Trusted by successful businesses around the globe
Some of the world's best companies proudly use PHPKB knowledge management software.
A knowledge base is a collection of materials about a product or a service. Usually, knowledge bases can be of two types: internal and external. The former stores guidelines, instructions, practices, onboarding materials, policies, and rules for employees. While the latter is all about most common use cases, FAQs, walkthroughs, release notes, and other important materials that customers might need while using the product or shopping.
A knowledge base serves several purposes, but the most common purpose of a knowledge base is to allow you to host your knowledge in one centralized hub, from where your customers, and employees can access information within seconds. This helps your customers self-serve themselves. It might be an end-user knowledge base for your product, a knowledge base for internal staff, or a knowledge base for developers. Whatever the purpose, studies have shown that 91% of customers would use an online knowledge base if it is available.
The price varies by edition and the license system of the software is based on the number of admin users required. An admin user account is a user that would be able to log in to the admin area, create/manage articles, and be an admin or author. They include Writers (Authors), Editors, and Superusers. The license restriction is on the number of admin user (staff login) accounts that can be created to log in and update your knowledge base. There is no limit on the number of end-users that can access the public area of your knowledge base.
The following organizations are eligible for an Academic License.
Note: Proof of accreditation or affiliation may be required when ordering an Academic License.
Open Source Project Licenses of PHPKB Knowledge Base Software is our way of giving something back to the open-source community. These licenses are available for all editions of PHPKB Knowledge Base Software and are issued at no cost to the qualifying open source project. Open Source Project Licenses are issued only if the applying project can meet all of the following conditions:
Additionally, we may request confirmation of an established code base and at least a single software release.
Discounts are not offered to government organizations (unless you are a provider of primary, secondary or tertiary education - in which case you would qualify for PHPKB's academic pricing). Hosted licenses do not qualify for academic pricing. Government organizations purchasing our knowledge base software are required to purchase a commercial license.
Yes, additional licenses would be required. Each license permits the deployment of a single instance of the software in a commercial environment.
Your purchase of a PHPKB license grants you the right to make use of a single instance of the software. You may temporarily install a second instance of PHPKB on an internal development server for testing and deployment planning, but only one instance of PHPKB shall be in operation (available for access to your admin users or end-users). If you wish to run more than one instance of PHPKB, you must purchase an additional license for each additional instance. An additional license is not needed if the software is deployed on a development server or staging server for testing purposes.
No. PHPKB does not require a dedicated server, and shared hosting environments will suffice. Please see the list of system requirements to make sure your web host meets the requirements.
While it's easy enough to set up yourself with a built-in installation wizard, however, if you would prefer it to be professionally installed and configured by us, you can take benefit of our free installation service where we install the PHPKB knowledge base software on your server after your purchase of the product. A support technician will need to remotely connect to your server for installation.
We do not charge any installation, implementation, or set-up costs like some competitors do. We provide free installation service of our knowledge base software and you can start using the software right after installation. We provide a comprehensive user guide that helps you to start using PHPKB software in no time. You can also attend our training courses (if required).
Your software license will be e-mailed to you as soon as your purchase has been verified. In most cases, a license is sent out the same day it is purchased. Once your order has been verified, you would be granted access to the customer area, where you can view your order history and place any support-related requests.
We have adopted the Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) model. We do not distribute our knowledge base software on CD, DVD, or as a shrink-wrapped product. As all licenses include 12 months of software maintenance (support and updates), the ESD model is the best way to stay up to date with the numerous software releases made available to you. At your discretion, maintenance can also be renewed.
Download links are available once an order has been approved. The approval process usually takes 1 to 4 hours during our business hours but sometimes may be longer or a lot less. Our payment processing company performs a fraud check of the orders received to reject orders from people who choose to pay using stolen credit card details or compromised PayPal accounts, so we cannot provide instant downloads. We take fraud extremely seriously, and our payment processing company uses a number of techniques to determine whether an order is genuine, clearly fraud or requires further investigation.
No, you do not need root access to install PHPKB software, just FTP and MySQL access is required.
Perpetual Licenses are how most high-end software has been acquired until now. There is an initial cost to purchase a license, plus an annual support and maintenance subscription cost that entitles the owner to all updates and technical support. For example, a Perpetual License of PHPKB Enterprise (MySQL) edition with 5 admin users as of April 2022 is $665 plus a $135 per year support & maintenance subscription ($800).
One advantage of a Perpetual License is that it costs less over time. Also, if you fail to renew your Perpetual License the software will continue to work. However, there is a disadvantage if the subscription is not maintained. You will not receive any new software updates and you will not be able to upgrade to a later release.
Yes! We offer a free 30-day private hosted trial of our knowledge base software online so that you can evaluate the product before you decide to purchase a license. If you like to get a self-hosted trial of PHPKB knowledge base software that you can download and install on your own server, then you can submit your request to get a 30-day trial copy of the software. Please note that the self-hosted trial comes with encoded source code and requires the IonCube Loaders to be installed on your server for it to work. The purchased copy of PHPKB software comes with non-encoded source code that does not require installation of the IonCube loaders.
Yes, we can provide the data import service. We have a lot of experience in importing data from other software solutions, including, but not limited to, knowledge base management systems.
Yes, you can start today with a hosted version of PHPKB and then switch to the owned version (whenever required) later on.
If you wish to remove the "powered by" link from one installation of PHPKB you should purchase the copyright removal license. Please note that this does not allow you to remove or alter the "powered by" link in the admin control panel of the software. You can purchase this option at checkout, or at a later time from your client area.
The best way to order is via a credit card online. We accept all of the major credit cards via our payment processing partner. We also accept payment via some additional payment methods mentioned below:
Yes. We have an online demo of our knowledge base software available for anyone to use at any time. Please read here for details.
Upgrades are free for the first 12 months from the date of purchase. Once the free period has expired, you can choose to pay an annual fee for further upgrades. This annual fee depends upon the license you have purchased. Please see the pricing page for details.
Yes! Please see the list of system requirements and make sure your windows server fulfills those requirements for installing PHPKB knowledge base software.
Possibly! Please send feature requests and suggestions to Ideas Lab and we will certainly consider them. Many of our features are a result of user feedback.
Yes! We offer the full source code when you purchase a self-hosted (perpetual/owned) license of the PHPKB knowledge base software.
No! The source code of our knowledge base software is not encoded/encrypted. You are allowed to make modifications to the code for your own use.
The limitation is for users with access to the admin control panel. They include Writers (Authors), Editors, and Superusers. The license restriction is on the number of admin users (staff logins) that can be created to log in and update your knowledge base. These are the users who must be licensed. For example, you can have 1,000 users with a PHPKB account, but if only five of them have a privilege then you have five Admin users, and your license only needs to cover these five. There is no limit on the number of end-users to the knowledge base.
The 25 admin users license of PHPKB knowledge base software will suit you well. The 25 admin user license allows you up to create 25 Admin users and unlimited reader users.
Each license includes a certain number of admin users (or staff accounts). All licenses also include the ability to create unlimited KB Members (or client accounts).
Yes! Enterprise edition of PHPKB software has built-in functionality for LDAP Integration. Please see our article on LDAP Integration for further information and technical details on how to integrate your LDAP server with PHPKB knowledge base software.
Yes, it is very easy to customize the look and feel of PHPKB knowledge base software to match your website design. PHPKB can be easily integrated within your website's header and footer designs so that nobody knows that you are using third-party software to manage your knowledge base.
You can upgrade to a higher level license at any time by paying the difference between cost of licenses.
The support & maintenance subscription includes:
The first year of upgrade and support is free. When it expires and you want support, or want to upgrade to a new version, you will need to renew your subscription. Price depends upon the license you have purchased. Please see our pricing page for details.
It is entirely your choice! The software license will still keep on working. All it means is that you continue to use the version you purchased. You cannot upgrade and you will not get the technical support.
Suppose you bought PHPKB version 8.0. That was the major release. You've had it for 14 months now, and you let the support and maintenance period run out. Then we release 8.0.1. Even though your maintenance package has run out, you can still upload and install release 8.0.1. Once your maintenance package runs out, you can only get minor release upgrades for your current version. If you are using release 8.0 and are out of the support period, then you can only upgrade to releases 8.0.x. You cannot upgrade to, say, release 8.5.x (unless you extended your support and maintenance package first). Major versions implement new functionality. Minor versions are for fixes and small tweaks to the system.
Yes, all your data is retained during upgrade from trial to purchased license. It is fully safe to add data to your trial version.
We understand that the security of your data on our servers is extremely important to you. We use servers that are constantly monitored for security, and are hosted with one of the most reputed hosting providers in the world. We use the latest software, the most latest security patches, and all security best practices in our software, servers and network. Online security today is a moving target, and we work hard to always be up to date.
No! PHPKB knowledge management software is a proprietary software application. We offer full source code to all the licensees, allowing them for in-house customizations and modifications. Our software is very flexible and customizable; source modifications are required only in the most complex setups.
Yes, we currently offer 2 online training courses (PHPKB Fundamentals & PHPKB Administration) for PHPKB knowledge base software. Each course is delivered as a webinar. Please visit the training area for more details.
Whether you are looking for an in-house solution OR a cloud-hosted knowledge management tool, PHPKB knowledge base software offers enterprise-class features with pricing that can fit a small business budget.
Purchase NowSome of the world's best companies proudly use PHPKB knowledge management software.
