Why this page?

I'm a newcomer to wikis so I spent two weeks installing/testing some Wikis and their documentation. -- AaronLaw, 2003-11

(Now, I have used Tavi for nearly a year and Tavi is the best wiki I have ever used, after trying PmWiki and kwiki -- AaronLaw, 2004-10-18)

I know that there are some pages on many Wiki official sites showing some comparisons/introductions of different WikiEngines, but I think none of them are showing the features users are concerned about.

One day, I believe I can't help the opensource community to do some little thing even though I don't know much about programming. Therefore I made the table below to compare the features I'm concerned about. At present the table compares Tavi, Wakka, UseMod and PhpWiki. --AaronLaw (2003-11)

I think many of wikis below are still in rapid development. Therefore, it is better to mark the date of the test conducted in. --AaronLaw, 205-05-29

This is one of many wiki comparison tables. The best I've found is at [1]

Tavi Wakka UseMod PhpWiki PmWiki MediaWiki? TikiWiki? kwiki (12) TWiki TeleparkWiki ProWiki? YetAnotherWiki?
Programming language PHP PHP Perl PHP PHP PHP PHP Perl Perl PHP Perl ASP/JavaScript?
Version in this Test [F.] 0.25 0.12   1.37 0.6.20      1.0.2 5.08 0.9
The Current Version (last updated: 2005-05-29) 0.26 (Is it still in development?) 0.9?   2.1beta    0.33   1.0.2 5.08 0.9
Easy to install Y or N Y Y ? Y Y Y ? (I have not tried to install) Depends. It can be on UNIX. Apache side is more involved. Y ASP Y
Support Chinese (i18n?) Y Y Y Y N (1) Y (2) Y Y See below N Y (utf-8) Y (utf-8)
I18N already [A.] Y N ? ? Y (20) Y (2) Y Y Y Y Y ?
Support search in Chinese Y N (5) Y ? Y Y (22) ? Y ? ? Y ?
Free links works with Chinese Y ? ? ? N (8) Y (23) ? Y ? ? Y Y
Free links works with space Y ? ? Y Y Y Y ? ? N Y Y
SubPage Y N Y Y N (10,21) Y N N Version(s) with hieriarchical structure available Y in tree form Y N
Multilevel subpages Y (3) N N N N (10,21) Y N N See above Y Y N
Page storage (MeatBall:PageDatabase?) [B.] DB DB Flat Flat/DB Flat DB DB Flat Curently flat. Plugin to use DB or remote storage being developed Flat Flat MDB/Access
Templating/Page Skins/CSS support Y N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Many N/Y Y N
export RSS Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y N
Category Y (6,21) Y (21) Y (21) Y (21) Y (10) Y Y ? Y Various using metadata Y Y N
Wiki Farm/VirtualHost Y N Y Y Y (since ver.0.6.21) ? Y (11) ? Y Also multiple 'webs' per wiki N ASP ASP
Auto TOC N N Y N? N Y Y N Y N Y N
Auto FootNote? N N ? Y? ? Y (24) N ? ? N Y Y
Calendar Y (4) N N Y (4) Y (4) N Y Y (4) via plugin N Y N
Max size of a page 65535 65535 >65535 ? >65535 ? ? ? no limit no limit no limit >65536
Versioning number in History N N Y Y N Y Y ? Y N Y N
Table markup Y N Y Y (since ver. 1.3) Y Y Y Y Y plus plugins Y Y Y
PageDeletion Y Y (4) Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
PageRenaming [C.] N N Y ? ? Y Y ? Y Y N N
Support print N N N N Y Y Y Y (4) Y various skins for print N Y Y
Running on Win2000/XP [D.] Y (7) Y (7) Y (8) N Y Y Y ? Y Y N/ASP Y (IIS+ASP)
Editable Sidebar Y (4)[2]     Y (19) Y Y + Y plus top bar plus bottom bar plus per user add in items Y Y N
Image(File) Upload Y (4) ? ? ? Y Y Y Y (4) Y Y Y Y
Password Protect [E.] N ? ? ? Y Y Y ? Y Y Y Y
Mail Notification ? ? ? ? Y Y Y ? Y Y Y N
User home page supporting per user config ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Y N ? N
OrphanedPages Y ? ? ? Y (13) ? Y N ? ? N ?
WantedPages Y ? ? ? Y (14) ? N N Y ? Y ?
InterWiki Y ? ? ? Y (15) Y Y N Y ? Y ?
SisterWiki Y ? ? ? Y (16) Y? N N (coming soon) (18) N N Y ?
BackLink Y ? ? ? Y (17) Y (17) Y Y Y + parent plus breadcrumbs N Y ?

Footnotes:

A. If a Wiki support I18N, it should be Chinese-supported already (not meaning ship with a Chinese Menu)

B. DB means MySQL DB by default

C. Some Wiki do not rename a page but redirect it

D. Wikis are written and run on Linux by default

E. Different Wikis use different method to protect a page.

F. I added this at 200-05-29. I can't remember the version of wikis that I'd done the installation for a year...sorry -- AaronLaw, 2005-05-29

Remarks:

  1. Need a Chinese patch for supporting Chinese [3]
  2. MediaWiki? is the wiki with the completed multinational language supported that I have ever seen.
  3. TaviSubPages
  4. Via PlugIns?
  5. Returns wierd character (even though it can display Chinese in the Edit panel)
  6. TaviCategories (which is the best way of making category I have seen)
  7. Need to patch a Diff (providing an external diff.exe) for using "Document History"
  8. Need to modify the code/config
  9. There is a win32 version provided officially
  10. PmWiki puts pages in groups (i.e. all pages must be under a group), and so it can be seen as an implementation of SubPage? and Category. However, there is no more than 1 level of SubPage? can be made under the parent.
  11. TikiWiki? calls this feature Multiki [4]
  12. kwiki is a wiki framework but a wiki. That is, the function of the framework is provided core function and other else is written as a module (as same as plugin in other wikis). The "PageHistory?" function in kwiki is flexible in format. That is, it is not available in the core but people can install this function as a module. see: [Kwiki:KwikiExtension]
  13. PmWiki:AvailableAction? , PmWiki:RefCount?
  14. PmWiki:AvailableAction? , PmWiki:RefCount?
  15. InterWikis? is also called InterSites? (in other wikis) and InterMap? (in Pmwiki, see: PmWiki:InterMap?)
  17. 17.
    1. BackLink is called "Pages Link to here" in MediaWiki?
    2. BackLink function is not actived by deflaut in PmWiki
  18. [Kwiki:KwikiSiser]
  19. Editable Sidebar is orginally found on PmWiki. And it seems that it is a core function of PmWiki. That is, the sidebar is always hang on in a PmWiki-powered site
  20. It claims that it supports UTF-8 char. since [pmwiki2.0beta8], and here is what you need to [turn on UTF-8 support in PmWiki]
  21. 21.
    1. Using CategoryCategory tags (use "CategoryABC?" to let a page under a category called "ABC"; maybe sth wrong if a page contain the category name but it is not under this category.)
    2. PmWiki puts pages in groups (i.e. all pages must be under a group), and so it can be seen as an implementation of SubPage? and Category. However, there is no more than 1 level of SubPage? can be made under the parent.
  22. There is some problem with the result on searching Chinese with MediaWiki?. That is, it doesn't done full search in Chinese char (Missing some pages containing the Chinese words as searching keywords). (The wired behaviour maybe due to the mis-configured during installation.)
  23. MediaWiki? doesn't support CamelCase that what makes wiki a wiki. That is, it supports free links only :-P (and that is the point that someone claims MediaWiki? is NOT a wiki)
  24. Requires Cite extension.

Some Feature that Tavi should have:

{Can you provide links to the comparison pages? --Woody)

I think providing with links will decrease the reability of this page, and this test is based on my installation of these Wikis (i.e. This is experences and so sometimes I can't provide links to prove my says/test). Should you try to search the related info in the related Wikis? (This is up to date and has better explaination than here.) :) AaronLaw (2004-06-14) --
I agree that it is better to provide links to refer to the page as a reference. -- AaronLaw, 2004-10-18

If you donno how to choose a wiki,this table is a guide line:

-- AaronLaw, 2004-10-18