ikiwiki vs. Foswiki vs. PageWork

General Features ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Version
2.67
2.1.11
0.4.8
Last Release Date
2008-10-17 (18 years ago)
2026-03-15 (7 months ago)
2010-07-20 (16 years ago)
Last Update here
2008-10-28 (18 years ago)
2026-03-15 (7 months ago)
2010-10-23 (16 years ago)
Author
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
Foswiki Community
Pitt Murmann
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPLv3
Programming Language
Perl
Perl
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Database, Files
License Cost/ Fee
0
$0
none
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Anyone
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Medium-sized sites
System Requirements ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Operating System
Any
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Any, or none
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Any
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
DBA with bdb or qdbm support
Datastorage ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
No
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
No
No
Patch
BerkeleyDB
No
No
Yes
RCS
Yes
Yes
No
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
Security/Anti-Spam ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
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
Proprietary
Host Blocking
Yes
Plugin
No
Mail Encryption
Yes
Yes
No
nofollow
No
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Yes
Plugin
No
CAPTCHA
No
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
Yes
Development/Support ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
N/A
Common Features ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
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 Foswiki PageWork
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
Optional
Interface Languages
1
English
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
2
German, English
Email notification
Yes
Yes
No
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Detection
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
No
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Structured Data
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Links ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
CamelCase
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
No
Page Redirects
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Features ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
HTML Tags
Optional
All
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
CREOLE support
No
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
Yes
Plugin
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
No
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
No
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Optional
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Scripting
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
Content Includes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Usability ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Section Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Plugin
No
Toolbar
No
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
No
Plugin
No
Access Keys
No
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
No
Statistics ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Plugin
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
No
Plugin
No
Analysis
No
Yes
No
Output ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Optional
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Optional
RSS Feeds
Plugin
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Yes
Auto-TOC
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Plugin
XML export
No
Plugin
No
PDF Export
No
Plugin
No
Office Export
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
No
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
No
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
Keywords
Extras ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Ticket System
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples ikiwiki Foswiki PageWork
Internal Link
[[internal]]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[link]]
[[link|alternate text]]
External Link
[link text](http://example.org)
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
http://www.wikimatrix.org/
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
= L1 =
== L2 ==
=== L3 ===
==== L4 ====
===== L5 =====

= L1
== L2
=== L3
==== L4
===== L5
Bold Format
**bold**
__bold__
*bold*
This is '''bold''' (or rather, strong).
This is **bold**, too.
Italics Format
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
_italic_
This is in ''italics'' (or rather, emphasized).
This is in //italics//, too.
Underline Format
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
<u>underline</u>
This is __underlined__.
Monospace Format
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
This is %%monospaced%%.
Strikethrough Format
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
This is --not-- important.
Superscript Format
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
a^^2^^ = b^^2^^ + c^^2^^
Subscript Format
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
p^^^n^^^ := {x^^^n^^^, y^^^n^^^, y^^^n^^^}
Images
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
{{image|image_file.suffix}}
{{image|image_file.suffix|alternate text}}
{{figure|image_file.suffix}}
{{figure|image_file.suffix|caption text}}
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
{{p|align:left|text of paragraph}}
{{p|align:center|text of paragraph}}
{{p|align:right|text of paragraph}}
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
> L1 quote
>> L2 quote
Bulleted Lists
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* one
* two
** two alpha
** two beta
* 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
# two
## two alpha
## two beta
# three
Definition Lists
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
$ Term: Definition
: term : definition
Horizontal Rule
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
---
---
remove ikiwiki remove Foswiki remove PageWork