MadCap Flare vs XMetaL Author
MadCap Flare
madcapsoftware.comXMetaL Author
xmetal.comSide by side
| Figure | MadCap Flare | XMetaL Author |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $262.50/mo | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 1 |
| Spec score · Help Authoring Tools | 8.0 (#9) | 6.9 (#21) |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado, USA | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Integrations | The product page says Flare can publish directly to Salesforce, Zendesk, and ServiceNow, and the pricing page lists ChatGPT integration for Flare Online authoring. | XMetaL Author Essential 20.0 lists integrations with Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing Copilot, xAI Grok, and DeepSeek. |
| Publishing | Flare publishes to multiple formats, including responsive HTML5, high-end print, Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF, Word, SCORM, and more. | XMetaL Author Essential can publish XML content from the author’s desktop to customer-facing output formats. |
| Purpose | MadCap Flare is an authoring and publishing platform for technical documentation, online help, knowledge bases, policies, training materials, and API documentation. | XMetaL is an XML editor for structured authoring that uses standards including DITA to help teams create, collaborate on, and reuse content. |
| Trial | MadCap offers a free 30-day Flare trial without requiring a credit card. | The product pages provide a Download Trial link; they do not state a trial duration on those pages. |
Plans
MadCap Flare
- Starter — Flare Desktop Only$3,150 a year
- Flare Online — IndividualPrice not published
- Flare Online — TeamPrice not published
- Flare Online — BusinessPrice not published
- Starter — Flare Desktop Only$3,150 a year
- Flare Online - BusinessPriced on request
- Flare Online - IndividualPriced on request
- Flare Online - TeamPriced on request
In their own words
MadCap Flare
MadCap Flare is an authoring and publishing platform for technical documentation, online help, knowledge bases, policies, training materials, and API documentation. Topic-based authoring and single-sourcing let teams reuse material across versions and output formats. Flare can publish responsive HTML5, print, PowerPoint, PDF, Word, SCORM, and other formats; it also imports content from Word, Excel, Confluence, FrameMaker, RoboHelp, and DITA. Flare Online adds browser-based review for subject matter experts and non-Flare users, concurrent authoring, and real-time collaboration. Publishing can connect directly to Salesforce, Zendesk, and ServiceNow. Flare supports Unicode, double-byte, Cyrillic, and right-to-left languages, while Flare Online analytics can track topic views, searches without results, and user behavior. The Starter desktop plan costs $3,150 a year, billed at $3,150 per author per year. A free 30-day trial is available without a credit card. Flare Desktop requires Microsoft Windows; Flare Online offers browser-based authoring and review.
XMetaL Author
XMetaL Author has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.