ikiwiki vs. TWiki vs. Confluence

General Features ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Version
2.67
TWiki-6.1.0
5.2
Last Release Date
2008-10-16 (15 years ago)
2018-07-15 (5 years ago)
2013-08-12 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2008-10-28 (15 years ago)
2019-07-19 (4 years ago)
2013-08-22 (10 years ago)
Author
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
Peter Thoeny, TWiki community
Atlassian
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
No
License
GPL
GPL
Commercial + Free personal/open source project/community use
Programming Language
Perl
Perl, JavaScript
Java
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
0
N/A
starting at US $10 installed (unlimited wikis)
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Anyone
Large enterprise; small to medium businesses
Enterprise + Technical Teams
Hosting Features ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
Unlimited
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
No
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
No
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Optional
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
No
System Requirements ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Operating System
Any
Linux, Windows, OS-X and other
Windows, Linux and Unix variants
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Any, or none
Almost any webserver, typically Apache and Ngnix
Apache Tomcat
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Oracle JDK 1.6.0_4+
Datastorage ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Text Files
Yes
Yes
No
MySQL
No
No
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
No
Yes
Oracle
No
No
Yes
SQLite
No
No
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
RCS
Yes
Yes
No
Other
RcsLite Perl library for version control without external RCS; backend API for other storage
Security/Anti-Spam ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
LDAP, NTLM, Siteminder, CAS and more
Host Blocking
Yes
Plugin
No
Mail Encryption
Yes
Yes
Optional
nofollow
No
Plugin
Optional
Blacklist
Yes
Plugin
No
CAPTCHA
No
Plugin
Yes
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
No
Development/Support ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
No
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
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
No
Interface Languages
1
English
19
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
15
Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
Email notification
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Discussion Pages
Threaded
Threaded
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Optional
Yes
Structured Data
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Links ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
CamelCase
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Yes
Optional
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Redirects
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Syntax Features ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
HTML Tags
Optional
All
Optional
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
No
Markdown Support
Yes
No
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
BBCode Support
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Yes
Scripting
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
TWiki Markup Language, TWiki variables, JavaScript, extensive API
Macros, plugins, widgets, JavaScript and more
Content Includes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Usability ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Section Editing
No
Plugin
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Plugin
No
Toolbar
No
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
No
Yes
Yes
Access Keys
No
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
No
Statistics ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Plugin
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
Plugin
No
Analysis
No
Yes
Yes
Output ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Plugin
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
No
Auto-TOC
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
No
Plugin
Yes
PDF Export
No
Plugin
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
Contents
Extras ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Ticket System
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples ikiwiki TWiki Confluence
Internal Link
[[internal]]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[Page Title]
[Link Title|Page Title#anchor]
[~username]
[^attachment.doc]
External Link
[link text](http://example.org)
http://twiki.org/ autolink
[[http://twiki.org/][label]]
[http://www.example.com]
[Link Title|http://www.example.com]
[Shortcut Link|PageName@otherwiki]
Headlines
Two syntaxes:

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

heading 1
=========

heading 2
---------
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
h1. Top Level Heading
h2. Smaller Heading
h6. Smallest Heading
Bold Format
**bold**
__bold__
*bold*
*bold*
Italics Format
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
_italic_
_italics_
Underline Format
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
<u>underline</u>
+underline+
Monospace Format
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
{{monospace}}
Strikethrough Format
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
-strikethrough-
Superscript Format
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
^superscript^
Subscript Format
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
~subscript~
Images
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Bulleted Lists
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* one
** one-two
* two
* three
Numbered Lists
1. item 1
2. item 2
1. item 1.1
42. the value doesn't matter
1. any value works
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# one
## one-two
# two
# three
Definition Lists
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
$ Term: Definition
Horizontal Rule
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
---
----
remove ikiwiki remove TWiki remove Confluence