PmWiki vs. Foswiki vs. Pwic.wiki

General Features PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Version
2.5.8
2.1.10
1.2
Last Release Date
2026-03-09 (1 day ago)
2025-12-18 (2 months ago)
2024-06-24 (1 year ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-09 (1 day ago)
2025-12-18 (2 months ago)
2024-06-24 (1 year ago)
Author
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Foswiki Community
Team Pwic.wiki
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2+
GPL
GNU Affero General Public License version 3
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
Python
Data Storage
Files
Files, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
0
$0
Free
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
All
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Personal, IT consultancy, Software development, Small to medium companies
System Requirements PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Operating System
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Linux, Windows, MacOS
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
Stand-alone (Python aiohttp)
Other Requirements
none
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Datastorage PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
No
MySQL
Plugin
No
No
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
Plugin
No
Yes
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
Security/Anti-Spam PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
No
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
Salted password, OAuth2 (Google, Microsoft, Github), 2FA TOTP
Host Blocking
Optional
Plugin
Optional
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
No
nofollow
Yes
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
Optional
Plugin
Patch
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Optional
Plugin
No
Development/Support PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
No
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
18 ⭐
Common Features PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Optional
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
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
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
3
German, English, French
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Patch
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
No
Categories
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
No
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Detection
Concurrent Editing
Yes
No
No
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
No
Links PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
CamelCase
Optional
Yes
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
No
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
No
Page Redirects
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Syntax Features PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
HTML Tags
Plugin
All
Some
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
CREOLE support
Optional
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Syntax Highlighting
Optional
Plugin
Optional
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Optional
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
External API for automation and bots
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Patch
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
No
Usability PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Optional
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Optional
Statistics PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Optional
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
Patch
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Output PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
No
RSS Feeds
Optional
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Optional
Yes
Yes
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
No
Auto-TOC
Optional
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Optional
HTML Export
Plugin
Yes
Optional
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Media and Files PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
File Attachments
Optional
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Optional
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
No
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
No
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 Pwic.wiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
No
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
No
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
No
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
No
Chat
No
No
No
Syntax Examples PmWiki Foswiki Pwic.wiki
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]]
[Paragraph](#p_1_1)
[Page](/project/page)
[Attachment](/special/document/1)
External Link
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[Link](https://pwic.wiki/en)
<https://pwic.wiki/en>
Headlines
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
# Title 1
## Title 2
### Title 3
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold*
**bold**
Italics Format
''italic''
_italic_
*italics*
Underline Format
{+underlined+}
<u>underline</u>
--underline--
Monospace Format
@@monospace@@
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`keyword`

```python
print('Block of code')
```
Strikethrough Format
{-strikethrough-}
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
~~strikethrough~~
Superscript Format
'^superscript^'
<sup>superscript</sup>
x<sup>2</sup> (trick)
Subscript Format
'_subscript_'
<sub>subscript</sub>
x<sub>2</sub> (trick)
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"}%
![Caption](/special/document/1 "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>
> Block line 1
> Block line 2
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
1. Line 1
2. Line 2
Definition Lists
: term : definition
$ Term: Definition
Horizontal Rule
----
---
---
remove PmWiki remove Foswiki remove Pwic.wiki