Documentation plays an outsized role in the success of SaaS teams. It supports onboarding, reduces support load, and can even influence product adoption. For years, MadCap Flare has been a strong choice for product teams working with complex documentation. But a growing number of fast-moving SaaS teams are now choosing Archbee instead prioritiszng speed, collaboration, and flexibility without compromising on depth.
This article breaks down why that shift is happening.
MadCap Flare: Deep Feature Set, Traditional Approach
MadCap Flare has long served enterprises with advanced publishing needs. It supports:
- Multi-format publishing (HTML5, PDF, Word)
- Detailed stylesheet and layout customization
- Git integration for version control
- Long-term content management with snippets, variables, and conditions
It’s a robust system, especially for technical writers producing highly structured content at scale. But it comes with a learning curve, and assumes a fairly rigid documentation workflow.
For many SaaS teams, that approach feels increasingly out of sync with how they work.
Archbee: Built for Modern SaaS Teams
Archbee was designed with today’s product teams in mind - where product managers, engineers, designers, and support leads all contribute to docs. Its focus is on clarity, speed, and ease of use.
Key features include:
- Real-time editing and collaboration, with mentions and inline comments
- Customisable documentation blocks, from API references to diagrams
- Built-in hosting and versioning—no separate pipeline needed
- AI-assisted writing and structuring
- In-app knowledge widgets to surface docs in context
The result: a tool that helps teams move fast while still producing professional, well-organized documentation. Think Google Docs, if Google Docs cared about developer portals.
Why Teams Are Making the Switch
1. Faster Time to Publish
Shipping product updates on Friday and hoping for the best? Your docs need to move just as fast. Archbee’s lightweight editor and instant publishing flow mean your content goes live when your code does—not after a multi-step export and QA process.
2. Collaboration Without a Training Manual
Flare users often joke that you need a Flare certification just to write a sentence. Archbee keeps things intuitive, so product teams can contribute without needing a handbook. You don’t need to explain conditional text variables to your support rep—they just log in and write.
3. Less Tool Overhead
With Flare, publishing sometimes feels like setting up a CI/CD pipeline just to publish a FAQ. Archbee hosts, versions, and manages everything for you—custom domains included. Less tooling overhead = more time writing good docs (or coffee, we don’t judge).
4. Cleaner Experience for Readers
Archbee’s documentation is designed to be read. Responsive, minimal, and searchable. Whether you’re embedding diagrams, surfacing interactive API endpoints, or building onboarding guides, Archbee makes sure the end user isn’t lost in a maze of collapsible panels and breadcrumbs.
5. Built for SaaS Workflow
Archbee fits right into the tools and processes SaaS teams already use. GitHub integration? Check. Slack alerts? Check. API reference with Postman sync? Also, check. It’s documentation aligned with agile cycles - not waterfall-era constraints.
Enterprise Capability Without the Enterprise Baggage
There’s a persistent myth that Archbee is only for small startups. Not quite. Archbee has grown to support large teams with:
- Advanced access control
- SSO and audit logs
- Analytics and custom integrations
- Migration support from legacy tools
Yes, even from Flare.
So while MadCap Flare is built to handle enterprise documentation, Archbee does it too, just without the sense that you’ve accidentally become an IT administrator.
Shifts in the Market
While specific tooling choices vary across organisations, a consistent pattern is emerging: modern SaaS teams are prioritising ease of collaboration, speed of publishing, and streamlined workflows in their documentation platforms. This shift reflects broader changes in how teams operate - cross-functional, agile, and product-led. Archbee aligns closely with these priorities, which explains its increasing adoption across SaaS companies looking to modernise their internal and external documentation without sacrificing structure or scalability.
A Matter of Fit
MadCap Flare remains a powerful tool, and some teams with specialised legacy processes will continue to rely on it. But for SaaS teams that prioritise speed, collaboration, and usability, Archbee is proving to be the better fit.
It’s not about trading power for simplicity, it’s about getting power and usability in a package your team actually wants to open.
And increasingly, that’s Archbee. See for yourself with the 14-day full-feature trial.
