BookStack vs PmWiki

BookStack is a free, open-source platform for organizing and storing information on a self-hosted instance. It organizes content into Books, Chapters and Pages, with a WYSIWYG editor and an optional Markdown editor with live preview. Search works within a book or across books, chapters and pages, and users can link directly to paragraphs. The editor includes diagrams.net drawing capability. Authentication supports OIDC, SAML2 and LDAP, as well as social-based secondary authentication options. Built-in multi-factor authentication can be enforced by role and uses TOTP and static backup codes. Content exports include contained HTML, PDF, plain text, Markdown and Portable ZIP. The project describes a growing REST API for automation and importing content. The MIT-licensed software has no cost to download and install. Setup requires PHP 8.2 or newer, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6 or newer, Git, Composer 2.2 or newer and a PHP-compatible web server. BookStack does not currently support shared PHP hosting. Community support is free but does not assure a response, support or resolution; paid support plans are also listed.

PmWiki is a wiki-based content-management system for collaboratively building and maintaining websites. Contributors can add and edit pages through the web without knowing HTML or CSS. Administrators can set password controls for an entire site, page groups, or individual pages, covering reading, editing, and uploads. Its access controls can work with existing password databases such as.htaccess, LDAP, and MySQL. Pages are stored as flat files, so a database is not required; the project says it can handle thousands of pages. Administrators can alter appearance and functions with skins, HTML templates, and extensions called recipes. Page histories include restore links, and the number of history days and revisions can be configured. PmWiki is free, open-source software for self-hosting that requires PHP. The listed plan is free. Project support resources include a FAQ, troubleshooting guide, error-message descriptions, and mailing lists. Maintainer Petko Yotov offers paid technical support and development at €60, paid once, billed at 60€ / hour, with an invoice provided. The release notes list version 2.7.6, dated 2026-09-18, with updates for recent PHP versions; version 2.7.5 closed a Windows-server vulnerability under specified conditions.