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 20 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 verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart.

Click the links in the table below to learn more about each wiki engine.
| Wiki Engines | |
|---|---|
| Wiki.js | Wiki engine running on Node.js and written in JavaScript |
| MediaWiki | Collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia |
| XWiki | Enterprise wiki written in Java |
| TiddlyWiki | Personal wiki and non-linear notebook |
| DokuWiki | Targeted at developer teams, workgroups and small companies |
| Docmost | Collaborative wiki and documentation software |
| Tiki Wiki | Wiki-based content management system |
| BookStack | Platform to create documentation/wiki content |
| Gollum | Simple wiki system built on top of Git |
| 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 |
| WackoWiki | Small, lightweight, handy, expandable, multilingual written in PHP |
| PhpWiki | Wiki engine written in PHP |
| MoinMoin | Advanced, easy to use and extensible wiki engine implemented in Python |
| TWiki | Easy to use enterprise wiki and collaboration platform |
| Otter Wiki | Python-based wiki for collaborative content management |
| Wiki-Go | Flat-file wiki platform |
| LeafWiki | Lightweight self-hosted wiki |
| WikkaWiki | Flexible, lightweight, standards-compliant wiki engine |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
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I’d highly recommend Zim:
multi platform
WYSIWYG
transparent (text file based)
It’s included in the Notes roundup (from a search).
https://www.linuxlinks.com/Notes/