Choosing the right knowledge management system can reshape collaboration, streamline onboarding, and accelerate innovation in 2025 and beyond.
In an era where data is generated in vast quantities and teams are spread around the globe, knowledge management has never been more critical. The concept of “knowledge management” (KM) encompasses how organizations create, store, share, and utilize information. The primary goal is simple: empower people with the right knowledge at the right time so they can make better decisions, solve problems faster, and innovate more efficiently.
KM systems have evolved far beyond static documents in outdated file repositories. Modern platforms offer live collaboration, AI-powered search, and integrations with almost every tool in your tech stack. While each solution provides a unique approach, they all aim to reduce friction and deliver valuable information where employees (or external users) need it most.
As we look to 2025 and beyond, the market for KM solutions is thriving. Companies desire software that can handle remote or hybrid work, scale with global organizations, and offer flexible integrations that do not lock them into rigid ecosystems. In this article, we’ll explore five standout platforms: Atlassian Confluence, Notion, Document360, Bloomfire, and the often-underrated MediaWiki. Each has its strengths, but we’ll particularly emphasize MediaWiki—an open-source software that powers Wikipedia and remains a favorite among many organizations seeking high levels of scalability, customization, and independence from vendor lock-in.
Before diving into the specific platforms, let’s clarify why knowledge management has taken center stage:
Distributed Teams: With remote and hybrid setups, employees are often separated by geography and time zones. A robust KM tool ensures that no matter where team members are located, they can access the same updated documents, policies, or product information.
Information Overload: Data is generated at breakneck speed. Without a structured way to organize and retrieve this data, employees may waste hours searching for documents or asking repeated questions.
Employee Onboarding and Retention: High turnover is costly. A centralized, well-structured knowledge repository reduces onboarding time and helps retain corporate memory even if key employees leave.
Customer Experience: Many knowledge management tools double as external-facing help centers or documentation hubs, significantly improving customer self-service and reducing support costs.
Decision-Making and Innovation: When a team has rapid access to collective knowledge, they can make better decisions and collaborate more effectively on new projects or product features.
With these drivers in mind, let’s look at the top five knowledge management software solutions for 2025.
Atlassian Confluence has been a go-to collaboration and knowledge management application for years. Part of the larger Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Trello, Bitbucket), Confluence integrates seamlessly with project management and development workflows. Its wiki-like interface allows users to create pages, organize them into spaces, and tag content to improve searchability.
Integration with Atlassian Tools: If your organization already uses Jira or Trello for project management, Confluence ensures a smooth flow of information. Linking project tickets to Confluence pages is easy, reducing the need to flip between multiple platforms.
Powerful Formatting and Templates: Confluence offers an array of templates—meeting notes, product requirements, etc.—to standardize documentation across teams.
Workflow Management: Teams can set page permissions, create approval workflows, and maintain version histories. This helps ensure accountability and clarity around content ownership.
Why It’s Popular in 2025
Confluence has continued to evolve, particularly with AI-driven features such as automated document summaries and recommended content. Large enterprises appreciate its robust user management, security features, and advanced permission settings. For those heavily invested in Atlassian’s ecosystem, Confluence remains a natural choice that ticks most KM boxes.
Notion started as a sleek, minimalistic platform that combines note-taking, task management, and wiki creation. Its modular interface allows users to build databases, boards, and pages in whatever format works for them. This flexibility has made it a favorite among startups and creative teams seeking a one-stop knowledge hub.
Highly Customizable: Notion’s building-block approach lets you tailor the workspace to your exact needs—whether that’s a project roadmap, a team wiki, or a personal task board.
Integrated Databases: Tables can be turned into Kanban boards or calendars, unifying data for different teams without needing external plugins.
User-Friendly Interface: Even non-technical users can quickly pick up how to create content, embed media, and link pages.
API and Integrations: Over time, Notion has bolstered its public API, making it easier to integrate with CRMs, analytics dashboards, and other third-party tools.
Why It’s Popular in 2025
Notion continues to grow thanks to its flexibility and ease of use. It has also introduced more enterprise features, including single sign-on (SSO) and advanced permissions. While it may lack some of the heavy-duty features found in larger enterprise platforms (e.g., extremely granular workflows), it remains a top contender for small to mid-sized teams, creative agencies, and fast-moving startups.
Initially popular among technical support teams, Document360 positions itself as a robust, specialized knowledge base platform. It aims to help companies create, manage, and publish technical or product documentation in a structured, user-friendly manner.
Version Control and Revision History: Document360 makes it easy to manage multiple versions of your documentation—an essential feature for software products that release frequent updates.
Workflow Approvals: Content creators can draft, review, and approve articles before they go live.
Rich Analytics and Feedback: Built-in analytics show you which articles perform well, which pages have the highest bounce rates, and what users are searching for. This data can guide your content strategy to fill knowledge gaps.
SEO-Friendly: Because many organizations use Document360 for external-facing documentation, the platform includes SEO tools to make articles easier to discover via search engines.
Why It’s Popular in 2025
Companies building complex products or software that frequently updates appreciate Document360’s advanced editorial tools and analytics. The platform has also expanded its range of integrations, allowing users to embed knowledge base articles across customer support portals or internal chat systems like Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Bloomfire stands out for its community-oriented knowledge sharing approach. While it functions as a centralized knowledge base, it also integrates social features and Q&A functionalities, making it easy for employees to ask questions and get answers from peers or subject-matter experts.
User-Friendly Content Creation: Bloomfire simplifies the publishing process, supporting various media formats, from articles to videos and slides.
Q&A Feature: Employees can tag or mention experts, who are then prompted to answer, thus turning informal knowledge into searchable content.
Analytics and Engagement: Leaderboards, badges, and other gamification elements can encourage more user engagement and sharing of knowledge.
Expertise Location: The platform can identify who the go-to experts are for particular topics, speeding up knowledge discovery.
Why It’s Popular in 2025
With the rise of hybrid work, organizations want knowledge-sharing platforms that not only store static documents but also facilitate real-time collaboration and discussion. Bloomfire’s community features have resonated well with companies looking to build stronger internal networks and reduce the time spent “reinventing the wheel” when tackling common issues.
Now, let’s turn to MediaWiki, arguably one of the most enduring and influential knowledge management solutions on the market. While some of the newer, glossy platforms may get more commercial attention, MediaWiki remains a cornerstone technology that powers Wikipedia, one of the largest and most frequently visited websites in the world.
MediaWiki is an open-source wiki engine that can be downloaded and self-hosted at no cost. Its modular architecture allows for extensive customization through extensions, templates, and user scripts. Since it’s under the GNU General Public License (GPL), organizations can adapt the software to their unique requirements without vendor constraints.
No Licensing Costs: Perhaps the most obvious benefit is cost savings. You don’t pay per user seat or monthly subscription fees.
No Vendor Lock-In: Because it’s open-source, you maintain full control over your data, infrastructure, and customizations. If you want to stop using it, you can export your data in standard formats without losing any functionality or being locked to a specific vendor’s ecosystem.
Thousands of Extensions: The MediaWiki community has developed a vast library of extensions, covering everything from visual editors and content translation to advanced discussion tools.
Powerful Templates: MediaWiki uses a templating system that allows you to structure content in consistent ways. This is highly valuable for large-scale documentation projects or knowledge bases where uniformity and professional presentation matter.
Tailored UX: If you have a developer or technical team, you can customize the interface, integrate with single sign-on solutions, or even build entire custom workflows around MediaWiki’s robust API.
Wikipedia-Grade Scalability: MediaWiki is famously known for powering Wikipedia, which handles millions of visitors per day. This is a testament to the platform’s ability to scale efficiently if properly configured.
High Availability: With appropriate server configurations, caching mechanisms, and load balancing, MediaWiki can handle huge volumes of traffic. Organizations that expect growth or want a solution that can handle enterprise-wide deployment will find MediaWiki more than capable.
Wiki Paradigm: MediaWiki was born as a wiki, meaning it’s designed from the ground up for collaborative page creation and editing. It supports a deep history of every change, allowing you to compare revisions and revert to older versions if necessary.
Talk Pages: Each article/page has an associated talk page, which fosters discussions about content improvements, policy decisions, or expansions.
Active Development: MediaWiki is maintained by a global community of developers, with frequent updates, bug fixes, and security patches.
Extensive Documentation: Because it’s open-source and powers Wikipedia, you’ll find plenty of tutorials, guides, and community forums discussing best practices and troubleshooting tips.
Enterprise Knowledge Base: Many companies deploy internal MediaWiki instances for everything from technical documentation to HR policies.
Research Collaborations: Academic institutions use it to manage large-scale collaborative research projects.
Public-Facing Wikis: If your goal is to build a knowledge hub accessible to external users, MediaWiki can handle that seamlessly, with advanced features for permission control if you need them.
Control and Privacy: Self-hosting means you retain complete ownership over your data. You’re not reliant on the uptime or security protocols of a third-party SaaS vendor (though you do take on the responsibility for maintenance and security).
Learning Curve: While using a commercial tool with a guided interface might be easier for beginners, MediaWiki’s powerful capabilities reward teams that invest time to configure it properly.
Community vs. Dedicated Support: MediaWiki’s support primarily comes from community forums and volunteer contributors, although you can contract specialized hosting or consulting services from third parties. Commercial tools often bundle dedicated support and service-level agreements (SLAs).
MediaWiki aligns remarkably well with the emerging needs of 2025, especially in areas such as AI integration, global collaboration, and flexible deployment options. Although the platform itself doesn’t bundle AI features out of the box, its open-source architecture makes it easy to connect to any third-party NLP library or custom chatbot solution you might want to integrate. This means you can build advanced search capabilities and recommendation engines without having to wait for a vendor to release proprietary features or pay extra for premium add-ons.
Its proven track record with Wikipedia showcases how well MediaWiki can handle a globally distributed user base. Thanks to its mature localization and translation extensions, it smoothly accommodates multilingual content, which is increasingly vital for companies with international footprints. The wiki framework also encourages community-driven editing and knowledge curation, turning collaboration into an organic process rather than a forced exercise. For organizations looking to engage employees or external contributors across continents and time zones, this design philosophy is particularly appealing.
MediaWiki’s self-hosted nature is another boon in 2025, when data privacy regulations and security standards can vary widely across jurisdictions. Large enterprises and government agencies frequently prefer to keep their data in-house, subject to their own governance protocols. With MediaWiki, there is no reliance on a cloud vendor’s uptime or data handling policies; administrators have full access and control, which can simplify compliance with strict legal requirements.
Ultimately, MediaWiki offers a timeless blueprint for a knowledge system that embraces openness, adaptability, and communal growth. As KM platforms become more vital to organizational success, the ability to customize, scale, and securely manage a platform on your own terms becomes less of an option and more of a necessity. MediaWiki delivers exactly that, ensuring it continues to thrive even in a saturated market of commercial KM solutions.
When deciding on a knowledge management tool, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Each organization has its own unique blend of technical expertise, collaboration culture, budget constraints, and integration needs. Atlassian Confluence is an excellent fit for teams heavily invested in the Atlassian ecosystem, largely because of its deep integrations with Jira and Trello. Notion, on the other hand, caters well to smaller and mid-sized groups that crave a visually appealing and flexible environment for note-taking, project boards, and wiki pages all in one place. Document360 shines with technical or product-related documentation, offering version control and robust editorial workflows, while Bloomfire excels at turning informal Q&A discussions into reusable content assets within a lively community-centric interface.
MediaWiki, however, is set apart by its open-source ethos and longstanding reputation for handling massive, rapidly evolving knowledge repositories. For organizations seeking maximum control and scalability, MediaWiki could be the more compelling choice, especially if they value independence from vendor licensing or want to embed specialized features through custom code or extensions. It does require a bit more technical work to set up, but that initial investment pays off in a platform you can shape in any way you see fit. This flexibility is especially attractive to those with strict data governance policies or the desire to localize content in multiple languages for global audiences.
Budget considerations also matter. Commercial solutions come with monthly or yearly fees—often calculated per user—which can quickly become expensive as your team or user base grows. MediaWiki has zero licensing costs, meaning you can allocate funds to infrastructure or to developers who can optimize and customize your wiki. For some, the subscription model is easier to manage; for others, controlling their own stack and avoiding recurring fees is paramount.
The final deciding factor often revolves around organizational readiness. A company that wants a plug-and-play solution with minimal configuration might lean toward a commercial KM platform. A tech-savvy group with clear customization requirements and in-house server expertise might be more than happy to implement and maintain MediaWiki, particularly because it grants them freedom and future-proofs their knowledge base in ways that many closed-source platforms cannot match.
In 2025, knowledge management is more crucial than ever. Remote work, global business footprints, and the sheer volume of information mean that a robust KM strategy can spell the difference between efficiency and chaos. The platforms covered here—Atlassian Confluence, Notion, Document360, Bloomfire, and MediaWiki—each serve distinct organizational needs, from seamless integration with existing project pipelines to specialized documentation and interactive communities that turn everyday questions into valuable learning assets.
What truly makes MediaWiki shine is its open-source nature, an approach that offers complete autonomy, extensive customization options, and the proven ability to scale to millions of users, as demonstrated by Wikipedia. In a landscape where most vendors lock you into monthly fees and tiered access to features, MediaWiki stands as a testament to the power of community-driven software. Its adaptability means you’re never at the mercy of a single provider’s roadmap, and its robust extension ecosystem grows continually. This makes it an especially strong candidate for organizations that need a future-proof KM solution, whether they’re a small team eyeing expansion or an established enterprise with complex security demands.
In the end, choosing a KM platform is about aligning the tool’s capabilities with your company’s size, technical proficiency, and strategic vision. Regardless of whether you opt for a fully hosted solution or decide to harness the freedom of open-source, a well-planned knowledge management system will pay dividends in streamlined communication, faster onboarding, and better overall decision-making. If you’re intrigued by the idea of customizing a platform as much as you like, scaling to meet any traffic demand, and owning your data without vendor handcuffs, MediaWiki remains one of the best options on the market. To explore which solution is right for your organization, we invite you to reach out for a free, no-obligation consultation about your specific KM needs.
Here’s what we've been up to recently.
Real estate knowledge management is all about efficiently capturing, organizing, and sharing crucial information in a fast-paced, ever-evolving market. Explore how effective KM can be a game-changer for brokerages, and learn about tools and methods that streamline daily tasks,
Knowledge Management in manufacturing is a critical strategy for improving productivity, reducing downtime, fostering innovation, and cutting costs. By effectively capturing, sharing, and utilizing knowledge through modern systems and a collaborative culture, manufacturers can streamline operations and gain a competitive edge.
Get our latest blogs and news delivered straight to your inbox.
We use cookies to provide and improve our services. By using our site, you consent to cookies.
Learn more