MediaWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. PBwiki vs. Sputnik vs. ikiwiki

General Features MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Version
1.45.3
phpwiki-1.3.14
N/A
8.08.13
2.67
Last Release Date
2025-12-04 (6 months ago)
2007-07-01 (18 years ago)
N/A
2008-08-13 (17 years ago)
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-06-03 (16 days ago)
2009-04-03 (17 years ago)
2010-08-16 (15 years ago)
2009-02-02 (17 years ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
Author
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
PBworks
Yuri Takhteyev
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
N/A
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
N/A
MIT/X
GPL
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
N/A
Lua
Perl
Data Storage
Database
Database, Files, RCS
N/A
Database, Files, RCS
Files, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
Determined by Solution Needs
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
N/A
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
End Users/Desktop, Education
Any
Business Enterprises
Small teams or private users
Anyone
Hosting Features MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
No limit
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
No limit
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
None
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
None
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
N/A
System Requirements MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Operating System
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
N/A
Linux, UNIX, OSX, Windows
Any
Root Access
No
No
N/A
No
No
Webserver
Any with PHP support
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
N/A
Apache, CGI, Xavante
Any, or none
Other Requirements
none
various opt. helpers
N/A
gcc or Lua
Datastorage MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Text Files
No
Yes
N/A
Yes
Yes
MySQL
Yes
Yes
N/A
Plugin
No
PostgreSQL
Yes
Yes
N/A
No
No
Oracle
No
Yes
N/A
No
No
SQLite
Yes
Yes
N/A
Plugin
No
BerkeleyDB
No
Yes
N/A
No
No
RCS
No
Yes
N/A
No
Yes
Other
No
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
N/A
Git
Security/Anti-Spam MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Yes
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
N/A
Yes
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Host Blocking
Yes
No
Optional
No
Yes
Mail Encryption
Plugin
No
No
No
Yes
nofollow
Optional
Yes
No
No
No
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
No
Delayed Indexing
No
No
No
No
No
Development/Support MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
N/A
No
No
Code Repository
N/A
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
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
Plugin
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Interface Languages
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
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
1
English
3
English, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian
1
English
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Threaded
No
Discussion Pages
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Namespaces
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
None
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
N/A
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Links MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
CamelCase
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
SisterWiki
No
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
No
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Yes
Unknown
No
Unknown
Syntax Features MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
HTML Tags
Some
Some
All
Some
Optional
Math formulas
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
No
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Yes
Textile Support
No
No
No
No
Plugin
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Optional
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
Footnotes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Unknown
No
Yes
No
Yes
Scripting
Optional
plugins, templates, PHP
Javascript
Lua, JavaScript
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Usability MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Section Editing
Yes
No
Plugin
No
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Optional
Optional
No
No
No
Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Patch
Yes
No
No
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Statistics MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Plugin
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
No
No
Plugin
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
No
Analysis
Optional
Plugin
Optional
No
No
Output MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
No
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
ATOM Feeds
Yes
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Abbreviations
No
No
Yes
No
No
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
XML export
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
No
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Unknown
Yes
Yes
No
Optional
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Optional
Image Editing
No
No
Yes
No
No
SVG Editing
No
No
Yes
No
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
Yes
No
No
Media Search
Keywords
No
Contents
No
Filenames only
Extras MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Calendar
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Image Galleries
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Unknown
Blogs
Unknown
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Ticket System
Unknown
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples MediaWiki PhpWiki PBwiki Sputnik ikiwiki
Internal Link
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
CamelCaseLink or [Free Link]
[[Sputnik]]
[[internal]]
External Link
[http://example.org The title]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[http://www.externallink.com]
[Sputnik](http://spu.tnik.org)
[link text](http://example.org)
Headlines
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!!!! Level 6
# Sputnik
Two syntaxes:

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

heading 1
=========

heading 2
---------
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
**bold**
**Sputnik** or __Sputnik__
**bold**
__bold__
Italics Format
''italic''
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italics''
*Sputnik* or _Sputnik_
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
Underline Format
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
__underline__
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
<tt>monospace</tt>
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


<code>monospace</code>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
Strikethrough Format
<s>strikethrough</s>
<strike>striked through</strike>
-strikethrough-
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
Images
[[Image:wiki.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
[http://www.imagelocation.com/image.jpg
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
Aligning Text
<center>Centered</center>
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

<left>, <center>, <right>
Text Indentation
: indented line
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
Indented block
> Sputnik
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* Bullet #1
* Bullet #2
** SubBullet #1
* Sputnik
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
# list
# Number #1
# Number #2
1. Sputnik
1. item 1
2. item 2
1. item 1.1
42. the value doesn't matter
1. any value works
Definition Lists
; term : definition
Term:<def>
def
<dl>
</dl>
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
Horizontal Rule
----
----
---
- - -
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
remove MediaWiki remove PhpWiki remove PBwiki remove Sputnik remove ikiwiki