Dr.Explain vs Fluid Topics
Dr.Explain
drexplain.comFluid Topics
fluidtopics.comSide by side
| Figure | Dr.Explain | Fluid Topics |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $24.17/mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 0 |
| Spec score · Help Authoring Tools | 8.5 (#4) | 7.6 (#15) |
| Spec score · Technical Documentation Software | 8.4 (#8) | 7.5 (#27) |
| Spec score · Knowledge base software | 8.0 (#81) | 7.7 (#95) |
| Publishing audience | both | The company describes its customers as including Fortune 500 businesses in enterprise software, medical devices, high tech, and manufacturing. |
| Founded | 2004 | 1999 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, USA | Lyon, France |
| Intended users | The maker identifies technical writers, programmers and developers, business analysts and integrators, and technical support specialists as intended users. | The company describes customers across enterprise software, medical devices, high-tech, and manufacturing, and says its platform supports customer service and field service operations. |
| Product | Dr.Explain is a help authoring tool for creating user guides, operating instructions, help files, and manuals. | Fluid Topics positions itself as a Product Knowledge Platform that unifies product information in a central knowledge hub and delivers it across channels. |
| Support | The maker offers multilingual technical and sales support by email and toll-free voicemail. | After go-live, the Customer Success Manager and Customer Support team serve as the customer’s main contacts, and the Help Desk is used for issues, questions, and feature suggestions. |
Plans
Dr.Explain
- FreeFree
- Business Temporary$290 a year
- Business Perpetual v.7$690 a month
- Home Perpetual v.7$9,000 a month
- Free Restricted LicenseFree
- Business License — Temporary$290 a year
- Business License — Perpetual for v.7$690, paid once
- Home License — Perpetual for v.7$9,000, paid once
In their own words
Dr.Explain
Dr.Explain is a Windows help authoring tool for creating user guides, operating instructions, help files, and manuals. It captures application windows or web pages and adds numbered callouts to interface elements. Documentation can be exported as HTML, CHM, PDF, or DOCX; imports include CHM, HLP, HTML, XML, DOC/DOCX, and TXT, with project structure and formatting preserved. For software integration, it supports Help Context IDs and creates map files in.h,.vb, and.inc formats. Multiple authors can work on a project through the free Tiwri.com service or a corporate server on the company's internal network. An in-program AI Assistant offers generation, translation, and proofreading. The desktop application requires 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7. The free license has no time limit but restricts project size and watermarks exported images; it includes 20 topics. Business Temporary costs $290 a year for five users, and Business Perpetual v.7 costs $690, paid once for five users. Home Perpetual v.7 costs $9,000, paid once for one user and excludes commercial use.
Fluid Topics
Fluid Topics is a paid product knowledge platform from a company founded in 1999 and headquartered in Lyon, France. It gathers content from many sources into a repository, then delivers it through documentation portals, community channels, chatbots, AI agents and embedded help. Search combines keyword and semantic methods, uses user context for personalization and indexes material in real time. Organizations can provide a customizable mobile and desktop portal with access controls and offline mode. Portal Designer supports portal customization without technical skills. The platform provides generative-AI and retrieval-augmented-generation infrastructure, including a knowledge layer and MCP server. It supports more than 100 sources and formats, with APIs for custom integrations and workflow automation. Fluid Topics states a 99.9+% uptime SLA, ISO 27001:2022 certification, AES-256 encryption and TLS. Customers can choose their preferred large language model. Pricing is on request.