Confluence vs. TWiki vs. XWiki vs. PBwiki

General Features Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Version
5.2
TWiki-6.1.0
18.4.0
N/A
Last Release Date
2013-08-13 (12 years ago)
2018-07-16 (7 years ago)
2026-05-27 (13 days ago)
N/A
Last Update here
2013-08-22 (12 years ago)
2019-07-19 (6 years ago)
2026-05-27 (13 days ago)
2010-08-16 (15 years ago)
Author
Atlassian
Peter Thoeny, TWiki community
XWiki Development Team
PBworks
URL
Free and Open Source
No
Yes
Yes
N/A
License
Commercial + Free personal/open source project/community use
GPL
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
N/A
Programming Language
Java
Perl, JavaScript
Java
N/A
Data Storage
Database
Files, RCS
Database, RCS
N/A
License Cost/ Fee
starting at US $10 installed (unlimited wikis)
N/A
0
Determined by Solution Needs
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
N/A
Intended Audience
Enterprise + Technical Teams
Large enterprise; small to medium businesses
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
Business Enterprises
Hosting Features Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Storage Quota
Unlimited
N/A
No limit
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
No limit
Other Limits
No
N/A
None
Topic Restrictions
No
N/A
None
Corporate Branding
Yes
N/A
Yes
Yes
Own Domain
Optional
N/A
Yes
Yes
Ads allowed
No
N/A
No
Yes
System Requirements Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Operating System
Windows, Linux and Unix variants
Linux, Windows, OS-X and other
Any platform supporting Java 17 or greater
N/A
Root Access
No
No
No
N/A
Webserver
Apache Tomcat
Almost any webserver, typically Apache and Ngnix
Servlet 5.0+
N/A
Other Requirements
Oracle JDK 1.6.0_4+
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Java 17, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
N/A
Datastorage Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Text Files
No
Yes
No
N/A
MySQL
Yes
No
Yes
N/A
PostgreSQL
Yes
No
Yes
N/A
Oracle
Yes
No
Yes
N/A
SQLite
No
No
No
N/A
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
N/A
RCS
No
Yes
Plugin
N/A
Other
RcsLite Perl library for version control without external RCS; backend API for other storage
JDBC Databases and in general any database supported by Hibernate; any custom implementation, as the storage is pluggable. Attachments can be saved on the filesystem
N/A
Security/Anti-Spam Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
LDAP, NTLM, Siteminder, CAS and more
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
XWiki, OpenID Connect, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
N/A
Host Blocking
No
Plugin
No
Optional
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
Yes
No
nofollow
Optional
Plugin
No
No
Blacklist
No
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
CAPTCHA
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Development/Support Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
Code Repository
N/A
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
No
No
Yes
Interface Languages
15
Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
19
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
40
Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Persian, French, Galician, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Marathi, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, Uighur, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
1
English
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Threaded
Threaded
Threaded
Threaded
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Optional
Yes
N/A
Structured Data
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Links Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
CamelCase
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Page Redirects
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Syntax Features Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
HTML Tags
Optional
All
All
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
Yes
No
Markdown Support
No
No
Yes
No
Textile Support
Yes
Plugin
No
No
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Scripting
Macros, plugins, widgets, JavaScript and more
TWiki Markup Language, TWiki variables, JavaScript, extensive API
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Javascript
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Usability Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Section Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Plugin
No
No
Toolbar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
No
No
Statistics Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Analysis
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Output Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
PDF Export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Media and Files Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Embedded Video
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Media Search
Contents
Contents
Contents
Contents
Extras Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Galleries
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Syntax Examples Confluence TWiki XWiki PBwiki
Internal Link
[Page Title]
[Link Title|Page Title#anchor]
[~username]
[^attachment.doc]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
XWiki supports 16+ input syntaxes (e.g. confluence, twiki, docbook, mediawiki, xwiki, markdown, etc), see http://rendering.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome#HSupportedSyntaxes for details.

The syntax documented below is XWiki Syntax 2.1 (http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/XWikiSyntax).

[[wiki syntax here>>Space.Page]]
[[Space.Page]]
(Space is optional and is the current space if not specified)
CamelCaseLink or [Free Link]
External Link
[http://www.example.com]
[Link Title|http://www.example.com]
[Shortcut Link|PageName@otherwiki]
http://twiki.org/ autolink
[[http://twiki.org/][label]]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
[http://www.externallink.com]
Headlines
h1. Top Level Heading
h2. Smaller Heading
h6. Smallest Heading
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!!!! Level 6
Bold Format
*bold*
*bold*
**bold**
**bold**
Italics Format
_italics_
_italic_
//Italics//
''italics''
Underline Format
+underline+
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
__underline__
Monospace Format
{{monospace}}
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
##monospace##
<code>monospace</code>
Strikethrough Format
-strikethrough-
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
--Strike--
-strikethrough-
Superscript Format
^superscript^
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
~subscript~
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
image:img.png
image:Space.Page@img.png
[[image:img.png||width="25" height="25"]]
image:http://some/url/img.png

Starting with the xwiki/2.1 syntax, also:
image:icon:cancel
[http://www.imagelocation.com/image.jpg
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
<left>, <center>, <right>
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

(% style="... css here..." %)multi line text

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
Indented block
Bulleted Lists
* one
** one-two
* two
* three
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
* Bullet #1
* Bullet #2
** SubBullet #1
Numbered Lists
# one
## one-two
# two
# three
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
# Number #1
# Number #2
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
; term
: definition
<dl>
</dl>
Horizontal Rule
----
---
----
---
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