Confluence vs. Instiki vs. Zwiki vs. XWiki

General Features Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Version
5.2
0.30.0
0.61
18.3.0
Last Release Date
2013-08-13 (12 years ago)
2019-03-01 (7 years ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
2026-04-27 (3 days ago)
Last Update here
2013-08-22 (12 years ago)
2019-03-04 (7 years ago)
2008-10-30 (17 years ago)
2026-04-28 (2 days ago)
Author
Atlassian
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
Simon Michael & the Zwiki dev team
XWiki Development Team
URL
Free and Open Source
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
Commercial + Free personal/open source project/community use
Ruby's
GPLv2
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Programming Language
Java
Ruby on Rails
Python
Java
Data Storage
Database
Database
Database
Database, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
starting at US $10 installed (unlimited wikis)
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise + Technical Teams
general, education
anyone able to install or get access to a zope server
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
Hosting Features Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Storage Quota
Unlimited
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
No
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
No
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
Yes
N/A
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
Optional
N/A
N/A
Yes
Ads allowed
No
N/A
N/A
No
System Requirements Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Operating System
Windows, Linux and Unix variants
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
any
Any platform supporting Java 17 or greater
Root Access
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache Tomcat
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
Zope
Servlet 5.0+
Other Requirements
Oracle JDK 1.6.0_4+
Ruby 2.0-2.6
Java 17, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Datastorage Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Text Files
No
No
Plugin
No
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
PostgreSQL
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Oracle
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SQLite
No
Yes
Unknown
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
Unknown
No
RCS
No
No
Unknown
Plugin
Other
Any Rails-compatible back-end datastore can be used.
ZODB (zope object database)
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
Security/Anti-Spam Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
LDAP, NTLM, Siteminder, CAS and more
any supported by Zope authentication plugins
XWiki, OpenID Connect, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Host Blocking
No
Yes
Patch
No
Mail Encryption
Optional
Unknown
Yes
Yes
nofollow
Optional
Unknown
Unknown
No
Blacklist
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
CAPTCHA
Yes
Unknown
No
Yes
Delayed Indexing
No
Unknown
Patch
Yes
Development/Support Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#zwiki on freenode
Stars on GitHub
N/A
506 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Preview
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
No
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
No
Yes
Yes
Special Features Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
Optional
No
Interface Languages
15
Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
1
English
0
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
Email notification
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Comments
Threaded
No
Flat
Threaded
Categories
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
No
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Detection
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Structured Data
Plugin
No
Unknown
Yes
Links Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
No
No
Yes
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
No
Unknown
Yes
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Syntax Features Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
HTML Tags
Optional
All
Optional
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
No
Yes
Markdown Support
No
Yes
No
Yes
Textile Support
Yes
Yes
No
No
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Yes
No
Patch
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
No
Optional
Plugin
Scripting
Macros, plugins, widgets, JavaScript and more
None
DTML
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Usability Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Section Editing
No
No
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
No
No
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
No
Patch
No
Toolbar
Yes
No
No
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
Yes
No
Statistics Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
Optional
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Analysis
Yes
No
No
Yes
Output Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Yes
No
Optional
Abbreviations
No
Yes
Unknown
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
PDF Export
Yes
No
Patch
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Media and Files Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
No
No
Yes
Embedded Flash
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Video
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
SVG Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
No
Filenames only
Contents
Extras Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Calendar
Plugin
No
Unknown
Plugin
Image Galleries
Yes
No
Unknown
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Plugin
No
Unknown
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
No
Unknown
Plugin
Ticket System
Plugin
No
Unknown
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Syntax Examples Confluence Instiki Zwiki XWiki
Internal Link
[Page Title]
[Link Title|Page Title#anchor]
[~username]
[^attachment.doc]
[[Some Page]]
[[Some Page|anchor text]]
[[Some Page#anchor]]
[[Some Page#anchor|anchor text]]
WikiName
[freeform name]
[[double-bracketed]]
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)
External Link
[http://www.example.com]
[Link Title|http://www.example.com]
[Shortcut Link|PageName@otherwiki]
[another site](http://example.com)
Bare urls plus markup-specific 
link syntax. This and all 
following syntax examples depend 
on which markup mode is used for 
a page, including:

restructured text, structured 
text, wikiwikiweb, moinmoin, 
html, plaintext..
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.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..
Bold Format
*bold*
**bold**
**bold**
Italics Format
_italics_
_italic_, *italic*
//Italics//
Underline Format
+underline+
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
__underline__
Monospace Format
{{monospace}}
`monospace`
##monospace##
Strikethrough Format
-strikethrough-
<del>strikethrough</del>
strikethrough
{: style='text-decoration:line-through'}
--Strike--
Superscript Format
^superscript^
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
~subscript~
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
Images
![alt text](http://ex.com/image.jpg),
[[image.jpg|alt text:pic]]
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
Aligning Text
p{: style='text-align:left'}
p{: style='text-align:right'}
p{: style='text-align:center'}
p{: style='text-align:justify'}
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
Text Indentation
p
{: style='margin-left:3em'}

> blockquote
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
Bulleted Lists
* one
** one-two
* two
* three
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
Numbered Lists
# one
## one-two
# two
# three
1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
Definition Lists
term
: definition
; term
: definition
Horizontal Rule
----
***
----
remove Confluence remove Instiki remove Zwiki remove XWiki