No matter the size and industry, your business needs a centralized system to store, manage and share all the information related to your business. But choosing the right knowledge management system can be a daunting process. You need to research and compare some of the best solutions available in the market. Bloomfire and SharePoint are two of the most popular knowledge management software used by businesses today. To help you in your research, we have compared both the software so that you can make the right decision.

What is Bloomfire?

Bloomfire is a cloud-based knowledge management software launched in 2012 by Bloomfire, a software-as-a-service company. It was founded by Josh Little in 2010. It allows companies to store and manage their knowledge base in a secure, centralized system. It helps the employees to search, share and collaborate on the existing knowledge spread across the organization. Quick information at their fingertips helps them to make quick, informed decisions increasing their productivity. Since it is web-based, an employee can access Bloomfire from anywhere in the world. All they need is the internet and a device – PC, tablet, or even mobile. Apart from knowledge management, it also provides customer insights and customer support.  

What is Sharepoint?

If you or your company uses Microsoft’s Office 365 suite, you probably have used or heard of SharePoint. It is a web-based document management and collaboration tool that integrates with the Microsoft ecosystem. SharePoint allows organizations to manage documents, reports, databases, and other business-related content. It also allows employees to create sites to share documents and other information with their coworkers. Since it is web-based, you only need a web browser to access SharePoint. But it has desktop and mobile apps too. In addition, as it is part of Microsoft Office, it integrates with other MS tools like MS Word, Excel, OneDrive, and others. SharePoint was initially released in 2001 and has evolved over the years with various versions.

Bloomfire Vs. SharePoint Comparison

Now that you have been acquainted with both software, here’s a quick comparison of their important features. Scroll down for an in-depth analysis.

Search: Bloomfire wins

Bloomfire is known for its robust search engine. Backed by AI and auto-tagging, it deep indexes words in all file types, including the ones in videos and audio. Thus, you can find relevant content even if you don’t know the file name. The search results have multiple levels of categories by content type, author, and so on. This sometimes might be a little chaotic. SharePoint allows you to add metadata and tags to documents. It also has powerful indexing and searches where you can find documents grouped by specific tags.

Content: It’s a tie 

Both the software have a centralized storage system that you can access from anywhere, at any time with any device. Bloomfire allows you to have custom categories and multiple levels of the organization. You can create content on the platform or upload existing ones from your device or cloud. You can schedule posts for publishing or review, and it automatically adds tags when you publish. SharePoint goes a step ahead with content creation, where you can build pages from templates, set up sites, add media, and publish content. You can manage them through the dashboard. With real-time editing and co-authoring, multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously. It always shows the latest version, but you can revert to any of the previous versions.

Collaboration: SharePoint wins

Bloomfire is known for its integrated Q&A engine, where users can post questions and get answers from SMEs (subject matter experts). The forum allows them to post questions that everyone can see,  answer, and approve the appropriate answer. SharePoint is an excellent tool for collaboration as it pairs with Office 365 apps and services. You can create virtual workspaces where teams can meet, complete tasks, and collaborate. You can also create shared calendars, OneNote notebooks, chats, and other tools. Employees can share ideas and tips through chats, blogs, and posts.

Reporting & Analytics: It’s a tie

Bloomfire has built-in analytics and reporting for content engagement. For example, you can see what terms people search, which content has more engagement and other reports. With SharePoint’s Employee analytics, you can see what pages employees click, which content gets more attention, popular links, trends, etc.

Support and Training: Bloomfire for Training and SharePoint for Support

Both the platforms provide online support through email, chat, phone, FAQs, forums, help desk, and knowledge base. But Bloomfire does not have 24/7 live support, whereas SharePoint does. When it comes to training, Bloomfire wins the prize. It provides training through in-person, online, webinars, documentation, and videos. But SharePoint only provides you with videos.

Pricing: That’s a difficult one

You can either go for Bloomfire’s Essential plan with $25 per user/month or custom pricing with the Enterprise plan. Estimating actual SharePoint costs can be a little difficult as it is included with Microsoft 365’s subscription.  Yet, you can subscribe to the standalone product plans, which start from $5 per user/month.

Which one to choose?

That depends on your business size, budget, and requirements. Both are good knowledge management software that shine in multiple areas yet have their drawbacks. Bloomfire and SharePoint offer demo and free trials respectively so that you can try before you decide. If you don’t want to settle right now but explore other options, you can check them out here. If you’re planning to manage customer service for your brand, check us out at Helplama. We provide exceptional fully managed customer service support at reasonable prices.