DokuWiki vs. Foswiki vs. XWiki vs. MediaWiki vs. PBwiki

General Features DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Version
2020-07-29 "Hogfather"
2.1.8
16.2.0
1.32.2
N/A
Last Release Date
2020-07-19 (3 years ago)
2023-08-05 (8 months ago)
2024-03-24 (27 days ago)
2019-06-05 (4 years ago)
N/A
Last Update here
2021-08-09 (2 years ago)
2023-10-16 (6 months ago)
2024-03-25 (26 days ago)
2019-06-21 (4 years ago)
2010-08-16 (13 years ago)
Author
Andreas Gohr
Foswiki Community
XWiki Development Team
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
PBworks
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
License
GPL 2
GPL
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
GPL
N/A
Programming Language
PHP
Perl
Java
PHP
N/A
Data Storage
Files
Files, RCS
Database, RCS
Database
N/A
License Cost/ Fee
0
$0
0
0
Determined by Solution Needs
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
N/A
Intended Audience
personal, small to medium companies
Enterprise, Corporate, Business, Intranets, Personal use, Community building, Educational, Intranet, Extranet
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
End Users/Desktop, Education
Business Enterprises
Hosting Features DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Storage Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
No limit
Bandwidth Quota
N/A
N/A
N/A
No limit
Other Limits
N/A
N/A
N/A
None
Topic Restrictions
N/A
N/A
N/A
None
Corporate Branding
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
Yes
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
Yes
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
No
N/A
Yes
System Requirements DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Operating System
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, Windows, OS-X and others
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
N/A
Root Access
No
No
No
No
N/A
Webserver
Apache, IIS, Nginx, Lighttpd, anything with PHP support
Apache, Lighttpd, Nginx, or any other supporting (F)CGI
Servlet 3.1+
Any with PHP support
N/A
Other Requirements
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
none
N/A
Datastorage DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
No
No
N/A
MySQL
No
No
Yes
Yes
N/A
PostgreSQL
No
No
Yes
Yes
N/A
Oracle
No
No
Yes
Yes
N/A
SQLite
No
No
No
Yes
N/A
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
No
N/A
RCS
No
Yes
Plugin
No
N/A
Other
None
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
No
N/A
Security/Anti-Spam DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Authentication Backends
Textfile, LDAP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, ActiveDirectory
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
Yes
N/A
Host Blocking
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Optional
Mail Encryption
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
nofollow
Optional
Yes
No
Optional
No
Blacklist
Optional
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Optional
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Delayed Indexing
Optional
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Development/Support DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
Code Repository
N/A
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
3582 ⭐
97 ⭐
N/A
N/A
N/A
Common Features DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page History
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Page Revisions
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Revision Diffs
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Between all
Sitemap
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin System
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Special Features DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Interface Languages
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
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
140
Afar, Abkhazian, Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Bihari, Bislama, Bengali; Bangla, Tibetan, Breton, Catalan, Corsican, Czech, Welsh, Danish, German, Bhutani, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Persian, Finnish, Fiji, Faroese, French, Frisian, Irish, Scots Gaelic, Galician, Guarani, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Armenian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Interlingue, Inupiak, Icelandic, Italian, Inuktitut, Japanese, Georgian, Kazakh, Greenlandic, Cambodian, Kannada, Korean, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Kirghiz, Latin, Lingala, Laothian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Malagasy, Maori, Macedonian, Malayalam, Mongolian, Moldavian, Marathi, Malay, Maltese, Burmese, Nauru, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian, Occitan, Oromo, Oriya, Punjabi, Polish, Pashto, Pushto, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Quechua, Rhaeto-Romance, Kirundi, Romanian, Russian, Kinyarwanda, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Sangho, Serbo-Croatian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Samoan, Shona, Somali, Albanian, Serbian, Siswati, Sesotho, Sundanese, Swedish, Swahili, Tamil, Telugu, Tajik, Thai, Tigrinya, Turkmen, Tagalog, Setswana, Tonga, Turkish, Tsonga, Tatar, Twi, Uighur, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Volapuk, Wolof, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zhuang, Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Zulu
1
English
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Comments
Plugin
Plugin
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Threaded
Categories
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Conflict Handling
Page Locking
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
No
No
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
N/A
Structured Data
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Links DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
CamelCase
Optional
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Optional
Page Redirects
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Syntax Features DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
HTML Tags
Optional
All
All
Some
All
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Tables
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Markdown Support
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Textile Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
No
BBCode Support
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoting
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Internal Comments
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Scripting
Optional, PHP
JavaScript; Topic Markup Language
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Optional
Javascript
Content Includes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Usability DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Section Editing
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Plugin
Plugin
No
Optional
No
Toolbar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Statistics DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
Optional
Orphaned Pages
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Analysis
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Optional
Output DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Abbreviations
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
PDF Export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Office Export
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Embedded Video
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Image Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
SVG Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Media Search
Filenames only
Contents
Contents
Keywords
Contents
Extras DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Image Galleries
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Optional
Ticket System
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Chat
No
No
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples DokuWiki Foswiki XWiki MediaWiki PBwiki
Internal Link
[[a Link]]
[[namespace:link]]
[[link|With a Title]]
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)
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
CamelCaseLink or [Free Link]
External Link
[[http://example.com]]
[[http://example.com|With a Title]]
External Link
http://foswiki.org/ autolink
[[http://foswiki.org/][label]]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
[http://example.org The title]
[http://www.externallink.com]
Headlines
====== Level 1 ======
===== Level 2 =====
==== Level 3 ====
=== Level 4 ===
== Level 5 ==
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!!!! Level 6
Bold Format
**bold**
*bold*
**bold**
'''bold'''
**bold**
Italics Format
//italics//
_italic_
//Italics//
''italic''
''italics''
Underline Format
__underlined__
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
<u>underlined</u>
__underline__
Monospace Format
''monospace''
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
##monospace##
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>monospace</code>
Strikethrough Format
<del>strikethrough</del>
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
--Strike--
<s>strikethrough</s>
-strikethrough-
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
,,subscript,,
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
{{local.jpg}}
{{http://foo.bar/baz.jpg}}
%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
[[Image:wiki.png]]
[http://www.imagelocation.com/image.jpg
Aligning Text
Plugin
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
<center>Centered</center>
<left>, <center>, <right>
Text Indentation
N/A
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
: indented line
Indented block
Bulleted Lists
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
* Bullet #1
* Bullet #2
** SubBullet #1
Numbered Lists
- item 1
- item 1.1
- item 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 1.2
# Item 2
# Number #1
# Number #2
Definition Lists
Plugin
$ Term: Definition
; term
: definition
; term : definition
<dl>
</dl>
Horizontal Rule
----
---
----
----
---
remove DokuWiki remove Foswiki remove XWiki remove MediaWiki remove PBwiki