Zim vs. TWiki vs. TiddlyWiki vs. PhpWiki vs. MediaWiki

General Features Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Version
0.56
TWiki-6.1.0
5.1.21
phpwiki-1.3.14
1.32.2
Last Release Date
2012-04-01 (12 years ago)
2018-07-15 (5 years ago)
2019-07-24 (4 years ago)
2007-06-30 (16 years ago)
2019-06-05 (4 years ago)
Last Update here
2012-07-16 (11 years ago)
2019-07-19 (4 years ago)
2019-11-20 (4 years ago)
2009-04-03 (15 years ago)
2019-06-21 (4 years ago)
Author
Jaap Karssenberg
Peter Thoeny, TWiki community
Jeremy Ruston, TiddlyWiki community
Steve Wainstead, Jeff Dairiki, Reini Urban, Carsten Klapp, Marc-Etienne Vargenau
Magnus Manske, Brion Vibber, Lee Daniel Crocker, Tim Starling, Erik Möller, and others.
URL
Free and Open Source
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
License
GPL
GPL
BSD
GPL
GPL
Programming Language
Python
Perl, JavaScript
HTML, JavaScript
PHP
PHP
Data Storage
Files, RCS
Files, RCS
Files
Database, Files, RCS
Database
License Cost/ Fee
0
N/A
0
0
0
Development status
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Mature
Intended Audience
Private users, small teams
Large enterprise; small to medium businesses
Individuals, private, small groups
Any
End Users/Desktop, Education
System Requirements Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Operating System
Linux, Windows, OSX
Linux, Windows, OS-X and other
Any
UNIX, Windows, MacOS X, probably others
*nix, Windows, Mac OS X
Root Access
No
No
No
No
No
Webserver
None
Almost any webserver, typically Apache and Ngnix
Not required (optional backends available)
Apache, IIS, anything with PHP support
Any with PHP support
Other Requirements
Desktop environment with Gtk toolkit
RCS (optional), cron/scheduler, fgrep, egrep; Plugins may have additional dependencies
A common browser
various opt. helpers
none
Datastorage Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Text Files
Yes
Yes
Optional
Yes
No
MySQL
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
PostgreSQL
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Oracle
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
SQLite
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
BerkeleyDB
No
No
No
Yes
No
RCS
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
No
Other
Text Files with index in SQLite
RcsLite Perl library for version control without external RCS; backend API for other storage
Data self contained in html file OR as individual data files
gdbm, cvs, MSSQL, ... (ADODB, PearDB)
No
Security/Anti-Spam Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Page Permissions
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
ACL
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Authentication Backends
File permissions
Internal authentication; anything Apache supports such as LDAP, NIS, AD, Kerberos
optional extensions available
db, session, pop, imap, ldap, file, webserver
Yes
Host Blocking
No
Plugin
No
No
Yes
Mail Encryption
No
Yes
No
No
Plugin
nofollow
No
Plugin
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Blacklist
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Yes
CAPTCHA
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Delayed Indexing
No
Plugin
Unknown
No
No
Development/Support Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
# of Consultants
Preconfigured Hosting
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Code Repository
Issue Tracker
Mailing List
Support Forum
Chat Channel
#phpwiki
Stars on GitHub
N/A
N/A
7039 ⭐
N/A
N/A
Common Features Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Preview
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minor Changes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Change Summary
No
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Yes
Page History
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
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 Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Unicode Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Right-to-Left Support
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Interface Languages
27
Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Estonian, French, Galician, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
19
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Chinese Traditional
4
German, English, French, Japanese
9
German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, 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
Email notification
No
Yes
Unknown
Yes
Optional
Comments
No
Threaded
Plugin
Plugin
Discussion Pages
Categories
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Namespaces
Yes
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Conflict Handling
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
None
Conflict Resolution
Conflict Resolution
Concurrent Editing
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Search
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Full Text
Wiki Farming
Yes
Optional
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Structured Data
No
Yes
Yes
Patch
Plugin
Links Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
CamelCase
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Freelinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Backlinks
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
InterWiki
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
SisterWiki
No
Plugin
No
No
No
Image Links
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Windows Shares
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Page Redirects
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Syntax Features Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
HTML Tags
None
All
Optional
Some
Some
Math formulas
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Tables
none
simple + complex
complex
simple + complex
simple + complex
CREOLE support
No
No
Plugin
No
No
Markdown Support
No
No
Yes
No
No
Textile Support
No
Plugin
No
No
No
BBCode Support
No
No
No
No
No
Emoticon Images
No
Yes
Plugin
No
Optional
Syntax Highlighting
No
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Plugin
Footnotes
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Quoting
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Internal Comments
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom styles
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
FAQ Tags
No
Yes
Plugin
No
No
Scripting
None
TWiki Markup Language, TWiki variables, JavaScript, extensive API
JavaScript
plugins, templates, PHP
Optional
Content Includes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Feed Aggregation
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Usability Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Section Editing
Yes
Plugin
Yes
No
Yes
Page Templates
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Double-Click Edit
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Optional
Toolbar
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
WYSIWYG Editing
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Patch
Plugin
Access Keys
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto Signature
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Statistics Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Recent Changes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Wanted Pages
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Orphaned Pages
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Yes
Most/Least Popular
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Recent Visitors
No
Plugin
No
Yes
Plugin
Analysis
No
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Optional
Output Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Printer Friendly
Print View
Print View
Print CSS
Print CSS
Print CSS
Mobile Friendly
No
Plugin
Yes
No
No
Themes & Skins
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
RSS Feeds
No
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
ATOM Feeds
No
Yes
Plugin
No
Yes
Abbreviations
No
Plugin
Unknown
No
No
Auto-TOC
Optional
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Raw Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
HTML Export
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
XML export
No
Plugin
Unknown
No
Yes
PDF Export
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Office Export
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Media and Files Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
File Attachments
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Media Revisions
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Embedded Flash
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Embedded Video
No
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Plugin
Image Editing
No
Plugin
Yes
No
No
SVG Editing
No
Plugin
No
No
No
MindMap Editing
No
Plugin
Plugin
No
Plugin
Media Search
No
Contents
No
No
Keywords
Extras Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Calendar
Yes
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Image Galleries
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Yes
Presentations
Unknown
Unknown
Plugin
Unknown
Unknown
Forums
No
Plugin
Plugin
Yes
Plugin
Blogs
Optional
Plugin
Yes
Yes
No
Ticket System
No
Plugin
Plugin
No
No
Chat
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Unknown
Syntax Examples Zim TWiki TiddlyWiki PhpWiki MediaWiki
Internal Link
CamelCase [[foobar:subpage]] +subpage 
WikiWord autolink
Otherweb.WikiWord
[[Spaced text]]
[[WikiWord][label]]
WikiWord (CamelCase)
[[link]]
[[label|link]]
WikiWord or [somelink]
[ desc | pagename ]
[[a link]]
[[a link|with title]]
External Link
wp?Wiki_Engine http://wikimatrix.org 
ftp://somehost/share
\\host\share\..
http://twiki.org/ autolink
[[http://twiki.org/][label]]
http://www.example.com
[[label|http://www.example.com]]
http://someserver/someurl
[ desc | exturl ]
[http://example.org The title]
Headlines
=== Heading ===
---+ Level 1
---++ Level 2
---+++ Level 3
---++++ Level 4
---+++++ Level 5
---++++++ Level 6
! Level 1
!! Level 2
!!! Level 3
!!!! Level 4
!!!!! Level 5
!!!Headline1
!!Headline2
!Headline3
==Section==
===Subsection===
====Sub-subsection====
Bold Format
**bold**
*bold*
''bold''
*bold* or
<strong>bold</strong>
'''bold'''
Italics Format
//italic//
_italic_
//italic//
_italics_ or 
or
<em>italics</em>
''italic''
Underline Format
__underline__
<u>underline</u>
__underline__
<u>underlined</u>
<u>underlined</u>
Monospace Format
``monospace``
=monospaced text= and
<verbatim>
multi line text
</verbatim>
{{{monospaced}}}
<tt>monospace</tt>
<code>code</code>
<pre>preformatted</pre>
<verbatim>
unparsed text</verbatim>


<tt>monospace</tt>
Strikethrough Format
~~strike~~
<strike>strikethrough</strike>
--strikethrough--
<strike>striked through</strike>
<s>strikethrough</s>
Superscript Format
^{sup}
<sup>superscript</sup>
^^superscript^^
<sup>above</sup>
<sup>superscript</sup>
Subscript Format
_{sub}
<sub>subscript</sub>
~~subscript~~
<sub>below</sub>
<sub>subscript</sub>
Images
{{./image.png}}
%ATTACHURL%/image.png
http://any.domain/image.png
[img[local.jpg]]
[img[http://foo.bar/foo.jpg]]
[ 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
[[Image:wiki.png]]
Aligning Text
not implemented
| left |   center   |   right |
or HTML
or CSS
using custom classes, e.g.
{{right{
text
}}}
<?plugin RawHtml <span align="right"> ?>right<?plugin RawHtml </span> ?>
or <div align="right"> right </div>

<center>Centered</center>
Text Indentation
indent with tabs
<blockquote>
multi line text
</blockquote>
:indent

> quote

<<<
blockquote
<<<
;: left indent
;;: more left indent

or 
paragraph
and another level 
: indented line
Bulleted Lists
* List item
* sub items
* with indent
* Item 1
* Item 1.1
* Item 2
* Item 1
** Item 1.1
* Item 2
* list
or
- list
* Item 1
** Item 1.2
* Item 2
Numbered Lists
1. List item
a. with sub items
b. ...
1. Item 1
a. Item 1.a
1. Item 2
# Item 1
## Item 1.1
# Item 2
# list
# Item 1
## Item 1.2
# Item 2
Definition Lists
not implemented
$ Term: Definition
; term
: description
Term:<def>
def
; term : definition
Horizontal Rule
not implemented
---
----
----
----
remove Zim remove TWiki remove TiddlyWiki remove PhpWiki remove MediaWiki