Reference – WordPress Knowledgebase Plugin
A Simple and Lightweight Knowledgebase Plugin for WordPress. You can use Reference plugin to add tutorials and knowledgebase to your website.
Consider an alternative
Reference shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 80+ sites and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 25/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (80+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 8 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.8 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Reference stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| collaboration | >100 |
| project | >100 |
| task | >100 |
| task discussion | #64 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Reference
From the official readme · v1.0.4Description
Reference – WordPress Knowledgebase Plugin
Reference is a WordPress Knowledgebase plugin that helps you manage your Knowledgebase articles quickly. Create and organize each of your articles base on their topics.
The ‘Breadcrumb’ feature gives your users a secondary navigation menu that helps your readers scan through your documentation and to view more content at a faster rate.
This plugin uses the ‘WordPress Menu System’ in giving you convenience in creating ‘Table of Contents’ for your knowledgebase.
The ‘Comment Feedback’ feature allows you to gather votes from your users and gives you the information about the usefulness of your knowledgebase article – readers can ‘downvote’ and ‘upvote’ each item (checked via IP).
There are also useful feature such as allowing you to display your ‘Topics’ in three columns, two columns or one column layout.
Templating
Reference adheres to the WordPress standard Templating System to make it accessible to any developers make this plugin compatible with their themes. To get started, copy the sample template files of the plugin inside ‘reference/templates/twentyseventeen’ and paste each file inside your theme.
- archive-dsc-knowledgebase.php – The post type archive template file
- knowledgebase-none.php – The 404 or no content found template file
- knowledgebase-search.php – The search template file
- single-dsc-knowledgebase.php – The template for single knowledgebase
- taxonomy-knb-categories.php – The categories template file
After you have copied the said files in the list above, you can open each file with your favorite code editor and start modifying the markup to make sure your theme is compatible.
You may also use the existing template tags to make your work faster and easier.
Features
- Breadcrumbs
- Drag and Drop Menu using the WordPress Menu System
- Table of Contents
- Sticky Table of Contents
- Syntax Highlighting Shortcode
- Ten Syntax Highlighting Styles
- Comment Feedback
- Column Display
- Reference Shortcode
Contribute
If you’re a developer and looking to contribute to this project. Please visit the GitHub page and kindly send a pull request. Your contribution is greatly appreciated 🙂
Installation
Manual
- Download and unzip “reference.zip” plugin.
- Upload the entire “reference” directory to your ‘wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
- Activate the “Reference – WordPress Knowledgebase Plugin” plugin.
Pro Tips: You may need to add the required template files inside your theme. See the ‘Templating’ section in the plugin description.
Automatic
Click here to learn how to automatically add the plugins using the built-in plugin installer.
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Reference alternatives
All collaboration plugins →
FAQ
Reference: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 3, 2026
Is Reference free?
Yes. Reference is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Reference safe to use in 2026?
Reference shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 80+ sites and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 25/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Reference?
Reference is active on 80+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 9,892 times since it launched in June 2017. It was downloaded 70 times in the last 30 days.
Does Reference work with WordPress 7.1?
Reference is officially tested up to WordPress 4.8.0, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Reference last updated?
The latest version, 1.0.4, was released on May 28, 2018 (8 years ago).
Who makes Reference?
Reference is developed and maintained by Joseph G..
What are the best alternatives to Reference?
The most popular alternatives to Reference are BuddyPress Docs (6K+ installs), Peter's Post Notes (2K+ installs) and WP Document Revisions (2K+ installs).
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