Foswiki vs. PhpWiki vs. PmWiki

General Features Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Version
2.1.9
phpwiki-1.3.14
2.5.4
Last Release Date
2024-12-18 (11 months ago)
2007-07-01 (18 years ago)
2025-12-06 (11 days ago)
Last Update here
2024-12-18 (11 months ago)
2009-04-03 (16 years ago)
2025-12-06 (11 days ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPL2+
Programming Language
Perl
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Database, 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
Any
All
System Requirements Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
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
various opt. helpers
none
Datastorage Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
Yes
Plugin
PostgreSQL
No
Yes
No
Oracle
No
Yes
No
SQLite
No
Yes
Plugin
BerkeleyDB
No
Yes
No
RCS
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
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
No
Optional
Mail Encryption
Yes
No
Optional
nofollow
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Optional
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
No
Optional
Development/Support Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
117 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
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
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
No
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
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
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
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Optional
Comments
Plugin
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Yes
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Patch
Yes
Links Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Yes
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
No
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
HTML Tags
All
Some
Plugin
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
No
Optional
Markdown Support
Plugin
No
Plugin
Textile Support
Plugin
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
No
Plugin
Emoticon Images
Plugin
No
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Footnotes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
No
Yes
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
plugins, templates, PHP
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Usability Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Section Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
Toolbar
Plugin
Yes
Optional
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Yes
Statistics Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Yes
Optional
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Analysis
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Output Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
No
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Optional
ATOM Feeds
Yes
No
Optional
Abbreviations
Plugin
No
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
XML export
Plugin
No
Plugin
PDF Export
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Media and Files Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Optional
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Optional
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
SVG Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
No
Filenames only
Extras Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Ticket System
Plugin
No
Plugin
Chat
No
Unknown
No
Syntax Examples Foswiki PhpWiki PmWiki
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
Bold Format
*bold*
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
'''bold'''
Italics Format
_italic_
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italic''
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
<u>underlined</u>
{+underlined+}
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


@@monospace@@
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
<strike>striked through</strike>
{-strikethrough-}
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>above</sup>
'^superscript^'
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>below</sub>
'_subscript_'
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"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
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# list
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
Term:<def>
def
: term : definition
Horizontal Rule
---
----
----
remove Foswiki remove PhpWiki remove PmWiki