ErfurtWiki vs. Instiki vs. WackoWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. MediaWiki

General Features ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Version
R1.02b (kind of final release :-)
0.30.0
6.2.0
phpwiki-1.3.14
1.32.2
Last Release Date
2005-06-16 (20 years ago)
2019-03-01 (6 years ago)
2025-12-14 (2 months ago)
2007-07-01 (18 years ago)
2019-06-06 (6 years ago)
Last Update here
2010-04-04 (15 years ago)
2019-03-04 (6 years ago)
2026-02-27 (today)
2009-04-03 (16 years ago)
2019-06-21 (6 years ago)
Author
Mario Salzer & Andi Fundinger
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
WackoWiki Team
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
Public Domain (!)
Ruby's
BSD
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
PHP
Ruby on Rails
PHP
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
Database, Files, RCS
Database
Database
Database, Files, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
small + medium sites, development teams
general, education
Advanced End Users, Developers, End Users/Desktop
Any
End Users/Desktop, Education
System Requirements ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Operating System
any
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
OS Independent
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
anything with PHP support
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
run with the appserver/webserver of your choice
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Any with PHP support
Other Requirements
none
Ruby 2.0-2.6
mod_rewrite (optional)
various opt. helpers
none
Datastorage ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Text Files
Plugin
No
No
Yes
No
MySQL
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Oracle
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
SQLite
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
BerkeleyDB
Plugin
No
No
Yes
No
RCS
Plugin
No
No
Yes
No
Other
no
Any Rails-compatible back-end datastore can be used.
MariaDB
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
No
Security/Anti-Spam ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Authentication Backends
UNIX, LDAP, MySQL, PHP, other
LDAP (patch), ActiveDirectory
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Yes
Host Blocking
Plugin
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Mail Encryption
Plugin
Unknown
Optional
No
Plugin
nofollow
Plugin
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
Patch
Unknown
No
No
No
Development/Support ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
not yet :-)
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
507 ⭐
55 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Preview
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Unicode Support
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Patch
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Interface Languages
4
German, English, Spanish, Dutch
1
English
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
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
140
Afar, Abkhazian, Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Bihari, Bislama, Bengali; Bangla, Tibetan, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Czech, Welsh, Danish, German, Bhutani, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, Fiji, Faroese, French, Frisian, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Galician, Guarani, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Interlingue, Inupiak, Icelandic, Italian, Inuktitut, Japanese, Georgian, Kazakh, Greenlandic, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kirghiz, Latin, Lingala, Laothian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Moldavian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Burmese, Nauru, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian, Occitan, Oromo, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Pashto, Pushto, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Quechua, Rhaeto-Romance, Kirundi, Romanian, Russian, Kinyarwanda, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Sangho, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Samoan, Shona, Somali, Albanian, Serbian, Siswati, Sesotho, Sundanese, Swedish, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tajik, Thai, Tigrinya, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Tonga, Turkish, Tsonga, Tatar, Twi, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Volapuk, Wolof, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zhuang, Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Zulu
Email notification
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Comments
Plugin
No
Flat
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Page Locking
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
No
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Optional
Yes
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Structured Data
No
No
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Links ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
No
No
No
No
Image Links
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
HTML Tags
Plugin
All
All
Some
Some
Math formulas
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Optional
No
No
No
No
Markdown Support
No
Yes
No
No
No
Textile Support
No
Yes
No
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
Patch
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Optional
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Footnotes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
No
No
No
No
Scripting
optional
None
actions (PHP)
plugins, templates, PHP
Optional
Content Includes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Usability ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Section Editing
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Patch
No
Yes
Optional
Optional
Toolbar
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
No
No
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Access Keys
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Statistics ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Recent Changes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Analysis
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Output ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Themes & Skins
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Yes
Abbreviations
Optional
Yes
Patch
No
No
Auto-TOC
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Optional
No
Yes
No
Yes
PDF Export
Optional
No
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Patch
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
File Attachments
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
No
No
No
No
No
SVG Editing
No
Yes
No
No
No
MindMap Editing
No
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Media Search
No
No
Contents
No
Keywords
Extras ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Calendar
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
No
No
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
No
Optional
Yes
No
Ticket System
No
No
No
No
No
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Patch
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples ErfurtWiki Instiki WackoWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Internal Link
WikiPage
[WikiPage | Go here]
[[Some Page]]
[[Some Page|anchor text]]
[[Some Page#anchor]]
[[Some Page#anchor|anchor text]]
[[InternalLink]] 
((InternalLink))
[[InternalLink alternate text]]
CamelCase
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
External Link
http://erfurtwiki.sf.net
[http://erfurtwiki.sf.net | Go here]
mario@wiki.net
[another site](http://example.com)
https://wackowiki.org
[[https://wackowiki.org WackoWiki]]
[[Wikipedia:WackoWiki]]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[http://example.org The title]
Headlines
!!! Big Headline
!! Medium Headline
! Section Headline
#Level 1#
##Level 2##
###Level 3###
####Level 4####
#####Level 5#####
######Level 6######
== Level 1 ==
=== Level 2 ===
==== Level 3 ====
===== Level 4 =====
====== Level 5 ======
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
Bold Format
__bold text__
**bold text**
**bold**
**bold**
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
'''bold'''
Italics Format
''ialic text''
_italic_, *italic*
//italics//
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italic''
Underline Format
optional or via css
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
__underline__
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
==monospaced text==
`monospace`
##monospace##
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


<tt>monospace</tt>
Strikethrough Format
optional or via css
<del>strikethrough</del>
strikethrough
{: style='text-decoration:line-through'}
--strikethrough--
<strike>striked through</strike>
<s>strikethrough</s>
Superscript Format
^^superscript text^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
optional or via css
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
[link to the image.jpg]
![alt text](http://ex.com/image.jpg),
[[image.jpg|alt text:pic]]
((image.png))
file:image.png
https://example.com/image.png
[ http://foo.org/1.jpg size=30%] 
external image
[Upload:view.jpg align=right size=50x40] 
view uploaded image
[Upload:view.jpg | http://server/external-linkjpg ] 
view and link to another image
[[Image:wiki.png]]
Aligning Text
optional or via css
p{: style='text-align:left'}
p{: style='text-align:right'}
p{: style='text-align:center'}
p{: style='text-align:justify'}
{html}<div align="right">{html}

%%(wacko wrapper="text" wrapper_align="center")
content%%
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

<center>Centered</center>
Text Indentation
just use 3 spaces or tabs
indented text
p
{: style='margin-left:3em'}

> blockquote
one
two
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
: indented line
Bulleted Lists
* Item A
* Item B
** Item B1
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
*one
**One-two
*two
*three
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
##* Item 1.1a
##* Item 1.1b

1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
1. numbered List
1. numbered List-2
2.#8 numbered List, with break


# list
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
Definition Lists
:definition: explanation
:anotherdef: another description
term
: definition
{html}<dl>
<dt>Coffee</dt>
<dd>Black hot drink</dd>
<dt>Milk</dt>
<dd>White cold drink</dd>
</dl>{html}
Term:<def>
def
; term : definition
Horizontal Rule
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remove ErfurtWiki remove Instiki remove WackoWiki remove PhpWiki remove MediaWiki