best app for internal use knowledgebase/faq/articles?
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I've always wanted to create my own personal knowledge base of sorts that I can refer to. What apps would you recommend?
my preferences/requirements:
- App from the Cloudron store only (requirement)
- CMS based - static page builders aren't ideal cz of their complexity for my tiny brain (requirement)
- desktop app would be nice but (optional)
- app stability - app that won't disappear in a year (requirement)
- limit access to pre-approved users only (requirement)
My first choice would be Ghost w/ a KB oriented theme. If all fails, Wordpress but meh. Maybe the membership feature in Ghost could be used to limit access. Does anyone have experience with that?
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Apache Answer could potentially fit your use case?
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Outline is very functional if you’re happy with the layout / structure
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I use mediawiki for the past decade for this. Somehow, even after a decade, I have not learnt the mediawiki syntax properly
For our company stuff, we use HedgeDoc. There is a massive caveat with HedgeDoc that it does not have functioning search. So, you have to tag and pin things. If you are OK with this, it's a really good functional app.
app stability - app that won't disappear in a year (requirement)
mediawiki is never ever going away
it's what powers wikipedia.limit access to pre-approved users only (requirement)
I guess you can do this with Cloudron auth (mediawiki has oidc)
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Thank you everyone for the recommendations. I'm in the process of testing them and will report back.
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Okay, so here's what I've reviewed so far.
Apache Answer: Clean look. Easy to use. Made for a community with a reputation, upvote/downvote, and best answer features. As a single user, it feels like I'm hosting a party, but I'm sitting there alone talking to myself. It sure is a beautiful app and works great out of the box. Contender #1
Documize: I got fooled by the screenshots. It's not for my use-case. Pass
Outline: Another amazing recommendation. It looks and works great out of the box. Very smooth experience. I wish the home and collections pages had a grid view. Contender #2
Hedgedoc: The search caveat is a deal breaker since it's a core feature when browsing through a knowledgebase. Pass
Mediawiki: This loses based on aesthetics alone, it's an eyesore and it's here to stay. Just great! Pass
Ghost: I have this installed on my personal domain, so I'm familiar with it. I haven't considered it as a KB before so here's how it could work. If you're not familiar with Ghost, it's a beautiful blogging CMS with great features out of the box. For instance, there's a setting "make this site private". You toggle it on, set a password, and the blog is pass-protected now. That easy. But locking a blog behind a pass is a shame, so I'm thinking of using the membership feature to have public and private posts. You can have a single tier (free) unless you set up Stripe and then you can add more "paid" tiers. I can use this free tier (which I can rename to Inner Circle, lol) to create a private section for my knowledgebase. Subscription access can then be limited to invited people. When creating a post, you can specify the post visibility and limit it to my membership tier or leave it as public. I can keep my existing theme, or use the KB oriented theme. I would be killing two birds with one stone using Ghost. The only con I can think of is if I ever forget to change the default public post visibility and I share sensitive info. Contender #3
Joplin: I've been using this on and off but only on my local device as a note app and never looked into all the bells and whistles it has to offer. Let me share some of the plugins that caught my eye:
- search & replace
- alarm
- email to notes (create notes by sending an email to a pre-defined address)
- save note as markdown & commit to git (this is for you devs)
- markdown / rich markdown (maybe I'll learn markdown once and for all)
- OCR
- Kanban
- Language Tool integration
- calendar
- journal
- freehand drawing
Some of Joplins built-in features:
- Offline access
- E2EE
- Nextcloud Storage
- Local Periodic Backups -- Not only will it sync to the cloud but having periodic local backups (e.g. your D : drive is a huge bonus)
- Web Clipper plugin for Firefox & Chrome -- save snippets, full pages as HTML or markdown, URL, screenshot, or selection to Joplin with a single click.
- Desktop & Mobile apps
Joplin is definitely the most work to set up and I'm bound to experience bugs/crashes if I start using all those plugins. It's hard to ignore the pros though so this makes it Contender #4
I usually stick to the KISS principle, my choices would be:
- Apache Answer
- Outline
If I want KISS++ that would be:
- Ghost (already use it for my personal domain)
If I want flexibility, a plethora of plugins, and unmatched built-in features:
- Joplin
Sigh. I'm in the same place I started.
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@humptydumpty said in best app for internal use knowledgebase/faq/articles?:
personal knowledge base
Just re-read this. The answer is Obsidian.
