MediaWiki vs. XWiki vs. Instiki vs. PhpWiki vs. DokuWiki

General Features MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Version
1.32.2
16.3.0
0.30.0
phpwiki-1.3.14
2020-07-29 "Hogfather"
Last Release Date
2019-06-05 (4 years ago)
2024-04-29 (6 days ago)
2019-02-28 (5 years ago)
2007-06-30 (16 years ago)
2020-07-19 (3 years ago)
Last Update here
2019-06-21 (4 years ago)
2024-04-30 (5 days ago)
2019-03-04 (5 years ago)
2009-04-03 (15 years ago)
2021-08-09 (2 years ago)
Author
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
XWiki Development Team
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Andreas Gohr
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
Ruby's
GPL
GPL 2
Programming Language
PHP
Java
Ruby on Rails
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
Database
Database, RCS
Database
Database, Files, RCS
Files
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
End Users/Desktop, Education
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
general, education
Any
personal, small to medium companies
Hosting Features MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
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
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
Own Domain
N/A
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
Ads allowed
N/A
No
N/A
N/A
N/A
System Requirements MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Operating System
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Any with PHP support
Servlet 3.1+
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Apache, IIS, Nginx, Lighttpd, anything with PHP support
Other Requirements
none
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
Ruby 2.0-2.6
various opt. helpers
Datastorage MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Text Files
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
PostgreSQL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Oracle
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
SQLite
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
Yes
No
RCS
No
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Other
No
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.
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
None
Security/Anti-Spam MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Authentication Backends
Yes
XWiki, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Textfile, LDAP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, ActiveDirectory
Host Blocking
Yes
No
Yes
No
Plugin
Mail Encryption
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
No
Optional
nofollow
Optional
No
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
CAPTCHA
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
No
Yes
Unknown
No
Optional
Development/Support MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
478 ⭐
N/A
3582 ⭐
Common Features MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
No
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
No
Yes
Yes
Special Features MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
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
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
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Chinese Traditional
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
Email notification
Optional
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Comments
Discussion Pages
Threaded
No
Plugin
Plugin
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
No
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Structured Data
Plugin
Yes
No
Patch
Plugin
Links MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
CamelCase
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Yes
No
No
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Syntax Features MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
HTML Tags
Some
All
All
Some
Optional
Math formulas
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
CREOLE support
No
Yes
No
No
Plugin
Markdown Support
No
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Textile Support
No
No
Yes
No
Plugin
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
Plugin
Emoticon Images
Optional
Yes
No
No
Yes
Syntax Highlighting
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Footnotes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
FAQ Tags
No
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Scripting
Optional
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
None
plugins, templates, PHP
Optional, PHP
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Feed Aggregation
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Usability MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Section Editing
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Optional
No
No
Optional
Plugin
Toolbar
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Plugin
Yes
No
Patch
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Statistics MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Recent Visitors
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
No
Analysis
Optional
Yes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Output MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Auto-TOC
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
PDF Export
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Unknown
Yes
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Media and Files MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Video
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Image Editing
No
Plugin
No
No
No
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Media Search
Keywords
Contents
No
No
Filenames only
Extras MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Plugin
Presentations
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
No
Blogs
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Ticket System
No
Plugin
No
No
Plugin
Chat
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
No
Syntax Examples MediaWiki XWiki Instiki PhpWiki DokuWiki
Internal Link
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
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]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[[a Link]]
[[namespace:link]]
[[link|With a Title]]
External Link
[http://example.org The title]
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
[another site](http://example.com)
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[[http://example.com]]
[[http://example.com|With a Title]]
Headlines
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
#Level 1#
##Level 2##
###Level 3###
####Level 4####
#####Level 5#####
######Level 6######
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
====== Level 1 ======
===== Level 2 =====
==== Level 3 ====
=== Level 4 ===
== Level 5 ==
Bold Format
'''bold'''
**bold**
**bold**
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
**bold**
Italics Format
''italic''
//Italics//
_italic_, *italic*
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
//italics//
Underline Format
<u>underlined</u>
__underline__
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
<u>underlined</u>
__underlined__
Monospace Format
<tt>monospace</tt>
##monospace##
`monospace`
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


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

Plugin
Text Indentation
: indented line
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

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

> blockquote
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
N/A
Bulleted Lists
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
Numbered Lists
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
# list
- item 1
- item 1.1
- item 2
Definition Lists
; term : definition
; term
: definition
term
: definition
Term:<def>
def
Plugin
Horizontal Rule
----
----
***
----
----
remove MediaWiki remove XWiki remove Instiki remove PhpWiki remove DokuWiki