Foswiki vs. PmWiki vs. TiddlyWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. MediaWiki

General Features Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Version
2.1.10
2.5.4
5.1.21
phpwiki-1.3.14
1.32.2
Last Release Date
2025-12-18 (23 days ago)
2025-12-06 (1 month ago)
2019-07-25 (6 years ago)
2007-07-01 (18 years ago)
2019-06-06 (6 years ago)
Last Update here
2025-12-18 (23 days ago)
2025-12-06 (1 month ago)
2019-11-20 (6 years ago)
2009-04-03 (16 years ago)
2019-06-21 (6 years ago)
Author
Foswiki Community
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Jeremy Ruston, TiddlyWiki community
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL2+
BSD
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
Perl
PHP
HTML, JavaScript
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files
Files
Database, Files, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
$0
0
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
All
Individuals, private, small groups
Any
End Users/Desktop, Education
System Requirements Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Any
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
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.
Not required (optional backends available)
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Any with PHP support
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
none
A common browser
various opt. helpers
none
Datastorage Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
MySQL
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Oracle
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
SQLite
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
Yes
No
RCS
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
Data self contained in html file OR as individual data files
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
No
Security/Anti-Spam Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
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.
optional extensions available
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Yes
Host Blocking
Plugin
Optional
No
No
Yes
Mail Encryption
Yes
Optional
No
No
Plugin
nofollow
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
Plugin
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
Optional
Unknown
No
No
Development/Support Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
118 ⭐
N/A
8501 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Optional
Yes
No
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
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
4
German, English, French, Japanese
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
140
Afar, Abkhazian, Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Bihari, Bislama, Bengali; Bangla, Tibetan, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Czech, Welsh, Danish, German, Bhutani, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, Fiji, Faroese, French, Frisian, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Galician, Guarani, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Interlingue, Inupiak, Icelandic, Italian, Inuktitut, Japanese, Georgian, Kazakh, Greenlandic, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kirghiz, Latin, Lingala, Laothian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Moldavian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Burmese, Nauru, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian, Occitan, Oromo, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Pashto, Pushto, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Quechua, Rhaeto-Romance, Kirundi, Romanian, Russian, Kinyarwanda, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Sangho, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Samoan, Shona, Somali, Albanian, Serbian, Siswati, Sesotho, Sundanese, Swedish, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tajik, Thai, Tigrinya, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Tonga, Turkish, Tsonga, Tatar, Twi, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Volapuk, Wolof, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zhuang, Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Zulu
Email notification
Yes
Optional
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Comments
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
None
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
Yes
Patch
Plugin
Links Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
HTML Tags
All
Plugin
Optional
Some
Some
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Textile Support
Plugin
No
No
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Optional
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
No
Scripting
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
JavaScript
plugins, templates, PHP
Optional
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Usability Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Optional
Toolbar
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Statistics Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Analysis
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Output Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
Plugin
No
Yes
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
No
No
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
No
Yes
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
No
No
Keywords
Extras Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
Chat
No
No
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples Foswiki PmWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
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]]
WikiWord (CamelCase)
[[link]]
[[label|link]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
External Link
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
http://www.example.com
[[label|http://www.example.com]]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[http://example.org The title]
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
Bold Format
*bold*
'''bold'''
''bold''
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
'''bold'''
Italics Format
_italic_
''italic''
//italic//
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italic''
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
{+underlined+}
__underline__
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
@@monospace@@
{{{monospaced}}}
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


<tt>monospace</tt>
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
{-strikethrough-}
--strikethrough--
<strike>striked through</strike>
<s>strikethrough</s>
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
'^superscript^'
^^superscript^^
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
'_subscript_'
~~subscript~~
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
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
[img[local.jpg]]
[img[http://foo.bar/foo.jpg]]
[ 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
[[Image:wiki.png]]
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
using custom classes, e.g.
{{right{
text
}}}
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

<center>Centered</center>
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
:indent

> quote

<<<
blockquote
<<<
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
: indented line
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
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* 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
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
# list
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
: term : definition
; term
: description
Term:<def>
def
; term : definition
Horizontal Rule
---
----
----
----
----
remove Foswiki remove PmWiki remove TiddlyWiki remove PhpWiki remove MediaWiki