Top 4 Free Software Documentation Tools for your WordPress Website
I recently worked on creating a WordPress website for our new SaaS product, Tenjin Online, a platform for test automation. And as a product with direct/free sign-up, public documentation was a necessary part of the wireframe.
I tried various solutions and here are my top picks with an easy breakdown of the pros and cons.
WordPress Plugins
Since it’s a WordPress website, plugins have to be the first place you look, right? It makes good sense too as this has many benefits to it.
- There’s not much hassle involved in setting up since everything remains within the site itself.
- The website's UI/UX has consistency as the header and footer will remain the same.
- Scripts added in the head/footer will also be retained which can make several aspects easier, like website analysis through Google Analytics where you’ll be able to follow user behavior seamlessly. With many other solutions, you may not even get the option to add a GA code.
- Even if you don’t make website changes through code editing, you still have the option of modifying the documentation layout etc. through code if needed.
All these benefits may compel you to think why even consider outside WordPress plugins? It’s because end-user experience matters the most and if there are solutions that are clearly superior in this respect, then that’s all that you need.
Among WP plugins, I tried different popular options and I liked the following two the most.
WeDocs
Link — https://wordpress.org/plugins/wedocs/
Here’s a preview.
Here’s a live example: https://wedevs.com/docs/dokan/getting-started/installation-2/
Pros:
- Easy to use with simple drag-n-drop for sidebar items
- Standard documentation layout
Cons:
- Not the nicest UI/UX out of the box
BetterDocs
Link — https://betterdocs.co/
Here’s a preview.
Here’s a live example, https://betterdocs.co/docs/configure-documentation-homepage/
Pros:
- Neat UI
- Standard layout with good UX
- Customizable design
Cons:
- Drag-n-drop of sidebar items is not available in the free version. It can either be added alphabetically or chronologically (which will make it difficult when new pages will need to be added in between).
- Every page needs to have a parent item. The sidebar structure strictly requires a category and then the pages under it.
Notion
Link —https://www.notion.so/
Notion is an application that provides components such as notes, tasks, wikis, and using these components to create product documentation is a popular use-case.
Here’s a preview.
Here’s a live example, https://notion.garciadavid.net/Getting-Started-5143b8de679149b89a205c0e00e3d8eb.
Pros:
- Very easy & interactive interface — content organization is quite simple
- Nice UX with a lot of whitespace and modern UI elements like coloured labels
- Can be used over a custom domain for free
- Dark mode toggle is available
Cons:
- No sidebar table of contents; the directory is on the homepage
- Pages are not static, so loading takes more time
- Code modifications can’t be done so UI flexibility is limited to the customization options available
You Need A Wiki
Link — https://youneedawiki.com/
With ‘You Need A Wiki’, you can create the product docs by simply writing and structuring it in Google Docs.
Here’s a preview.
Pros:
- The platform takes Google Docs folders & pages and creates the documentation from that as seen in the above image — the easiest of all platforms mentioned here. You can simply write a Google doc and that’s it!
- You essentially write in a Google doc so all features of Google doc are inherently present, like collaboration, comments etc.
- Very neat design
Cons:
- Need to get a paid plan for custom domain ($10 per month starting)
- Has browser-related issues like inaccessible in Chrome Incognito, errors like auth issues in Safari etc.
After careful deliberation, I chose to go with BetterDocs.
This is how our Docs look,
Here’s the live link, https://tenjinonline.com/docs/introduction/.
While I was heavily inclined towards ‘You Need A Wiki’ for the amazingly easy management and the good design, the cons were too critical for me to ignore.
I really liked Notion as a product, but for docs, I wanted a standard layout with a sidebar table-of-content. I would definitely use Notion for other purposes though.
BetterDocs seemed to have a good balance of UIUX and ease-of-use, and of course the benefits of a WP plugin were there too.
Well, I hope you found this post useful. We’ll soon be adding a community space as well on the website. Would you like me to write a similar post on that? Let me know in the comments.
