A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. A Wiki engine is a type of collaborative software that runs a wiki system. This facilitates web pages being created and edited using a web browser. This type of software is usually implemented as an application server that runs on one or more web servers.
The content is stored in a file system, and changes to the content are typically stored in a relational database management system (such as MySQL), although some simple wiki engines use text files instead.
Wikis try to make it as simple as possible to write and share useful content, using intuitive page naming and text formatting conventions. Wikis are usually (but not always) wide open and assume a cooperating community. However, with spam bots prevalent, most wiki engines have lots of anti-spam measures such as page permissions, Access Control Lists, host blocking, blacklists, and CAPTCHAs in place.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 15 high quality free Linux wiki engines. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who wishes to share information with others.
Here’s our recommendations.
Now, let’s explore the 15 wiki engines at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources.
| Wiki Engines | |
|---|---|
| MediaWiki | Collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia |
| DokuWiki | Targeted at developer teams, workgroups and small companies |
| TiddlyWiki | Personal wiki and non-linear notebook |
| XWiki | Enterprise wiki written in Java |
| MoinMoin | Advanced, easy to use and extensible wiki engine implemented in Python |
| Tiki Wiki | Wiki-based content management system |
| Wiki.js | Wiki engine running on Node.js and written in JavaScript |
| BookStack | Platform to create documentation/wiki content |
| PmWiki | Offers a simple-to-install system |
| JSPWiki | Built around the standard J2EE components of Java, servlets and JSP |
| Foswiki | Supports the embedding of active and passive macros |
| PhpWiki | Wiki engine written in PHP |
| WackoWiki | Small, lightweight, handy, expandable, multilingual written in PHP |
| WikkaWiki | Flexible, lightweight, standards-compliant wiki engine |
| TWiki | Easy to use enterprise wiki and collaboration platform |
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |