Foswiki vs. ikiwiki vs. PmWiki vs. Wikidot

General Features Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Version
2.1.11
2.67
2.6.0
Last Release Date
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
2026-05-16 (28 days ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
2026-05-16 (28 days ago)
2009-12-09 (16 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Michal Frackowiak
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPL2+
AGPLv3
Programming Language
Perl
Perl
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Files
Database
License Cost/ Fee
$0
0
0
Free / Paid Accounts (starts from $5 per month)
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Anyone
All
companies, private users, social groups and communities, software developers, tech geeks
Hosting Features Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
1500MB for free users, more for Pro accounts
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
no limit
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
N/A
max uploaded file size limit
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
N/A
by Terms Of Service
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
System Requirements Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Root Access
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Any, or none
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
none
Datastorage Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unknown
MySQL
No
No
Plugin
Unknown
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Yes
Oracle
No
No
No
Unknown
SQLite
No
No
Plugin
Unknown
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
Unknown
RCS
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
Host Blocking
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Yes
Mail Encryption
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
nofollow
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
No
Optional
Yes
Development/Support Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
118 ⭐
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
No
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
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Special Features Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
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
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
2
English, Polish
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Comments
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Discussion Pages
Threaded
Categories
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Links Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
CamelCase
Yes
Plugin
Optional
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
HTML Tags
All
Optional
Plugin
None
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
No
Optional
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
CSS styles, embeddable JavaScript, reporting language
Content Includes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Usability Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Section Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Plugin
No
Optional
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Access Keys
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Statistics Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
No
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Analysis
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Output Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Optional
No
Abbreviations
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Auto-TOC
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
XML export
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Office Export
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
Filenames only
No
Extras Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Blogs
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Ticket System
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Chat
No
Unknown
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki ikiwiki PmWiki Wikidot
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[internal]]
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
[[[page-name]]] or
[[[page-name|anchor]]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[link text](http://example.org)
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
http://www.wikimatrix.org or 
[http://www.wikimatrix.org WikiMatrix]
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
---------
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
+++ headline level 3
Bold Format
*bold*
**bold**
__bold__
'''bold'''
**bold text**
Italics Format
_italic_
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
''italic''
//italic text//
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
{+underlined+}
__underlined text__
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
@@monospace@@
{{monospaced text}}
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
{-strikethrough-}
--strikethrough text--
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
'^superscript^'
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
'_subscript_'
,,subscript,,
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
[[image src="..."]]
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
= Centered line
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
> First level of indentation
>> Second level of indentation.
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
* element 1
* element 2
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
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
# element 1
# element 1
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
: term : definition
: item : description
Horizontal Rule
---
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
----
----
remove Foswiki remove ikiwiki remove PmWiki remove Wikidot