CanvasWiki vs. DokuWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. TWiki vs. XWiki

General Features CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Version
1.2.101
2020-07-29 "Hogfather"
phpwiki-1.3.14
TWiki-6.1.0
16.3.0
Last Release Date
2006-06-14 (17 years ago)
2020-07-19 (3 years ago)
2007-06-30 (16 years ago)
2018-07-15 (5 years ago)
2024-04-29 (3 days ago)
Last Update here
2008-09-01 (15 years ago)
2021-08-09 (2 years ago)
2009-04-03 (15 years ago)
2019-07-19 (4 years ago)
2024-04-30 (2 days ago)
Author
Raymond Camden
Andreas Gohr
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Peter Thoeny, TWiki community
XWiki Development Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
Apache
GPL 2
GPL
GPL
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Programming Language
ColdFusion
PHP
PHP
Perl, JavaScript
Java
Data Storage
Database
Files
Database, Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Database, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
N/A
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Mildly technical
personal, small to medium companies
Any
Large enterprise; small to medium businesses
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
Hosting Features CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
No
System Requirements CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Operating System
Windows, Linux, Solaris
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and other
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, IIS
Apache, IIS, Nginx, Lighttpd, anything with PHP support
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Almost any webserver, typically Apache and Ngnix
Servlet 3.1+
Other Requirements
ColdFusion MX
various opt. helpers
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Datastorage CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Text Files
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
MySQL
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
PostgreSQL
Unknown
No
Yes
No
Yes
Oracle
Unknown
No
Yes
No
Yes
SQLite
Unknown
No
Yes
No
No
BerkeleyDB
Unknown
No
Yes
No
No
RCS
Unknown
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Other
Access, SQL Server
None
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
RcsLite Perl library for version control without external RCS; backend API for other storage
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 CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Page Permissions
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Textfile, LDAP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, ActiveDirectory
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
XWiki, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Host Blocking
Unknown
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
Mail Encryption
Unknown
Optional
No
Yes
Yes
nofollow
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Plugin
No
Blacklist
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
CAPTCHA
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Delayed Indexing
Unknown
Optional
No
Plugin
Yes
Development/Support CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
3582 ⭐
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Preview
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
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
Yes
Plugin System
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Unicode Support
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Unknown
Yes
No
No
No
Interface Languages
0
68
Afrikaans, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Bengali; Bangla, Catalan, Czech, Welsh, Danish, German, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, Faroese, French, Frisian, Galician, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Georgian, Kazakh, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Malagasy, Macedonian, Malayalam, Marathi, Malay, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Albanian, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
19
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, 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
Email notification
Unknown
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Comments
Plugin
Plugin
Threaded
Threaded
Categories
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Unknown
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
No
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Yes
Structured Data
Unknown
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Links CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Freelinks
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Unknown
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Image Links
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Page Redirects
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Syntax Features CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
HTML Tags
Optional
Some
All
All
Math formulas
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Tables
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Unknown
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Markdown Support
Unknown
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Textile Support
Unknown
Plugin
No
Plugin
No
BBCode Support
Unknown
Plugin
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Unknown
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Quoting
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Unknown
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Scripting
Optional, PHP
plugins, templates, PHP
TWiki Markup Language, TWiki variables, JavaScript, extensive API
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Content Includes
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Usability CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Section Editing
Unknown
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Page Templates
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Unknown
Plugin
Optional
Plugin
No
Toolbar
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Unknown
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Access Keys
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Statistics CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Recent Changes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Unknown
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
Unknown
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Analysis
Unknown
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Output CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Unknown
Yes
No
Plugin
Yes
Themes & Skins
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Unknown
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Abbreviations
Unknown
Yes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Unknown
No
No
Plugin
Yes
PDF Export
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Media and Files CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
File Attachments
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
Unknown
No
No
Plugin
Plugin
SVG Editing
Unknown
Plugin
No
Plugin
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Unknown
Plugin
No
Plugin
Plugin
Media Search
Filenames only
No
Contents
Contents
Extras CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Calendar
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Image Galleries
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Unknown
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Ticket System
Unknown
Plugin
No
Plugin
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
No
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Syntax Examples CanvasWiki DokuWiki PhpWiki TWiki XWiki
Internal Link
[[a Link]]
[[namespace:link]]
[[link|With a Title]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
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)
External Link
[[http://example.com]]
[[http://example.com|With a Title]]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
http://twiki.org/ autolink
[[http://twiki.org/][label]]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
Headlines
====== Level 1 ======
===== Level 2 =====
==== Level 3 ====
=== Level 4 ===
== Level 5 ==
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
Bold Format
**bold**
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
*bold*
**bold**
Italics Format
//italics//
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
_italic_
//Italics//
Underline Format
__underlined__
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
Monospace Format
''monospace''
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
##monospace##
Strikethrough Format
<del>strikethrough</del>
<strike>striked through</strike>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
--Strike--
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
Images
{{local.jpg}}
{{http://foo.bar/baz.jpg}}
[ http://foo.org/1.jpg size=30%] 
external image
[Upload:view.jpg align=right size=50x40] 
view uploaded image
[Upload:view.jpg | http://server/external-linkjpg ] 
view and link to another image
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/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
Aligning Text
Plugin
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
Text Indentation
N/A
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
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
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
Numbered Lists
- item 1
- item 1.1
- item 2
# list
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
Definition Lists
Plugin
Term:<def>
def
$ Term: Definition
; term
: definition
Horizontal Rule
----
----
---
----
remove CanvasWiki remove DokuWiki remove PhpWiki remove TWiki remove XWiki