WikiWikiWiki vs. XWiki vs. PmWiki vs. Foswiki

General Features WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Version
1.4.0
18.3.0
2.5.9
2.1.11
Last Release Date
2026-03-31 (1 month ago)
2026-04-27 (7 days ago)
2026-04-05 (29 days ago)
2026-03-15 (1 month ago)
Last Update here
2026-03-31 (1 month ago)
2026-04-28 (6 days ago)
2026-04-05 (29 days ago)
2026-03-15 (1 month ago)
Author
Min Guhong
XWiki Development Team
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
Foswiki Community
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
MIT
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
GPL2+
GPL
Programming Language
PHP
Java
PHP
Perl
Data Storage
Files
Database, RCS
Files
Files, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
$0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Personal, small to medium communities
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
All
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Hosting Features WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
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
Yes
N/A
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
Yes
N/A
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
No
N/A
N/A
System Requirements WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Operating System
Any OS running PHP 8.2+
Any platform supporting Java 17 or greater
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Root Access
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, Nginx (optional)
Servlet 5.0+
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
Other Requirements
PHP 8.2+; required: json, mbstring, session, hash, pcre; optional: zip, intl
Java 17, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
none
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Datastorage WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Text Files
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
MySQL
No
Yes
Plugin
No
PostgreSQL
No
Yes
No
No
Oracle
No
Yes
No
No
SQLite
No
No
Plugin
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
No
RCS
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Other
Search/related indexes cached in JSON (auto-rebuild on stale/invalid)
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.
caching of content into database using plugins
Security/Anti-Spam WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Page Permissions
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Yes
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.
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
Host Blocking
No
No
Optional
Plugin
Mail Encryption
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
nofollow
No
No
Yes
Yes
Blacklist
No
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
CAPTCHA
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
No
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Development/Support WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
26 ⭐
N/A
N/A
118 ⭐
Common Features WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Preview
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Restricted by Number
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
No
Optional
No
Interface Languages
2
English, Korean
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
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
Email notification
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Comments
No
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Categories
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Detection
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
No
Yes
Yes
No
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Structured Data
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Links WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
CamelCase
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
SisterWiki
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Page Redirects
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Syntax Features WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
HTML Tags
Some
All
Plugin
All
Math formulas
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Markdown Support
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Textile Support
No
No
No
Plugin
BBCode Support
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
Emoticon Images
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
No
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Footnotes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Internal Comments
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Scripting
JavaScript
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)
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Usability WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Section Editing
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Page Templates
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
Toolbar
No
Yes
Optional
Plugin
WYSIWYG Editing
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
No
Yes
Yes
Statistics WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
Optional
Plugin
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
No
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Analysis
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Output WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
XML export
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
PDF Export
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Office Export
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Media and Files WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
File Attachments
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Media Revisions
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Embedded Flash
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Embedded Video
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Image Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
No
Contents
Filenames only
Contents
Extras WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Calendar
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Presentations
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Forums
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Ticket System
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
No
Plugin
No
No
Syntax Examples WikiWikiWiki XWiki PmWiki Foswiki
Internal Link
[[Title]]
[[Title|Alias]]
[[Parent/Child]]
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]]
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
External Link
<https://...>
[Text](https://wikiwikiwiki.wiki)
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
Headlines
# Headline 1
## Headline 2
### Headline 3
#### Headline 4
##### Headline 5
###### Headline 6
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
! Level 1
!!#anchor Level 2
!!! Level 3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
Bold Format
**Text**
**bold**
'''bold'''
*bold*
Italics Format
*Text*
//Italics//
''italic''
_italic_
Underline Format
__underline__
{+underlined+}
<u>underline</u>
Monospace Format
`code`
##monospace##
@@monospace@@
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
Strikethrough Format
~~Text~~
--Strike--
{-strikethrough-}
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
Superscript Format
^^superscript^^
'^superscript^'
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
,,subscript,,
'_subscript_'
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
![](https://wikiwikiwiki.wiki/cherry.jpg)
(image: https://wikiwikiwiki.wiki/cherry.jpg)
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
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
%IMAGE{"image.png"}%
Aligning Text
(% 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
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
Text Indentation
> Quote
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
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Bulleted Lists
- Watermelon
- Melon
- Peach
- Fig
- Cherry
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
Numbered Lists
1. Watermelon
2. Melon
3. Peach
4. Fig
5. Cherry
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
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
Definition Lists
Term
: Definition
; term
: definition
: term : definition
$ Term: Definition
Horizontal Rule
***
---
----
----
---
remove WikiWikiWiki remove XWiki remove PmWiki remove Foswiki