ikiwiki vs MediaWiki
ikiwiki
ikiwiki.info
MediaWiki
mediawiki.orgSide by side
| Figure | ikiwiki | MediaWiki |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Wiki Software | 8.5 (#8) | 8.5 (#9) |
| Spec score · Knowledge base software | 8.0 (#82) | 8.5 (#36) |
| Custom domain | Yes | Yes |
| Customization | Templates, CSS, and themes can be used to change the appearance and layout of generated pages. | Extensions let administrators customize MediaWiki's appearance and behavior, and developers can write or contribute extensions. |
| Purpose | ikiwiki converts wiki pages into HTML pages for publishing on a website. | MediaWiki is server-based wiki software for collecting, organizing, and sharing knowledge. |
| SSO support | Yes | Yes |
| Support | The project provides a forum, bug tracker, TODO list, and discussion pages, and says developers monitor RecentChanges and respond in a timely fashion. | 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
ikiwiki
ikiwiki is free, open-source software that compiles wiki pages into HTML for publication as a website. It builds a static site and regenerates pages when their source changes. Page history can be kept in Git, Subversion, or another revision-control setup, although a revision system is optional. Markdown is the default markup, while plugins can add WikiText, HTML, reStructuredText, and Textile. Any page can function as a blog and produce RSS or Atom feeds. Plugins provide much of the system, including markup, directives, revision-control backends, and CGI capabilities. Templates, CSS, and themes control generated appearance. Optional web editing supports registration, several authentication methods, and configurable edit permissions. Xapian can add full-text search. Packages are listed for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, BSD, openSUSE, Arch, Homebrew, and Guix. ikiwiki supports Linux, macOS, self-hosting, and web use, with custom domains, SSO, and version history listed.
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.