Foswiki vs. PmWiki vs. alphawiki

General Features Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Version
2.1.11
2.7.4
v.20160608
Last Release Date
2026-03-15 (5 months ago)
2026-07-31 (22 days ago)
2016-08-06 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-15 (5 months ago)
2026-07-31 (22 days ago)
2016-09-10 (9 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
marty alain
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL2+
GNU-GPL
Programming Language
Perl
PHP
PHP+Javascript
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files
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
All
private users, small teams
System Requirements Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
probably every OS
Root Access
No
No
Yes
Webserver
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
Apache with PHP support
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
none
Datastorage Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
Plugin
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
No
Plugin
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
RCS
Yes
Plugin
No
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
None
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
No
Host Blocking
Plugin
Optional
No
Mail Encryption
Yes
Optional
No
nofollow
Yes
Yes
No
Blacklist
Plugin
Optional
No
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
Optional
No
Development/Support Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
No
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
118 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
No
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
No
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Optional
Unknown
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
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
1
English
Email notification
Yes
Optional
No
Comments
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Optional
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Yes
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
No
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Links Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
No
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
No
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
No
Syntax Features Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
HTML Tags
All
Plugin
Optional
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
Optional
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Textile Support
Plugin
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Optional
No
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Plugin
No
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
lambdatalk, lambdalisp,javascript
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
No
Usability Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Plugin
Optional
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Optional
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Optional
Statistics Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Optional
No
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Optional
No
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Analysis
Yes
Plugin
No
Output Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Optional
No
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
No
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Optional
HTML Export
Yes
Plugin
Optional
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
No
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
File Attachments
Yes
Optional
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Optional
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
No
Extras Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
No
Chat
No
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki PmWiki alphawiki
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
1) standard syntax :
{a {@ href="?view=pixar"}pixar}
2) alternate wiki form :
[[pixar]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
1) standard syntax :
{a {@ href="http://www.pixar.com/"}pixar}
2) alternate wiki form :
[[pixar|http://www.pixar.com/]]
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
1) standard syntax :
{h1 TITLE} from 1 to 6
2) alternate form :
_h1 TITLE (until end of line)
Bold Format
*bold*
'''bold'''
{b I am bold}
Italics Format
_italic_
''italic''
{i I am italic}
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
{+underlined+}
{u I am underline}
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
@@monospace@@
{pre I am monospace and preformated}
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
{-strikethrough-}
{del I am line-through}
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
'^superscript^'
E = mc{sup 2}
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
'_subscript_'
Vector low indiced : V{sub i} 
Vector high indiced: V{sup i}
Tensor : T{sub i}{sup j}
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
1) static image, simple :
{img {@ src="data/image.jpg"}}

2) static image, complete :
{img 
{@ src="data/image.jpg"  
height="200"
title="infotext"
}}

3) click_enlarging image :
{show 
{@ src="data/image.jpg"
height="200" 
width="400" 
title="infotext"
}}
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
{center I am centered}
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
{p I am an indented paragraph.}
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
1) standard :
{ul
{li item 1}
{li item 2}
}

2) alternative :
_ul item 1
_ul item 2
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
1) standard :
{ol
{li item 1}
{li item 2}
}

2) alternative :
_ol item 1
_ol item 2
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
: term : definition
{dl
{dt one} 
{dd definition 1}
{dt two} 
{dd definition 2}
}
Horizontal Rule
---
----
{hr}
remove Foswiki remove PmWiki remove alphawiki