PmWiki vs. Foswiki vs. PukiWiki

General Features PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Version
2.7.3
2.1.11
1.5.1
Last Release Date
2026-07-26 (1 day ago)
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2016-03-07 (10 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-07-26 (1 day ago)
2026-03-15 (4 months ago)
2016-03-23 (10 years ago)
Author
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Foswiki Community
PukiWiki Development Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2+
GPL
GPL version 2 or (at your option) any later version
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
PHP
Data Storage
Files
Files, RCS
Files
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
One theme, one PukiWiki
System Requirements PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Operating System
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
OS independent
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
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Other Requirements
none
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
tar with "-p" option, or unzip for install. "mbstring" PHP extension for multi-bite support. backup feature wants 'zip' PHP extension.
Datastorage PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
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
No
Other
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
caching of content into database using plugins
zip-compressed text files for backup (with "zip" PHP extension)
Security/Anti-Spam PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
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
LDIF strings compatible with OpenLDAP, LDAP
Host Blocking
Optional
Plugin
Patch
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
No
nofollow
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Optional
Plugin
Patch
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Optional
Plugin
No
Development/Support PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#pukiwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
N/A
Common Features PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
No
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Restricted by Number
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
To current
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Optional
No
No
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
5
German, English, Japanese, Korean, Twi
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Yes
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Categories
Yes
Plugin
No
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
No
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Detection
Concurrent Editing
Yes
No
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
No
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
No
Links PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
CamelCase
Optional
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Page Redirects
Yes
Plugin
No
Syntax Features PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
HTML Tags
Plugin
All
Plugin
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
complex
CREOLE support
Optional
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
No
Scripting
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
plugins(PHP), skins(PHP), CSSes(PHP,CSS)
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Usability PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Optional
Plugin
Patch
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
Statistics PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Optional
No
Plugin
Orphaned Pages
Optional
Plugin
No
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Plugin
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
No
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
No
Output PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Optional
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
Plugin
HTML Export
Plugin
Yes
No
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
No
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Media and Files PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
File Attachments
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Media Revisions
Optional
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
No
Extras PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
No
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Chat
No
No
Unknown
Syntax Examples PmWiki Foswiki PukiWiki
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]]
PageNameAsWikiName
[[PageName]]
[[link text>PageName]]
External Link
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
http://....
[[link text>http://....]]
[[interwiki:keyphrase]]
[[link text>interwiki:keyphrase]]
Headlines
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
* Level 1
** Level 2
*** Level 3
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold*
''bold''
Italics Format
''italic''
_italic_
'''italic'''
Underline Format
{+underlined+}
<u>underline</u>
%%%underlined%%%
Monospace Format
@@monospace@@
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
N/A
Strikethrough Format
{-strikethrough-}
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
%%strikethrough%%
Superscript Format
'^superscript^'
<sup>superscript</sup>
N/A
Subscript Format
'_subscript_'
<sub>subscript</sub>
N/A
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"}%
#ref(pagename/filename[,option])
&ref(pagename/filename[,option]);
&ref(http://foo.bar/foo.jpg[,option]);
http://foo.bar/foo.jpg
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
CENTER:center
RIGHT:right
LEFT:left
Text Indentation
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
N/A
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 1.1
- Item 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
+ Item 1
++ Item 1.1
+ Item 2
Definition Lists
: term : definition
$ Term: Definition
:term|definition
Horizontal Rule
----
---
--------------------
remove PmWiki remove Foswiki remove PukiWiki