Foswiki vs. ikiwiki vs. PageWork

General Features Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Version
2.1.11
2.67
0.4.8
Last Release Date
2026-03-15 (3 months ago)
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
2010-07-20 (15 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-15 (3 months ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
2010-10-23 (15 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
Pitt Murmann
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPLv3
Programming Language
Perl
Perl
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Database, Files
License Cost/ Fee
$0
0
none
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Anyone
Medium-sized sites
System Requirements Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any
Any
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Any, or none
Any
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
DBA with bdb or qdbm support
Datastorage Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
No
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
No
No
Patch
BerkeleyDB
No
No
Yes
RCS
Yes
Yes
No
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Proprietary
Host Blocking
Plugin
Yes
No
Mail Encryption
Yes
Yes
No
nofollow
Yes
No
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
No
CAPTCHA
Plugin
No
No
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
No
Yes
Development/Support Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
118 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
No
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
Plugin
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
Optional
Interface Languages
22
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
1
English
2
German, English
Email notification
Yes
Yes
No
Comments
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Detection
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Links Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
CamelCase
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Syntax Features Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
HTML Tags
All
Optional
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
CREOLE support
Plugin
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Yes
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
No
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Optional
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
Content Includes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Usability Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Section Editing
Plugin
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
No
No
Toolbar
Plugin
No
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
No
No
Access Keys
Yes
No
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
No
No
Statistics Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Plugin
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
No
No
Analysis
Yes
No
No
Output Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Optional
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Optional
RSS Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Abbreviations
Plugin
No
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
XML export
Plugin
No
No
PDF Export
Plugin
No
No
Office Export
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
No
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
No
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
No
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
Keywords
Extras Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Ticket System
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Chat
No
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki ikiwiki PageWork
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[internal]]
[[link]]
[[link|alternate text]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[link text](http://example.org)
http://www.wikimatrix.org/
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
Two syntaxes:

# heading 1
## heading 2
### heading 3

heading 1
=========

heading 2
---------
= L1 =
== L2 ==
=== L3 ===
==== L4 ====
===== L5 =====

= L1
== L2
=== L3
==== L4
===== L5
Bold Format
*bold*
**bold**
__bold__
This is '''bold''' (or rather, strong).
This is **bold**, too.
Italics Format
_italic_
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
This is in ''italics'' (or rather, emphasized).
This is in //italics//, too.
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
This is __underlined__.
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
This is %%monospaced%%.
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
This is --not-- important.
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
a^^2^^ = b^^2^^ + c^^2^^
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
p^^^n^^^ := {x^^^n^^^, y^^^n^^^, y^^^n^^^}
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
{{image|image_file.suffix}}
{{image|image_file.suffix|alternate text}}
{{figure|image_file.suffix}}
{{figure|image_file.suffix|caption text}}
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
{{p|align:left|text of paragraph}}
{{p|align:center|text of paragraph}}
{{p|align:right|text of paragraph}}
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
> L1 quote
>> L2 quote
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
* one
* two
** two alpha
** two beta
* three
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
1. item 1
2. item 2
1. item 1.1
42. the value doesn't matter
1. any value works
# one
# two
## two alpha
## two beta
# three
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
: term : definition
Horizontal Rule
---
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
---
remove Foswiki remove ikiwiki remove PageWork