Foswiki vs. PBwiki vs. ikiwiki

General Features Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Version
2.1.11
N/A
2.67
Last Release Date
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
N/A
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
2010-08-16 (15 years ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
PBworks
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
N/A
Yes
License
GPL
N/A
GPL
Programming Language
Perl
N/A
Perl
Data Storage
Files, RCS
N/A
Files, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
$0
Determined by Solution Needs
0
Development status
Mature
N/A
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Business Enterprises
Anyone
Hosting Features Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Storage Quota
N/A
No limit
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
No limit
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
None
N/A
Topic Restrictions
N/A
None
N/A
Corporate Branding
N/A
Yes
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
Yes
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
Yes
N/A
System Requirements Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
N/A
Any
Root Access
No
N/A
No
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
N/A
Any, or none
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
N/A
Datastorage Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Text Files
Yes
N/A
Yes
MySQL
No
N/A
No
PostgreSQL
No
N/A
No
Oracle
No
N/A
No
SQLite
No
N/A
No
BerkeleyDB
No
N/A
No
RCS
Yes
N/A
Yes
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
N/A
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
N/A
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Host Blocking
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Mail Encryption
Yes
No
Yes
nofollow
Yes
No
No
Blacklist
Plugin
Optional
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
No
No
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
No
No
Development/Support Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
N/A
No
Code Repository
N/A
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
118 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
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
Yes
Plugin
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
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
1
English
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Plugin
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
N/A
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Links Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
CamelCase
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
SisterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Page Redirects
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Features Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
HTML Tags
All
All
Optional
Math formulas
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
No
Yes
Textile Support
Plugin
No
Plugin
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Footnotes
Plugin
Yes
No
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Yes
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
Javascript
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
Content Includes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Usability Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
No
No
Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
No
Auto Signature
Yes
No
No
Statistics Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Optional
Plugin
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
No
Plugin
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Yes
No
Analysis
Yes
Optional
No
Output Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Plugin
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Abbreviations
Plugin
Yes
No
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
Yes
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Yes
No
Office Export
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Image Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
Media Search
Contents
Contents
Filenames only
Extras Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Calendar
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Blogs
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Chat
No
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki PBwiki ikiwiki
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
CamelCaseLink or [Free Link]
[[internal]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[http://www.externallink.com]
[link text](http://example.org)
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!!!! Level 6
Two syntaxes:

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

heading 1
=========

heading 2
---------
Bold Format
*bold*
**bold**
**bold**
__bold__
Italics Format
_italic_
''italics''
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
<code>monospace</code>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
-strikethrough-
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
[http://www.imagelocation.com/image.jpg
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
<left>, <center>, <right>
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Indented block
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* Bullet #1
* Bullet #2
** SubBullet #1
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# Number #1
# Number #2
1. item 1
2. item 2
1. item 1.1
42. the value doesn't matter
1. any value works
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
<dl>
</dl>
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
Horizontal Rule
---
---
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
remove Foswiki remove PBwiki remove ikiwiki