Zoomin vs. Archbee: Which Developer Documentation Tool Is Best?

Modern documentation platforms serve as collaborative knowledge repositories that support developers at every stage of their work. These tools help today’s teams to author, structure, and distribute technical knowledge within and outside their organizations.

When choosing between Zoomin and Archbee, you’ll want to think about which platform aligns best with your intended use:

• Zoomin is a unified knowledge product primarily designed for customer-facing documentation portals
• Archbee is a complete documentation platform built for user-accessible knowledge bases and the specific needs of today’s technical teams

This article compares the key features, use cases, and customer profiles of Zoomin and Archbee to help you pick from the best developer documentation tools.

Zoomin Overview

1. Core Use Cases

Zoomin, recently acquired by Salesforce, is an enterprise knowledge platform that aggregates data from various sources. It focuses on eliminating content silos and provides solutions to streamline documentation management and improve end-user access to self-service resources.

The platform is predominantly used to build public documentation sites that deliver a unified and interactive content experience.

2. Key Functionalities

Data Integration, Enrichment, and Personalization

After integrating data from various systems, Zoomin standardizes content into a consistent format and tags content using a unified taxonomy and indexes it.

This process is designed to organize scattered knowledge into an easy-to-search repository. The primary goals of this content enrichment are to help customers access relevant information through self-service channels and provide personalized product content for different user types.

Data-Driven Content Insights

Zoomin’s data analytics platform gathers:

• User and session details (e.g., IP address, email domain, and operating system)
• User interaction with content on the documentation portal (e.g., views, clicks, and downloads)
• Search activities (e.g., keywords used, results clicked, and filters applied)

Analytics data doesn’t update in real-time; it refreshes once per day. Changes will show up in the dashboard 24 hours after they’re logged.

Multi-Channel Experience

Zoomin’s public-facing documentation portals are intended to offer a harmonized content experience at every point of interaction.

This means that content in each documentation site is uniformly replicated across all customer channels, whether accessed via mobile or web interfaces.

3. Main Advantage

Zoomin helps enterprises manage customer support on a large scale.

The platform offers a purpose-built application called In-Product Help. As the name suggests, this tool allows organizations to deliver support directly within the product interface.

By properly configuring landing pages to provide contextually relevant assistance where it’s needed, large user bases can simultaneously resolve common product issues on their own.

4. Limitations

Steep Learning Curve

Zoomin is a platform that offers quite a few products, plugins, and integrations with third-party systems via connectors.

For example, content is imported and published using a specific range of connectors or plugins, such as:

• Connectors︱Google Drive, WordPress, and Zendesk
• Plugins︱PDF, Confluence, and GitBook

New users might find the product hard to understand and use initially, according to reviews.

At the moment, pricing and purchasing information is unavailable. This makes the buying process more time-consuming for customers, as they don’t have all the necessary details readily available.

Slower Bug Resolution Compared to User Expectations

Some users reviewing Zoomin mention that bug fixes can be slower than they’d prefer and suggest more comprehensive testing before new product versions are released.

They have also noted that bug fixes occasionally introduce new issues or cause regressions.

Less Adapted to Development Workflows

Zoomin enables end-users to store technical docs and provides a developer API for integrating documentation functionality into applications. However, the platform isn’t specifically optimized for an end-to-end developer experience.

While Zoomin offers a Markdown plugin with CommonMark syntax support, it lacks developer-focused features (i.e., a code editor). This would make it easier for technical teams to integrate the documentation tool into their existing workflows.

Archbee Overview

1. Core Use Cases

Archbee is a cloud-based documentation platform built for modern engineering teams. More than just a hosting solution for product, developer, and API docs, Archbee is a shared workspace where technical teams can work alongside in-house and external partners to maintain living documentation.

It also helps create public knowledge portals that end-users can immediately access for critical information.

Archbee comes equipped with advanced authoring, publishing, and real-time collaboration tools supporting a wide range of applications:

• Creating easy-to-navigate internal/external software documentation
• Developing collaborative portals that centralize collective team knowledge
• Generating, documenting, and testing APIs

Our platform keeps all teams connected through real-time or asynchronous communication channels and uses generative AI to deliver instant answers to developer queries.

2. Key Functionalities

Markdown-Powered Code Editor

Archbee includes a versatile code editor designed to simplify the documentation process for technical staff. This editor:

• Supports multiple programming languages
• Allows for the embedding of live code within documents
• Helps build neatly organized documentation using the developer-friendly Markdown syntax

Plus, the intuitive drag-and-drop functionality makes reorganizing tabs extremely easy.

Archbee’s editor also features Markdown shortcuts that simplify the creation of custom blocks like callouts, code drawers, and changelogs.

Automatic API Reference Generation, Documentation, and Management

Archbee automatically generates API references when an API definition file is uploaded. By centralizing these references, developers can readily access the most recent endpoint details and make sure their whole team is up-to-date with accurate API documentation.

Additional specialized API features include:

• An in-house widget that makes API communication with teams and customers more efficient
• The TRY IT! feature, which lets users test APIs right from their browser

The easiest way to guarantee that APIs are reliably generated, documented, and managed is to adopt a feature-rich solution that automates the entire process.

Collaborative Workspace Tools

Using Archbee, developers can work together and with partners efficiently on documentation. They’re equipped with a full range of collaboration tools that enable them to:

• Determine which technical product knowledge is shared publicly or kept internally among colleagues
• Set up automatic alerts for subject matter experts to periodically verify documents
• Assign users with review permissions to approve, merge, and publish any changes made to the documentation
• Tag colleagues to send them real-time alerts and dynamically link to other documents

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Everyone on the team can pitch in on documentation, look through the document history, and revert to any earlier saved version.

3. Main Advantages

Simple Developer-First Interface

Anyone can begin using Archbee immediately, without any learning curve. Developers, in particular, will find Archbee exceptionally intuitive and easy to navigate.

Our platform for authoring, publishing, and managing knowledge is rich with developer-centric features, custom editor blocks, and ready-made templates. These elements allow teams to organize and access effective developer guides with minimal effort.

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Technical staff can keep their current workflow as is. Thanks to embed integrations, they’ll be able to pull in contextually rich content from their go-to external tools:

• Embedding code snippets or files hosted on GitHub Gist
• Embedding live code samples and demos from Codepen
• Embedding visual elements from Lucidchart

As a bonus, this also makes their documentation more dynamic.

AI-Enhanced Search Capabilities

Archbee’s Ask AI search function retrieves on-demand information from internal knowledge repositories to provide technical teams with immediate responses to their questions.

LLMs are capable of interpreting all forms of technical documentation, whether it’s code SDKs, OpenAPI specifications, or other reference materials. This enables them to effectively address technical queries and guide developers through specific integrations or tasks.

This powerful search functionality is built to support both internal knowledge bases and externally published documentation portals.

💡 With Archbee’s AI search, jigx (a leading mobile app development platform) delivers accurate and context-rich answers to customers—along with helpful code samples.

Analytics and Content Performance Insights

Archbee’s Insights tab equips technical teams with detailed analytics to assess how well their content meets end-user needs. Specifically, they can access:

• Search analytics ➜ to view exactly what users search for and how frequently
• Traffic ➜ to track visitor engagement, including the number of page views and the time spent on the documentation site
• Document feedback ➜ to collect user thumbs up/down ratings and comments on public documentation
• Questions and answers ➜ to keep a record of both internal and external queries along with their corresponding responses

What’s more, Archbee is compatible with Google Analytics—and it’s very simple to set up.

Highly Customizable Knowledge Portals

Archbee’s knowledge and documentation portals offer extensive customization options. Developers have the flexibility to:

• Insert custom code into a hosted Space
• Personalize hosted and published Spaces using custom CSS
• Replace the first document with a custom HTML landing page

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On top of that, developers can style Archbee templates with CSS to adapt the platform’s default options to their own preferences.

4. Limitations in Large Documentation Repositories

While Archbee hosts extensive documentation repositories, there are some specific limits to be aware of:

• Each document can contain up to 500 blocks and have a maximum size of 1MB
• A Space can accommodate a maximum of 1000 documents

There are also a few restrictions for uploads, imports, and downloads.

These constraints largely promote best documentation practices. Teams following such guidelines can create well-structured documentation that is easy to search through. This enhances the readability and usability of the shared knowledge while also increasing its visibility in search results.

Zoomin vs. Archbee: Head-to-Head Comparison

1. Customer Profile

Zoomin focuses on large enterprise organizations that require customer-facing documentation.

Their customers use the platform to consolidate content across an expanding range of products, optimize their content strategy to enhance internal efficiency, and create self-service support portals.

👤 Zoomin’s Customer Snapshot

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© Imperva—a leading cybersecurity provider specializing in enterprise-grade application security solutions

Archbee is the ideal documentation platform for technical professionals who need a developer-friendly approach to knowledge management. Packed with purpose-built features for technical documentation, it’s an excellent choice for tech-focused companies aiming to:

• Support developers in building scalable applications
• Improve team collaboration and productivity
• Streamline API documentation maintenance and updates

The platform is also a great fit for those looking to upgrade their documentation practices and simplify knowledge access for internal or external users.

👤 Archbee’s Customer Snapshot

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© Catenda—a software company dedicated to providing building information modeling solutions for the AECOO industry

2. Ease of Use

Archbee’s user interface is highly functional and simple to use, which makes it suitable for many different types of end-users. Reviews often highlight its ease of use:

“Archbee offered a seamless onboarding experience, with an intuitive setup that allowed us to build and organize our documentation in days without external assistance.”

—Klevu

Meanwhile, Zoomin prioritizes high-level customization. As such, setting up the platform requires a strong familiarity with the necessary connectors and plugins. This can make the onboarding process slower for some users. However, it can be effective for enterprises that are prepared to allocate resources for implementing and managing a highly customized documentation system.

3. Collaboration & Team Features

Both Archbee and Zoomin equip teams with AI-powered toolkits to improve productivity.

Zoomin features AI-driven search and an AI Assistant to help with topic summaries, explanations, and writing tips. Yet Zoomin’s collaboration features aren’t extensively discussed, aside from their focus on user permissions to safeguard content access for authorized individuals only.

Archbee also offers intelligent search functionality for on-demand answers as well as an AI Write Assistant that speeds up the creation of technical documentation  Users can correct grammar and spelling, translate content, and rewrite or summarize text.

Plus, Archbee comes with several integrated tools that:

• Facilitate real-time editing by multiple users
• Allow users to provide instant feedback, leave comments, or ask questions
• Support content reuse to minimize redundant work

With Archbee, teams can easily set up role-based access controls for specific team members, individuals, and groups to keep unauthorized content off-limits.

4. Integration Ecosystem

Archbee integrates with a variety of development, communication, and project management platforms that are already essential to the workflows of modern tech teams. Among the supported integrations are OpenAPI Swagger, GraphQL, and Numeracy as well as tools like Slack, Zapier, and Zendesk.

For example, teams can document their code directly within GitHub and sync it with Archbee.

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Zoomin enables integration with various authoring, content management, and publishing platforms—aiming to consolidate enterprise knowledge in one single location.

Key integrations include Salesforce, RoboHelp, and Confluence, alongside Google Drive, Adobe, and Microsoft.

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Which Documentation Platform Works Best for Tech Teams?

Thoroughly evaluating your team’s technical, communication, and integration needs is crucial when selecting the most appropriate documentation platform.

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Summing Up

Today’s tech organizations need documentation tools that effectively complement their existing development stacks.

Archbee is a versatile all-in-one platform that fits neatly into technical workflows. Its developer-focused features intend to improve the way teams author, publish, and interact with their knowledge resources. This positions it as a viable Zoomin alternative for tech teams.

Want to see if Archbee is the right fit for your team? Sign up for a free 14-day trial to discover how seamlessly it integrates into your everyday documentation workflow and enhances collaborative knowledge sharing.

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