Foswiki vs. ikiwiki vs. ProWiki

General Features Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Version
2.1.11
2.67
2.0.045
Last Release Date
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
2006-10-14 (19 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
2009-11-28 (16 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
Helmut Leitner
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
Perl
Perl
Perl
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Files
License Cost/ Fee
$0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Anyone
individual Wiki projects, everybody who needs more than a single wiki for a single purpose
System Requirements Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any
Unix / Linux
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Any, or none
Apache (probably anything supporting CGI)
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
none
Datastorage Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
No
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
No
No
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
RCS
Yes
Yes
Yes
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
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
Host Blocking
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Mail Encryption
Yes
Yes
No
nofollow
Yes
No
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
No
No
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
No
No
Development/Support Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
# 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 ProWiki
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
No
Special Features Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
No
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
8
German, English, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Plugin
Discussion Pages
No
Categories
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Unknown
No
Links Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Syntax Features Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
HTML Tags
All
Optional
Some
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Yes
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
No
Footnotes
Plugin
No
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
No
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
No
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
Content Includes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
No
Usability Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Section Editing
Plugin
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
No
No
Toolbar
Plugin
No
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
No
No
Access Keys
Yes
No
No
Auto Signature
Yes
No
Yes
Statistics Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Plugin
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
Yes
Recent Visitors
Plugin
No
No
Analysis
Yes
No
Yes
Output Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Optional
RSS Feeds
Yes
Plugin
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Plugin
No
Abbreviations
Plugin
No
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Plugin
No
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
No
No
PDF Export
Plugin
No
No
Office Export
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
No
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
No
Yes
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
No
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
No
Extras Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
No
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Unknown
No
Blogs
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Ticket System
Plugin
Yes
No
Chat
No
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki ikiwiki ProWiki
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[internal]]
CamelCase
Wordlinking
{{free link}}
[page labelforlink]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[link text](http://example.org)
http://example.org
InterWiki:page
[some:link labelforlink]
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
---------
= Headline 1 =
== Headline 2 =
=== Headline 3 =
==== Headline 4 =
===== Headline 5 =
====== Headline 6 =
Bold Format
*bold*
**bold**
__bold__
'''bold'''
Italics Format
_italic_
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
''italic''
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
<tt>monospace</tt>
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
[[strike]strikethrough text]
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
<sup>text</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
<sub>text</sub>
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
http://example.org/file.jpg
Upload:file.gif
[[Image]...options...]
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
only as part of tables or citations
[align:left|center|right]
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
: indented line
:: indented line
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
* bulleted list
** bulleted list
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
# numbered list
## numbered list
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 ProWiki