PhpWiki vs. Foswiki vs. Zim

General Features PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Version
phpwiki-1.3.14
2.1.11
0.56
Last Release Date
2007-07-01 (19 years ago)
2026-03-15 (7 months ago)
2012-04-02 (14 years ago)
Last Update here
2009-04-03 (17 years ago)
2026-03-15 (7 months ago)
2012-07-16 (14 years ago)
Author
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Foswiki Community
Jaap Karssenberg
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
Python
Data Storage
Database, Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
$0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Any
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Private users, small teams
System Requirements PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Operating System
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Linux, Windows, OSX
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
None
Other Requirements
various opt. helpers
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Desktop environment with Gtk toolkit
Datastorage PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
Yes
No
No
PostgreSQL
Yes
No
No
Oracle
Yes
No
No
SQLite
Yes
No
No
BerkeleyDB
Yes
No
No
RCS
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
caching of content into database using plugins
Text Files with index in SQLite
Security/Anti-Spam PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
No
ACL
Yes
Yes
No
Authentication Backends
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
File permissions
Host Blocking
No
Plugin
No
Mail Encryption
No
Yes
No
nofollow
Yes
Yes
No
Blacklist
Yes
Plugin
No
CAPTCHA
Yes
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
No
Development/Support PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
No
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
N/A
Common Features PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Preview
Yes
Yes
No
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
No
Page History
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
No
Yes
Interface Languages
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
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
27
Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Estonian, French, Galician, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
Email notification
Yes
Yes
No
Comments
Plugin
Plugin
No
Categories
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Namespaces
No
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
No
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Structured Data
Patch
Yes
No
Links PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
CamelCase
Yes
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Plugin
No
Syntax Features PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
HTML Tags
Some
All
None
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
none
CREOLE support
No
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
No
Plugin
No
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
No
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
No
Plugin
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
No
Footnotes
Yes
Plugin
No
Quoting
Yes
Yes
No
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
No
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
No
FAQ Tags
No
Yes
No
Scripting
plugins, templates, PHP
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
None
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
No
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Plugin
No
Usability PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Section Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Toolbar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
Statistics PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Wanted Pages
Yes
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Plugin
No
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Yes
Plugin
No
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
No
Output PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
No
Yes
No
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Optional
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
No
ATOM Feeds
No
Yes
No
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
No
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
No
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Yes
Plugin
No
Office Export
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Yes
Plugin
No
Embedded Video
Yes
Plugin
No
Image Editing
No
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
No
Media Search
No
Contents
No
Extras PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Calendar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Image Galleries
Yes
Plugin
No
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Yes
Plugin
No
Blogs
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Ticket System
No
Plugin
No
Chat
Unknown
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples PhpWiki Foswiki Zim
Internal Link
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
CamelCase [[foobar:subpage]] +subpage 
External Link
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
wp?Wiki_Engine http://wikimatrix.org 
ftp://somehost/share
\\host\share\..
Headlines
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
=== Heading ===
Bold Format
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
*bold*
**bold**
Italics Format
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
_italic_
//italic//
Underline Format
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
Monospace Format
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
``monospace``
Strikethrough Format
<strike>striked through</strike>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
~~strike~~
Superscript Format
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
^{sup}
Subscript Format
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
_{sub}
Images
[ 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
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
{{./image.png}}
Aligning Text
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
not implemented
Text Indentation
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
indent with tabs
Bulleted Lists
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List item
* sub items
* with indent
Numbered Lists
# list
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
1. List item
a. with sub items
b. ...
Definition Lists
Term:<def>
def
$ Term: Definition
not implemented
Horizontal Rule
----
---
not implemented
remove PhpWiki remove Foswiki remove Zim