Help Center vs Headless Support Portal
Plain gives you two ways to offer self-service support to your customers: the hosted Help Center and a Headless Support Portal. Here's how to decide which is right for you.
Help Center
Plain's Help Center is a fully hosted support site that integrates directly with your Plain workspace. It combines a knowledge base, Ask AI, and a customer inbox in one place with no engineering setup required.
Domain: Hosted on
support.siteAuthentication: Managed by Plain
Best for: Teams that want a fast, fully integrated support experience out of the box
See it in action at plain.support.site.
Headless Support Portal
A headless portal lets you build a fully custom support experience hosted on your own domain. You control the branding, authentication, and how deeply the customer inbox is embedded into your product.
Domain: Your own
Authentication: Fully controlled by you
Best for: Teams that need deep product embedding or custom branding beyond what the Help Center offers
Which should I use?
Start with the Help Center unless you have a specific need for custom authentication, your own domain, or deep product embedding. The headless portal requires meaningful engineering investment. It's powerful, but only worth it if the Help Center's constraints are a blocker for you.