Pwic.wiki vs. Foswiki vs. XWiki vs. PmWiki

General Features Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Version
1.2
2.1.11
18.2.1
2.5.9
Last Release Date
2024-06-24 (1 year ago)
2026-03-15 (1 month ago)
2026-04-09 (19 days ago)
2026-04-05 (23 days ago)
Last Update here
2024-06-24 (1 year ago)
2026-03-15 (1 month ago)
2026-04-09 (19 days ago)
2026-04-05 (23 days ago)
Author
Team Pwic.wiki
Foswiki Community
XWiki Development Team
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GNU Affero General Public License version 3
GPL
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
GPL2+
Programming Language
Python
Perl
Java
PHP
Data Storage
Database
Files, RCS
Database, RCS
Files
License Cost/ Fee
Free
$0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Personal, IT consultancy, Software development, Small to medium companies
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
All
Hosting Features Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
No
N/A
System Requirements Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, MacOS
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any platform supporting Java 17 or greater
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Root Access
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Stand-alone (Python aiohttp)
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Servlet 5.0+
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Java 17, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
none
Datastorage Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Text Files
No
Yes
No
Yes
MySQL
No
No
Yes
Plugin
PostgreSQL
No
No
Yes
No
Oracle
No
No
Yes
No
SQLite
Yes
No
No
Plugin
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
No
RCS
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Other
caching of content into database using plugins
JDBC Databases and in general any database supported by Hibernate; any custom implementation, as the storage is pluggable. Attachments can be saved on the filesystem
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
Security/Anti-Spam Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Salted password, OAuth2 (Google, Microsoft, Github), 2FA TOTP
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
XWiki, OpenID Connect, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
Host Blocking
Optional
Plugin
No
Optional
Mail Encryption
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
nofollow
Optional
Yes
No
Yes
Blacklist
Patch
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
CAPTCHA
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Development/Support Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
18 ⭐
118 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
No
Optional
Interface Languages
3
German, English, French
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
40
Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Persian, French, Galician, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Marathi, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, Uighur, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
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
Email notification
Patch
Yes
Yes
Optional
Comments
No
Plugin
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Categories
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Detection
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
No
No
Yes
Yes
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Links Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
CamelCase
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Page Redirects
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
HTML Tags
Some
All
All
Plugin
Math formulas
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Tables
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Markdown Support
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
No
BBCode Support
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Emoticon Images
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Footnotes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Scripting
External API for automation and bots
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
Content Includes
Patch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Usability Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Section Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Plugin
No
Plugin
Toolbar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
WYSIWYG Editing
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Optional
Yes
No
Yes
Statistics Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Patch
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Analysis
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Output Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Yes
Optional
Optional
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Optional
Optional
Raw Export
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
XML export
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Media and Files Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Media Revisions
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Embedded Flash
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Embedded Video
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
Contents
Filenames only
Extras Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Calendar
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Presentations
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Forums
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Ticket System
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
No
No
Plugin
No
Syntax Examples Pwic.wiki Foswiki XWiki PmWiki
Internal Link
[Paragraph](#p_1_1)
[Page](/project/page)
[Attachment](/special/document/1)
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
XWiki supports 16+ input syntaxes (e.g. confluence, twiki, docbook, mediawiki, xwiki, markdown, etc), see http://rendering.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome#HSupportedSyntaxes for details.

The syntax documented below is XWiki Syntax 2.1 (http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/XWikiSyntax).

[[wiki syntax here>>Space.Page]]
[[Space.Page]]
(Space is optional and is the current space if not specified)
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
External Link
[Link](https://pwic.wiki/en)
<https://pwic.wiki/en>
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
Headlines
# Title 1
## Title 2
### Title 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
Bold Format
**bold**
*bold*
**bold**
'''bold'''
Italics Format
*italics*
_italic_
//Italics//
''italic''
Underline Format
--underline--
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
{+underlined+}
Monospace Format
`keyword`

```python
print('Block of code')
```
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
##monospace##
@@monospace@@
Strikethrough Format
~~strikethrough~~
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
--Strike--
{-strikethrough-}
Superscript Format
x<sup>2</sup> (trick)
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
'^superscript^'
Subscript Format
x<sub>2</sub> (trick)
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
'_subscript_'
Images
![Caption](/special/document/1 "Image").
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
image:img.png
image:Space.Page@img.png
[[image:img.png||width="25" height="25"]]
image:http://some/url/img.png

Starting with the xwiki/2.1 syntax, also:
image:icon:cancel
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
Text Indentation
> Block line 1
> Block line 2
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

(% style="... css here..." %)multi line text

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
Bulleted Lists
- Item 1
- Item 1.1
- Item 2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
Numbered Lists
1. Line 1
2. Line 2
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
; term
: definition
: term : definition
Horizontal Rule
---
---
----
----
remove Pwic.wiki remove Foswiki remove XWiki remove PmWiki