BrainKeeper vs. PmWiki vs. WackoWiki

General Features BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Version
N/A
2.5.8
6.2.1
Last Release Date
N/A
2026-03-09 (9 days ago)
2026-03-03 (15 days ago)
Last Update here
2008-01-12 (18 years ago)
2026-03-09 (9 days ago)
2026-03-03 (15 days ago)
Author
BrainKeeper, Inc.
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
WackoWiki Team
URL
Free and Open Source
N/A
Yes
Yes
License
N/A
GPL2+
BSD
Programming Language
N/A
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
N/A
Files
Database
License Cost/ Fee
from $35 for 9 logins, scaled pricing from there
0
0
Development status
N/A
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporations, and Business Teams
All
Advanced End Users, Developers, End Users/Desktop
Hosting Features BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Storage Quota
Unlimited
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
Unlimited
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
None
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
No Restrictions
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
Yes
N/A
N/A
Own Domain
Yes
N/A
N/A
Ads allowed
No
N/A
N/A
System Requirements BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Operating System
N/A
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
OS Independent
Root Access
N/A
No
No
Webserver
N/A
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
run with the appserver/webserver of your choice
Other Requirements
N/A
none
mod_rewrite (optional)
Datastorage BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Text Files
N/A
Yes
No
MySQL
N/A
Plugin
Yes
PostgreSQL
N/A
No
No
Oracle
N/A
No
No
SQLite
N/A
Plugin
Yes
BerkeleyDB
N/A
No
No
RCS
N/A
Plugin
No
Other
N/A
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
MariaDB
Security/Anti-Spam BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
N/A
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
LDAP (patch), ActiveDirectory
Host Blocking
Unknown
Optional
Optional
Mail Encryption
Unknown
Optional
Optional
nofollow
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
Unknown
Optional
Yes
CAPTCHA
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Delayed Indexing
No
Optional
No
Development/Support BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
N/A
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
N/A
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
56 ⭐
Common Features BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Interface Languages
1
English
38
Arabic, Bulgarian, Breton, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Persian, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Macedonian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Albanian, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
30
Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Estonian, Persian, Finnish, French, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Tamil, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
Email notification
Yes
Optional
Yes
Comments
Flat
Discussion Pages
Flat
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Yes
No
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
N/A
Yes
Patch
Structured Data
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Links BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
CamelCase
No
Optional
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
No
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Redirects
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
HTML Tags
Some
Plugin
All
Math formulas
No
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Unknown
Optional
No
Markdown Support
Unknown
Plugin
No
Textile Support
Unknown
No
No
BBCode Support
Unknown
Plugin
Patch
Emoticon Images
No
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Footnotes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Internal Comments
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
No
Scripting
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
actions (PHP)
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Usability BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Section Editing
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Templates
No
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Plugin
Yes
Toolbar
Yes
Optional
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Yes
Statistics BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Optional
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
Yes
Recent Visitors
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Analysis
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Output BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Optional
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
No
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Patch
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
XML export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
PDF Export
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Office Export
Unknown
Plugin
Patch
Media and Files BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Optional
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Optional
No
Embedded Flash
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
Yes
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
Unknown
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
Contents
Extras BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Calendar
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Forums
Unknown
Plugin
Optional
Blogs
Unknown
Plugin
Optional
Ticket System
Unknown
Plugin
No
Chat
Unknown
No
Patch
Syntax Examples BrainKeeper PmWiki WackoWiki
Internal Link
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
[[InternalLink]] 
((InternalLink))
[[InternalLink alternate text]]
CamelCase
External Link
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
https://wackowiki.org
[[https://wackowiki.org WackoWiki]]
[[Wikipedia:WackoWiki]]
Headlines
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
== Level 1 ==
=== Level 2 ===
==== Level 3 ====
===== Level 4 =====
====== Level 5 ======
Bold Format
'''bold'''
**bold**
Italics Format
''italic''
//italics//
Underline Format
{+underlined+}
__underline__
Monospace Format
@@monospace@@
##monospace##
Strikethrough Format
{-strikethrough-}
--strikethrough--
Superscript Format
'^superscript^'
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
'_subscript_'
,,subscript,,
Images
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
((image.png))
file:image.png
https://example.com/image.png
Aligning Text
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
{html}<div align="right">{html}

%%(wacko wrapper="text" wrapper_align="center")
content%%
Text Indentation
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
one
two
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
*one
**One-two
*two
*three
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
1. numbered List
1. numbered List-2
2.#8 numbered List, with break


Definition Lists
: term : definition
{html}<dl>
<dt>Coffee</dt>
<dd>Black hot drink</dd>
<dt>Milk</dt>
<dd>White cold drink</dd>
</dl>{html}
Horizontal Rule
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remove BrainKeeper remove PmWiki remove WackoWiki