PmWiki vs. Foswiki vs. ikiwiki

General Features PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Version
2.7.3
2.1.11
2.67
Last Release Date
2026-07-26 (1 day ago)
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2008-10-17 (17 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-07-26 (1 day ago)
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2008-10-28 (17 years ago)
Author
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Foswiki Community
Joey Hess and the ikiwiki community
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2+
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
Perl
Data Storage
Files
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
$0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
All
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Anyone
System Requirements PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Operating System
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Any, or none
Other Requirements
none
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Datastorage PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
Plugin
No
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
Plugin
No
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
RCS
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Other
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
caching of content into database using plugins
Security/Anti-Spam PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Built-in, HTTP auth, OpenID; extensible via plugins
Host Blocking
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
Yes
nofollow
Yes
Yes
No
Blacklist
Optional
Plugin
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Optional
Plugin
No
Development/Support PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
No
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
N/A
Common Features PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Optional
No
Yes
Interface Languages
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
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
1
English
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Yes
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Yes
No
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Links PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
CamelCase
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Plugin
Unknown
Syntax Features PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
HTML Tags
Plugin
All
Optional
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Optional
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Textile Support
No
Plugin
Plugin
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Quoting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Yes
Scripting
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
safe subset of HTML::Template supported via template plugin
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Usability PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Optional
Plugin
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
No
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
Statistics PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Optional
No
Plugin
Orphaned Pages
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
No
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
No
Output PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Optional
Yes
Plugin
ATOM Feeds
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
No
Auto-TOC
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Plugin
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
No
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
File Attachments
Optional
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Optional
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
Filenames only
Extras PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Chat
No
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples PmWiki Foswiki ikiwiki
Internal Link
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[internal]]
External Link
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[link text](http://example.org)
Headlines
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
Two syntaxes:

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

heading 1
=========

heading 2
---------
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold*
**bold**
__bold__
Italics Format
''italic''
_italic_
*emphasized*
_emphasized_
Underline Format
{+underlined+}
<u>underline</u>
via HTML: <u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
@@monospace@@
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`inline monospace`

indented block of
monospaced text

tab-indented
block
Strikethrough Format
{-strikethrough-}
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
via HTML: <del>deleted</del>
Superscript Format
'^superscript^'
<sup>superscript</sup>
via HTML: x<sup>2</sup>
Subscript Format
'_subscript_'
<sub>subscript</sub>
via HTML: a<sub>1</sub>
Images
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
![alt text](internal/image)
![alt text](http://example.org/external/image)
Aligning Text
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
Text Indentation
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* item 1
* item 2
* item 2.1
* item 2.2
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
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: Definition
via HTML:
<dl>
<dt>term</dt>
<dd>definition</dd>
</dl>
Horizontal Rule
----
---
---
***
___
------------------
Any number > 3
- - - - - - - - - -
spaces don't matter
remove PmWiki remove Foswiki remove ikiwiki