyWiki enthusiast, I call it a "platform" for building apps, websites, databases, and interactive personal software tools. Its possibilities are limitless and based on top of web standards of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript bound into a user-friendly interface."
7. XWki
Pricing: Free, open-source
Rating on Capterra: 4.7/5
XWiki is both an open-source free knowledge base system and a platform for simple web application development. It's written in Java with a design emphasis on extensibility — the "X" in the name comes from "eXtensible Wiki". On top of this platform a wide range of applications can be developed, targeted mainly at enterprise-level needs.
The learning curve is steep, but the possibilities are endless. Some organizations use it to build their entire intranet. Others use it as a customer portal. The built-in programming features mean you can automate repetitive tasks and create custom tools.
Warning: you'll need some technical expertise to take full advantage of what XWiki offers.
What users say about XWki:
"XWiki is not just a wiki, it is an extensible development platform to build online collaborative tools. But you don't need to be a developer to start using it, and even to develop small applications. And best of all, it is open source and therefore freely accessible. With tons of extensions and growing, you can customize XWiki to really match your specific needs. Newcomers are sometimes lost by the powerful features proposed, and developers by the myriad of API available. This is probably the price for getting a tool that is smart and very customizable."
8. BookStack
Pricing: Free, open-source
Rating on Capterra: 5/5
If you are looking for a free online knowledge base software that can be hosted on premise, but find MediaWiki to be too complex for your needs, consider BookStack. It stands out as one of the few open-source knowledge base solutions that are relatively user-friendly.
BookStack takes a unique approach: it organizes everything like a library. You have shelves, books, chapters, and pages. If you're dealing with lots of documentation, this structure makes it super intuitive to find things.
The main limitation? You need to self-host it. But if you can handle that, BookStack is a solid choice, especially for technical teams. Once your wiki is up and running, it should be fairly easy to bring new users on board.
Looking for more tools similar to BookStack? Check out this list of BookStack alternatives.
What users say about BookStack:
"The stock interface design has a modern feel and is simple for new users to use. Granular permissions can be set up for specific roles on a per-content basis and permissions will waterfall down to child content. However, the current installation process involves many steps and may be a lot to take in for people not familiar with setting up Laravel applications."
How to create a knowledge base for free
Building a useful knowledge base doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. Here's how to create one that your team will actually use.
Plan your content first
Before you choose any software, figure out what you need to document. Look for your team's biggest time-wasters:
Questions that keep coming up in Slack or email
Processes you explain over and over
Important information that only exists in certain people's heads
Documents scattered across different tools
Make a list of your top 5 most-asked questions or most-referenced processes. These will be your first articles. For example, your sales team might constantly explain pricing, while your developers repeatedly share setup instructions.
Pick the best right tool
Choose your free knowledge base tool based on who'll be using it:
For non-technical teams, start with something simple like Nuclino's free plan. They're intuitive and you can get started quickly.
For technical teams who want full control, consider BookStack or DokuWiki. They're free forever and you can host them yourself.
For customer-facing documentation, MediaWiki or XWiki work well. They handle public access and have good SEO features.
Build your foundation
Don't just dump information in randomly. Start with a simple structure and create 3-5 main categories based on how people look for things. For example:
By task ("How to do X")
By topic ("Sales Resources")
By team ("Engineering Docs")
Use clear, descriptive names. Instead of "Admin Stuff," write "Administrative Procedures." Instead of "Tech Docs," use "Technical Documentation and Guides."
Make it useful
Start with high-impact content that will immediately save time:
Write articles for your top 5 most-asked questions
Include screenshots and examples
Keep it simple - start with the most important information
Add clear titles that match how people ask questions
Link related articles together
Keep it fresh
The quickest way to kill a knowledge base is to let it get outdated. Set up some basic maintenance:
Assign owners for different sections. Make it clear who's responsible for keeping each part up to date.
Do regular check-ups
Make it easy for everyone to contribute
Create a simple way for users to flag outdated content
Reward people who help keep things current
Remember: A small, well-maintained knowledge base is more useful than a large, messy one. Start simple, focus on quality, and grow based on what your team actually needs.
Find the best free knowledge base tool
Let's be real: the "best" knowledge base is the one your team will actually use.
You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on fancy knowledge management systems. Start with one of these free knowledge base software tools, focus on making it genuinely useful for your team, and grow from there. The time you save will be worth far more than any subscription fee.
Remember: the hardest part is getting started. Pick a tool, set aside some time to get it set up, and start documenting. Future you (and your team) will be grateful you did.
Ready to get started?
