CanvasWiki vs. Instiki vs. XWiki

General Features CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Version
1.2.101
0.30.0
16.3.1
Last Release Date
2006-06-14 (17 years ago)
2019-02-28 (5 years ago)
2024-05-09 (5 days ago)
Last Update here
2008-09-01 (15 years ago)
2019-03-04 (5 years ago)
2024-05-13 (1 day ago)
Author
Raymond Camden
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
XWiki Development Team
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
Apache
Ruby's
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Programming Language
ColdFusion
Ruby on Rails
Java
Data Storage
Database
Database
Database, RCS
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Mildly technical
general, education
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
Hosting Features CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Yes
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
No
System Requirements CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Operating System
Windows, Linux, Solaris
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
Root Access
No
No
No
Webserver
Apache, IIS
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
Servlet 3.1+
Other Requirements
ColdFusion MX
Ruby 2.0-2.6
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Datastorage CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Text Files
Unknown
No
No
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Oracle
Unknown
Plugin
Yes
SQLite
Unknown
Yes
No
BerkeleyDB
Unknown
No
No
RCS
Unknown
No
Plugin
Other
Access, SQL Server
Any Rails-compatible back-end datastore can be used.
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 Instiki XWiki
Page Permissions
No
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
No
Yes
Authentication Backends
XWiki, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Host Blocking
Unknown
Yes
No
Mail Encryption
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
nofollow
Unknown
Unknown
No
Blacklist
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
CAPTCHA
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Delayed Indexing
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Development/Support CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
478 ⭐
N/A
Common Features CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Preview
Unknown
No
Yes
Minor Changes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
No
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
No
No
Yes
Special Features CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Unicode Support
No
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Unknown
Yes
No
Interface Languages
0
1
English
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
No
Yes
Comments
No
Threaded
Categories
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Unknown
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Unknown
No
Yes
Links CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Optional
Yes
Freelinks
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Unknown
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Unknown
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Unknown
No
Yes
Image Links
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Unknown
No
Yes
Page Redirects
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
HTML Tags
All
All
Math formulas
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Unknown
No
Yes
Markdown Support
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Textile Support
Unknown
Yes
No
BBCode Support
Unknown
No
No
Emoticon Images
Unknown
No
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Footnotes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Unknown
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Unknown
No
Plugin
Scripting
None
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Content Includes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Unknown
No
Yes
Usability CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Section Editing
Unknown
No
Yes
Page Templates
No
No
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Unknown
No
No
Toolbar
Unknown
No
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Unknown
No
Yes
Access Keys
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Unknown
Yes
No
Statistics CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Recent Changes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Unknown
No
Yes
Recent Visitors
Unknown
No
Yes
Analysis
Unknown
No
Yes
Output CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Unknown
No
Yes
RSS Feeds
Unknown
No
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Abbreviations
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Unknown
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Unknown
Yes
Yes
XML export
Unknown
No
Yes
PDF Export
Unknown
No
Yes
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Media and Files CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
File Attachments
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Unknown
No
Yes
Embedded Flash
Unknown
No
Yes
Embedded Video
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
Unknown
No
Plugin
SVG Editing
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Unknown
No
Plugin
Media Search
No
Contents
Extras CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Calendar
Unknown
No
Plugin
Image Galleries
Unknown
No
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Unknown
No
Plugin
Blogs
Unknown
No
Plugin
Ticket System
Unknown
No
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Syntax Examples CanvasWiki Instiki XWiki
Internal Link
[[Some Page]]
[[Some Page|anchor text]]
[[Some Page#anchor]]
[[Some Page#anchor|anchor text]]
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
[another site](http://example.com)
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
Headlines
#Level 1#
##Level 2##
###Level 3###
####Level 4####
#####Level 5#####
######Level 6######
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
Bold Format
**bold**
**bold**
Italics Format
_italic_, *italic*
//Italics//
Underline Format
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
__underline__
Monospace Format
`monospace`
##monospace##
Strikethrough Format
<del>strikethrough</del>
strikethrough
{: style='text-decoration:line-through'}
--Strike--
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
Images
![alt text](http://ex.com/image.jpg),
[[image.jpg|alt text:pic]]
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
p{: style='text-align:left'}
p{: style='text-align:right'}
p{: style='text-align:center'}
p{: style='text-align:justify'}
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
Text Indentation
p
{: style='margin-left:3em'}

> 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
** list
*** list
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
Definition Lists
term
: definition
; term
: definition
Horizontal Rule
***
----
remove CanvasWiki remove Instiki remove XWiki