TWiki vs. PmWiki vs. Confluence vs. XWiki

General Features TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Version
TWiki-6.1.0
2.6.0
5.2
18.4.0
Last Release Date
2018-07-16 (7 years ago)
2026-05-16 (25 days ago)
2013-08-13 (12 years ago)
2026-05-27 (14 days ago)
Last Update here
2019-07-19 (6 years ago)
2026-05-16 (25 days ago)
2013-08-22 (12 years ago)
2026-05-27 (14 days ago)
Author
Peter Thoeny, TWiki community
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Atlassian
XWiki Development Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
License
GPL
GPL2+
Commercial + Free personal/open source project/community use
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Programming Language
Perl, JavaScript
PHP
Java
Java
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files
Database
Database, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
N/A
0
starting at US $10 installed (unlimited wikis)
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Large enterprise; small to medium businesses
All
Enterprise + Technical Teams
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
Hosting Features TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
Unlimited
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
No
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
No
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Optional
Yes
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
No
No
System Requirements TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OS-X and other
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Windows, Linux and Unix variants
Any platform supporting Java 17 or greater
Root Access
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Almost any webserver, typically Apache and Ngnix
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run with PHP's built-in webserver.
Apache Tomcat
Servlet 5.0+
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
none
Oracle JDK 1.6.0_4+
Java 17, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Datastorage TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
No
No
MySQL
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
No
Yes
Yes
Oracle
No
No
Yes
Yes
SQLite
No
Plugin
No
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
No
RCS
Yes
Plugin
No
Plugin
Other
RcsLite Perl library for version control without external RCS; backend API for other storage
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
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
Security/Anti-Spam TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
LDAP, NTLM, Siteminder, CAS and more
XWiki, OpenID Connect, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Host Blocking
Plugin
Optional
No
No
Mail Encryption
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
nofollow
Plugin
Yes
Optional
No
Blacklist
Plugin
Optional
No
Plugin
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Delayed Indexing
Plugin
Optional
No
Yes
Development/Support TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
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 TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Optional
No
No
Interface Languages
19
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, 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
15
Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, 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
Email notification
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Comments
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Threaded
Threaded
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Links TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
SisterWiki
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Redirects
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Features TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
HTML Tags
All
Plugin
Optional
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
Optional
No
Yes
Markdown Support
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Textile Support
Plugin
No
Yes
No
BBCode Support
No
Plugin
No
No
Emoticon Images
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Footnotes
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Scripting
TWiki Markup Language, TWiki variables, JavaScript, extensive API
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
Macros, plugins, widgets, JavaScript and more
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Usability TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Section Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
Toolbar
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
No
Statistics TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
No
Optional
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Optional
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Analysis
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Output TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional
Abbreviations
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
XML export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Media and Files TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
Filenames only
Contents
Contents
Extras TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
No
Unknown
Plugin
Syntax Examples TWiki PmWiki Confluence XWiki
Internal Link
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
[Page Title]
[Link Title|Page Title#anchor]
[~username]
[^attachment.doc]
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)
External Link
http://twiki.org/ autolink
[[http://twiki.org/][label]]
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
[http://www.example.com]
[Link Title|http://www.example.com]
[Shortcut Link|PageName@otherwiki]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
Headlines
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
h1. Top Level Heading
h2. Smaller Heading
h6. Smallest Heading
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
Bold Format
*bold*
'''bold'''
*bold*
**bold**
Italics Format
_italic_
''italic''
_italics_
//Italics//
Underline Format
<u>underline</u>
{+underlined+}
+underline+
__underline__
Monospace Format
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
@@monospace@@
{{monospace}}
##monospace##
Strikethrough Format
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
{-strikethrough-}
-strikethrough-
--Strike--
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
'^superscript^'
^superscript^
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
'_subscript_'
~subscript~
,,subscript,,
Images
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
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
Aligning Text
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
Text Indentation
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
* one
** one-two
* two
* three
* List
** list
*** list
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
# one
## one-two
# two
# three
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
Definition Lists
$ Term: Definition
: term : definition
; term
: definition
Horizontal Rule
---
----
----
----
remove TWiki remove PmWiki remove Confluence remove XWiki