XWiki vs. MediaWiki vs. WackoWiki vs. Instiki vs. PmWiki

General Features XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Version
16.2.0
1.32.2
6.1.24
0.30.0
2.3.32
Last Release Date
2024-03-24 (4 days ago)
2019-06-05 (4 years ago)
2023-11-01 (4 months ago)
2019-02-28 (5 years ago)
2024-03-23 (5 days ago)
Last Update here
2024-03-25 (3 days ago)
2019-06-21 (4 years ago)
2023-11-02 (4 months ago)
2019-03-04 (5 years ago)
2024-03-24 (4 days ago)
Author
XWiki Development Team
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
WackoWiki Team
David Heinemeier Hansson, Jacques Distler, Matthias Tarasiewicz
Petko Yotov (Original author: Patrick R. Michaud)
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
LGPL + Free hosting on https://myxwiki.org for individuals/non profit
GPL
BSD
Ruby's
GPL2+
Programming Language
Java
PHP
PHP
Ruby on Rails
PHP
Data Storage
Database, RCS
Database
Database
Database
Files
License Cost/ Fee
0
0
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Enterprise, Workgroups, Developers
End Users/Desktop, Education
Advanced End Users, Developers, End Users/Desktop
general, education
All
Hosting Features XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
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
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Own Domain
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Ads allowed
No
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
System Requirements XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Operating System
Any platform supporting Java 11 or greater
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
OS Independent
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X
Linux, UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
Servlet 3.1+
Any with PHP support
run with the appserver/webserver of your choice
Thin (included), or Apache/NGinx (via Passenger)
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support. Can also be run w/o a webserver.
Other Requirements
Java 11, MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/HSQLDB/etc (JDBC Driver required)
none
mod_rewrite (optional)
Ruby 2.0-2.6
none
Datastorage XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Text Files
No
No
No
No
Yes
MySQL
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
PostgreSQL
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
Oracle
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
No
SQLite
No
Yes
No
Yes
Plugin
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
No
No
RCS
Plugin
No
No
No
Plugin
Other
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
MariaDB
Any Rails-compatible back-end datastore can be used.
Compressed, XML and/or ephemeral files (modules). Can provide custom data backends.
Security/Anti-Spam XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Page Permissions
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Authentication Backends
XWiki, LDAP, custom (Open API), Kerberos, NTLM, Headers, PUMA, SAML, Trusted LDAP, Sun SSO
Yes
LDAP (patch), ActiveDirectory
Internal: per page, per group, per user, per user group. External: .htpasswd, LDAP, Active Directory. Plugins: Mailman, forums w/MySQL, oAuth, custom possible.
Host Blocking
No
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional
Mail Encryption
Yes
Plugin
Optional
Unknown
Optional
nofollow
No
Optional
Optional
Unknown
Yes
Blacklist
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
CAPTCHA
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Unknown
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
Yes
No
No
Unknown
Optional
Development/Support XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
32 ⭐
478 ⭐
N/A
Common Features XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Preview
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Minor Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
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
No
Yes
Special Features XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Interface Languages
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
20
Bulgarian, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Estonian, Persian, French, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
1
English
38
Arabic, Bulgarian, Breton, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Persian, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Latvian, Lettish, Macedonian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Albanian, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
Email notification
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Optional
Comments
Threaded
Discussion Pages
Flat
No
Discussion Pages
Categories
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Page Locking
Page Locking
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Plugin
Unknown
No
Unknown
Yes
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Yes
Yes
Structured Data
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Yes
Links XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
CamelCase
Yes
No
Optional
Optional
Optional
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
Yes
No
No
No
Plugin
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Page Redirects
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
HTML Tags
All
Some
All
All
Plugin
Math formulas
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Tables
simple + complex
simple + complex
simple
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
Yes
No
No
No
Optional
Markdown Support
Yes
No
No
Yes
Plugin
Textile Support
No
No
No
Yes
No
BBCode Support
No
No
Patch
No
Plugin
Emoticon Images
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
Plugin
Syntax Highlighting
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Optional
Footnotes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Quoting
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Internal Comments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
Plugin
No
No
No
Yes
Scripting
velocity, groovy, ruby, jython, generic JSR223 & very powerful API
Optional
actions (PHP)
None
MarkupExpressions (core, many add-ons). PageLists with templates (core structured data scripting). WikiSh (plugin), Data forms (optional)
Content Includes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
Usability XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Section Editing
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Double-Click Edit
No
Optional
Yes
No
Plugin
Toolbar
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Optional
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Statistics XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Recent Changes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Orphaned Pages
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Most/Least Popular
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Recent Visitors
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
Analysis
Yes
Optional
Plugin
No
Plugin
Output XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Printer Friendly
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print View
Print View
Print View
Mobile Friendly
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Themes & Skins
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
RSS Feeds
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Optional
ATOM Feeds
Optional
Yes
No
Yes
Optional
Abbreviations
Plugin
No
Patch
Yes
Plugin
Auto-TOC
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Plugin
XML export
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin
PDF Export
Yes
Plugin
Patch
No
Plugin
Office Export
Yes
Unknown
Patch
Unknown
Plugin
Media and Files XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
Media Revisions
Yes
Yes
No
No
Optional
Embedded Flash
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Plugin
Embedded Video
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
Plugin
No
No
No
Plugin
SVG Editing
Plugin
No
No
Yes
No
MindMap Editing
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Media Search
Contents
Keywords
Contents
No
Filenames only
Extras XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Calendar
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Image Galleries
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Plugin
Presentations
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Plugin
Forums
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
No
Plugin
Blogs
Plugin
No
Optional
No
Plugin
Ticket System
Plugin
No
No
No
Plugin
Chat
Plugin
Unknown
Patch
Unknown
No
Syntax Examples XWiki MediaWiki WackoWiki Instiki PmWiki
Internal 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)
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
[[InternalLink]] 
((InternalLink))
[[InternalLink alternate text]]
CamelCase
[[Some Page]]
[[Some Page|anchor text]]
[[Some Page#anchor]]
[[Some Page#anchor|anchor text]]
[[page name]]
[[page name | link text]]
[[link text -> page name]]
[[#anchor]]
[[#anchor|link to anchor]]
[[page name #anchor]]
External Link
[[wiki syntax here>>http://www.xwiki.com]]
http://www.xwiki.com
[http://example.org The title]
https://wackowiki.org
[[https://wackowiki.org WackoWiki]]
[[Wikipedia:WackoWiki]]
[another site](http://example.com)
http://....
[[http://... | link text]]
[[link text -> http://...]]
Headlines
= Headline
== Subheadline
=== Sub-subheadline
==== etc..
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
== Level 1 ==
=== Level 2 ===
==== Level 3 ====
===== Level 4 =====
====== Level 5 ======
#Level 1#
##Level 2##
###Level 3###
####Level 4####
#####Level 5#####
######Level 6######
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
Bold Format
**bold**
'''bold'''
**bold**
**bold**
'''bold'''
Italics Format
//Italics//
''italic''
//italics//
_italic_, *italic*
''italic''
Underline Format
__underline__
<u>underlined</u>
__underline__
underlined
{: style='text-decoration:underlined'}
{+underlined+}
Monospace Format
##monospace##
<tt>monospace</tt>
##monospace##
`monospace`
@@monospace@@
Strikethrough Format
--Strike--
<s>strikethrough</s>
--strikethrough--
<del>strikethrough</del>
strikethrough
{: style='text-decoration:line-through'}
{-strikethrough-}
Superscript Format
^^superscript^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
<sup>superscript</sup>
'^superscript^'
Subscript Format
,,subscript,,
<sub>subscript</sub>
vvsubscriptvv
<sub>subscript</sub>
'_subscript_'
Images
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]]
((image.png))
file:image.png
https://example.com/image.png
![alt text](http://ex.com/image.jpg),
[[image.jpg|alt text:pic]]
https://foo.bar/foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg
Attach:foo.jpg"alt/title text" | Caption
Aligning Text
(% style="... css here..." %)Text
<center>Centered</center>
{html}<div align="right">{html}

%%(wacko wrapper="text" wrapper_align="center")
content%%
p{: style='text-align:left'}
p{: style='text-align:right'}
p{: style='text-align:center'}
p{: style='text-align:justify'}
%center% centered text
%right% right aligned
%lfloat% left floating text
%rfloat% right floating text
%rframe% right floating frame
%lframe% left floating frame
Text Indentation
Non-semantic text indentation through styling:

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

Quotes:

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

> blockquote
-> indented text
--> more indentation
-< hanging text
--< more indentation
Bulleted Lists
* List
** list
*** list
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
*one
**One-two
*two
*three
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
alternatively, indented:
* item 1
* item 1.1
* item 2
Numbered Lists
1. Item 1
11. Item 2
111. Item 3
1. Item 4
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
1. numbered List
1. numbered List-2
2.#8 numbered List, with break


1. Item 1
1. Item 1.1
2. Item 2
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
alternatively, indented:
# Item 1
# Item 1.1
# Item 2
Definition Lists
; term
: definition
; term : definition
{html}<dl>
<dt>Coffee</dt>
<dd>Black hot drink</dd>
<dt>Milk</dt>
<dd>White cold drink</dd>
</dl>{html}
term
: definition
: term : definition
Horizontal Rule
----
----
----
***
----
remove XWiki remove MediaWiki remove WackoWiki remove Instiki remove PmWiki