Foswiki vs MediaWiki
Foswiki
foswiki.org
MediaWiki
mediawiki.orgSide by side
| Figure | Foswiki | MediaWiki |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Wiki Software | 8.9 (#4) | 8.5 (#9) |
| Spec score · Knowledge Management Software | 8.8 (#6) | 8.3 (#13) |
| Spec score · Knowledge base software | 8.5 (#38) | 8.5 (#36) |
| Editing | Pages can be edited with a WYSIWYG editor, topic markup, or HTML. | Pages use wikitext, which lets users edit without knowing HTML or CSS, and previous page versions remain available for reverting edits. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose | Foswiki is an open, programmable collaboration platform for sharing knowledge and editing pages collaboratively. | MediaWiki is server-based wiki software for collecting, organizing, and sharing knowledge. |
| SSO support | Yes | Yes |
| Support | The feature page points users to IRC for help and lists community consultants who can help install and customize Foswiki. | The MediaWiki site directs users with questions to its community support desk and offers documentation, FAQs, and community communication channels. |
| Version history | Yes | Yes |
Plans
In their own words
Foswiki
Foswiki is a free, open-source collaboration platform for teams to share knowledge and edit pages in a browser. It can serve as a document repository, authoring space, content or project management tool, blog, or tracking system. Teams can build applications such as status boards, to-do lists, inventory systems, employee handbooks, and bug trackers. Pages can hold structured data for advanced search, and users can edit them with a WYSIWYG editor, topic markup, or HTML. Foswiki keeps revision history for pages and attachments, with flexible access controls to protect pages. It supports enterprise LDAP and can connect to web APIs such as Google Maps. Its plugin architecture offers hundreds of extensions for added features and third-party application integration. The feature list identifies Cross-Site Request Forgery protection and localized interfaces in 20 languages. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, and can also run from a USB stick or as a VMware or VirtualBox appliance. Installation is manual, assumes basic server administration knowledge, and requires Perl and required Perl modules; external extension dependencies may need manual installation.
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is free, server-based wiki software for collecting, organizing, and sharing knowledge. Contributors edit pages in wikitext without needing HTML or CSS, and previous page versions remain available for reverting. Administrators can customize appearance and behavior with extensions; caching supports large, high-traffic wikis. Its REST API provides HTTP access to wiki content and functions such as search, page transformations, and history, with JSON or HTML output and extension-specific endpoints. MediaWiki is self-hosted under GNU GPL version 2 or later and is provided without warranty to the extent permitted by law. The latest stable version requires PHP 8.3.0 or later, a web server, and MariaDB 10.3.0+, MySQL 5.7.0+, PostgreSQL 10.0+, or SQLite 3.31.0+. Each release receives security updates for one year, and developers recommend subscribing to the low-traffic mediawiki-announce list. Third-party extensions may be unmaintained, vulnerable, incompatible with some versions, or unreliable together. Documentation, FAQs, community channels, and a support desk are available through the MediaWiki site.