PmWiki vs. Foswiki vs. Wiki.js

General Features PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Version
2.6.0
2.1.11
2.5.299
Last Release Date
2026-05-16 (29 days ago)
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
2023-06-03 (3 years ago)
Last Update here
2026-05-16 (29 days ago)
2026-03-15 (2 months ago)
2023-07-30 (2 years ago)
Author
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Foswiki Community
Nicolas Giard
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL2+
GPL
AGPL-v3
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
Javascript
Data Storage
Files
Files, RCS
Database, Files, other, 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
Everyone
System Requirements PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Operating System
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
All
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
All
Other Requirements
none
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Node.js
Datastorage PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Yes
MySQL
Plugin
No
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
No
Yes
Oracle
No
No
No
SQLite
Plugin
No
Yes
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
RCS
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Other
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
caching of content into database using plugins
Compatible with MySQL, MariaDB, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL or SQLite
Security/Anti-Spam PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
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
Local (built-in), Google, Facebook, Microsoft, GitHub, Azure AD, LDAP, OpenConnectID, Slack, Discord, Auth0, Keycloak, Okta, etc.
Host Blocking
Optional
Plugin
No
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
Yes
nofollow
Yes
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
Optional
Plugin
No
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Optional
Plugin
Optional
Development/Support PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
118 ⭐
28444 ⭐
Common Features PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
No
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 Wiki.js
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
54
Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Bengali; Bangla, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Armenian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Cambodian, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Macedonian, Mongolian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Uighur, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
Email notification
Optional
Yes
No
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Flat
Categories
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Detection
Concurrent Editing
Yes
No
No
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
No
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
No
Links PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
CamelCase
Optional
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
No
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
No
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Plugin
No
Syntax Features PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
HTML Tags
Plugin
All
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Optional
Plugin
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
Emoticon Images
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
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
JS, CSS
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Plugin
No
Usability PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Optional
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Optional
Statistics PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Optional
No
No
Orphaned Pages
Optional
Plugin
No
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
No
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Output PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Optional
Yes
No
ATOM Feeds
Optional
Yes
No
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Auto-TOC
Optional
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Plugin
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
No
Media and Files PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
File Attachments
Optional
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Optional
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
No
Extras PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
No
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
No
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
No
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
No
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
No
Chat
No
No
No
Syntax Examples PmWiki Foswiki Wiki.js
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]]
[Link Title](/link/to/page)
External Link
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[Link Title](https://wiki.js.org)
Headlines
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
# Header 1
## Header 2
### Header 3
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold*
**Bold Text**
Italics Format
''italic''
_italic_
*Italic Text*
Underline Format
{+underlined+}
<u>underline</u>
<u>Underline Text</u>
Monospace Format
@@monospace@@
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
`Monospace Code`
Strikethrough Format
{-strikethrough-}
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
~~Strikethrough Text~~
Superscript Format
'^superscript^'
<sup>superscript</sup>
^Superscript Text^
Subscript Format
'_subscript_'
<sub>subscript</sub>
~Subscript Text~
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"}%
![Image Title](/path/to/image.png)
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 3
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
3. Item 3
Definition Lists
: term : definition
$ Term: Definition
Horizontal Rule
----
---
---
remove PmWiki remove Foswiki remove Wiki.js