MediaWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. JSPWiki vs. XWiki vs. Instiki

General Features MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Version
1.32.2
phpwiki-1.3.14
2.11.0
16.3.0
0.30.0
Last Release Date
2019-06-05 (4 years ago)
2007-06-30 (16 years ago)
2021-11-21 (2 years ago)
2024-04-29 (7 days ago)
2019-02-28 (5 years ago)
Last Update here
2019-06-21 (4 years ago)
2009-04-03 (15 years ago)
2021-12-01 (2 years ago)
2024-04-30 (6 days ago)
2019-03-04 (5 years ago)
Author
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Apache Software Foundation
XWiki Development Team
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
Apache License 2.0
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Ruby's
Programming Language
PHP
PHP
Java
Java
Ruby on Rails
Data Storage
Database
Database, Files, RCS
Database, Files
Database, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
End Users/Desktop, Education
Any
all
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
general, education
Hosting Features MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
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
Yes
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
N/A
N/A
Yes
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
N/A
N/A
No
N/A
System Requirements MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Operating System
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
any platform supporting JDK 1.8+
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Any with PHP support
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Any servlet 3.1 compliant web server, e.g. Tomcat 8.5+, Jetty, Glassfish, Websphere
Servlet 3.1+
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
Other Requirements
none
various opt. helpers
optional JavaMail for mailing functionality
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Ruby 2.0-2.6
Datastorage MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Text Files
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Oracle
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Plugin
SQLite
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
BerkeleyDB
No
Yes
Optional
No
No
RCS
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Other
No
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
JDBC driver must be provided manually; also Page provider architecture -> several implementations
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
Any Rails-compatible back-end datastore can be used.
Security/Anti-Spam MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Authentication Backends
Yes
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
JAAS -> interface to many external backends possible
XWiki, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Host Blocking
Yes
No
Optional
No
Yes
Mail Encryption
Plugin
No
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
nofollow
Optional
Yes
Optional
No
Unknown
Blacklist
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Delayed Indexing
No
No
Yes
Yes
Unknown
Development/Support MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Freenode: #jspwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
88 ⭐
N/A
478 ⭐
Common Features MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
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
No
Special Features MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Interface Languages
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
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
10
Breton, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Chinese
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
1
English
Email notification
Optional
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Comments
Discussion Pages
Plugin
Flat
Threaded
No
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Patch
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
No
Links MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
CamelCase
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
No
No
Yes
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Page Redirects
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
HTML Tags
Some
Some
Optional
All
All
Math formulas
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
Markdown Support
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Textile Support
No
No
No
No
Yes
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
Optional
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Footnotes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
No
No
No
Plugin
No
Scripting
Optional
plugins, templates, PHP
plugins for JavaScript, TCL and Groovy
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
None
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Usability MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Section Editing
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Double-Click Edit
Optional
Optional
No
No
No
Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
No
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
Yes
Optional
No
Yes
Statistics MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
No
Analysis
Optional
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Output MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print View
Mobile Friendly
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
ATOM Feeds
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Abbreviations
No
No
No
Plugin
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
XML export
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Media and Files MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
No
No
No
Plugin
No
SVG Editing
No
No
No
Plugin
Yes
MindMap Editing
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
No
Media Search
Keywords
No
Contents
Contents
No
Extras MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Calendar
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Image Galleries
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Forums
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Blogs
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Ticket System
No
No
No
Plugin
No
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Syntax Examples MediaWiki PhpWiki JSPWiki XWiki Instiki
Internal Link
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[link]
[text|link]
[text|wiki:link]
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)
[[Some Page]]
[[Some Page|anchor text]]
[[Some Page#anchor]]
[[Some Page#anchor|anchor text]]
External Link
[http://example.org The title]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[http://www.example.com/]
[example|http://www.example.com/]
[text|wiki:link]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
[another site](http://example.com)
Headlines
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
#Level 1#
##Level 2##
###Level 3###
####Level 4####
#####Level 5#####
######Level 6######
Bold Format
'''bold'''
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
__bold__
**bold**
**bold**
Italics Format
''italic''
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italics''
//Italics//
_italic_, *italic*
Underline Format
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
%%(text-decoration: underline) text %%
__underline__
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
Monospace Format
<tt>monospace</tt>
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


{{monospace}}
##monospace##
`monospace`
Strikethrough Format
<s>strikethrough</s>
<strike>striked through</strike>
%%(text-decoration: line-through) deleted text %%
--Strike--
<del>strikethrough</del>
strikethrough
{: style='text-decoration:line-through'}
Superscript Format
<sup>superscript</sup>
<sup>above</sup>
%%(vertical-align: sup) text %%
^^superscript^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sub>below</sub>
%%(vertical-align: sub) text %%
,,subscript,,
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
[[Image:wiki.png]]
[ 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
[local.jpg]
[{Image src='local.jpg'}]
[{Image src='http://foo.bar/foo.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
![alt text](http://ex.com/image.jpg),
[[image.jpg|alt text:pic]]
Aligning Text
<center>Centered</center>
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

%%(text-align: right) text %%
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
p{: style='text-align:left'}
p{: style='text-align:right'}
p{: style='text-align:center'}
p{: style='text-align:justify'}
Text Indentation
: indented line
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
%%(text-indent: 20px) 20 pixels %%
%%(text-indent: 30%) 30 percent %%
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

> This is a quoted text
p
{: style='margin-left:3em'}

> blockquote
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
# list
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
Definition Lists
; term : definition
Term:<def>
def
;term:definition
; term
: definition
term
: definition
Horizontal Rule
----
----
----
----
***
remove MediaWiki remove PhpWiki remove JSPWiki remove XWiki remove Instiki