KnowHow WordPress Theme

HeroThemes has shifted focus toward their Heroic KB plugin, but KnowHow does still receive occasional updates. It is no longer their primary product. If long-term support and active development matter to your project, it is worth considering whether a plugin-based solution or a more actively maintained theme better fits your needs. A KnowHow developer can advise on whether migration makes sense.

Yes. KnowHow can be locked down to registered users only using a members plugin like Members by MemberPress or a simple snippet that redirects guests. The theme itself has no built-in access control, so this needs to be handled at the plugin or code level. A KnowHow specialist can set this up cleanly without affecting your admin access or public-facing pages.

KnowHow predates the block editor and is not a Gutenberg-native theme. Article content can be edited with blocks, but the theme templates and layout controls do not use the block editor. Elementor can be used inside article content, but the homepage and category templates are controlled by the theme and cannot be edited visually in Elementor without custom template overrides.

KnowHow has no built-in article voting or rating system. The most common approach is adding a plugin like Helpful or building a custom meta-based voting system. HeroThemes’ own Heroic KB plugin includes this feature natively if you want to move in that direction. A KnowHow developer can build a lightweight custom voting system that stores results in post meta without third-party dependencies.

KnowHow and WooCommerce can coexist on the same WordPress install. The knowledge base functions independently of WooCommerce templates. The common use case is a help center that sits alongside a store, with articles covering shipping, returns, and product questions. You can link from product pages to specific articles manually or with a plugin that creates contextual support links.

KnowHow does not include access restriction natively. The simplest approach is using a plugin like Password Protected, Members, or a redirect snippet in functions.php that checks login status and redirects guests. For more granular control, such as restricting specific categories to certain user roles, a KnowHow specialist can write custom logic tied to the knowledge base post type and taxonomy.

KnowHow is a standalone theme. Heroic KB is a WordPress plugin that adds knowledge base functionality to any theme. HeroThemes now recommends Heroic KB as their primary product. The plugin offers more features, including article voting, contact forms, and search analytics. KnowHow is simpler and lighter but receives less active development. The right choice depends on how much flexibility and ongoing feature development you need.

KnowHow is built around a single knowledge base structure. Supporting multiple separate knowledge bases, such as one per product or department, is not a built-in feature. It can be approximated using categories, but a true multi-base setup requires custom post types or a plugin like MultiKnowHow. A KnowHow developer can advise on the cleanest approach without overcomplicating the data structure.

On shared hosting, the biggest wins for KnowHow speed come from enabling a caching plugin, compressing images inside article content, and disabling unused widgets. WP Super Cache or LiteSpeed Cache work well. Reducing the number of articles loaded per category on the homepage also helps. If your host supports PHP 8.x, upgrading from older PHP versions makes a noticeable difference on query-heavy knowledge base pages.

KnowHow articles are stored as a custom post type. Migrating them means either re-registering that post type in the new theme or converting them to standard posts. The content itself is portable, but URLs, categories, and any theme-specific meta fields need to be mapped carefully. See our WordPress migration service if you are planning a full platform move.