Ask HN: Best self-hosted wiki solution in 2025? Mediawiki or something else?
8 comments
We use outline (https://github.com/outline/outline) at work and it works pretty well for us. It supports collaborative editing, which was the main reason we went with it.
Personally, I use bookstack (https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack) at home. Mostly because I really like the mental model of using Bookshelves, Books, Chapters and Pages to sort my notes in.
Personally, I use bookstack (https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack) at home. Mostly because I really like the mental model of using Bookshelves, Books, Chapters and Pages to sort my notes in.
My biggest beef with Outline is that I can initially use Markdown, as soon as it is saved, you cannot see the raw markdown again for editing.
I had wanted to use Gitbook for blog/wiki[0] but then discovered that it's not opensource anymore. After not finding anything for a long while finally found something close that will work for me: Docsify[1].
Docsify is git-backed but not a static site generator. Instead it reads the markdown as-is and renders to HTML/DOM (don't know the details) in the browser. I had 2 problems with it, first the sidebar wasn't convenient to edit/update, which I handled by creating a tags: `name` `name` annotation convention. The second was it didn't work for private github repos, which was solved by using Cloudflare Pages to auto-publish changes from git. Effectively now it has a 'build' step like a static-site-generator but it's only to write _sidebar.md from the tagged *.md files.
You can see the start of my personal wiki/notes[2] which includes some info about Docsify and Cloudflare Pages & Access (transparently login-protect http paths). Note the 'Edit' buttons (which open Github in edit mode) won't work (as you don't have access to private repo).
[0] https://blog.keithkim.org
[1] https://docsify.js.org
[2] https://notes.keithkim.org
Docsify is git-backed but not a static site generator. Instead it reads the markdown as-is and renders to HTML/DOM (don't know the details) in the browser. I had 2 problems with it, first the sidebar wasn't convenient to edit/update, which I handled by creating a tags: `name` `name` annotation convention. The second was it didn't work for private github repos, which was solved by using Cloudflare Pages to auto-publish changes from git. Effectively now it has a 'build' step like a static-site-generator but it's only to write _sidebar.md from the tagged *.md files.
You can see the start of my personal wiki/notes[2] which includes some info about Docsify and Cloudflare Pages & Access (transparently login-protect http paths). Note the 'Edit' buttons (which open Github in edit mode) won't work (as you don't have access to private repo).
[0] https://blog.keithkim.org
[1] https://docsify.js.org
[2] https://notes.keithkim.org
I spent some time searching for a good wiki a few months ago.
It depends on your use case. The simplest and oldest wiki might be Docuwiki. There is no database, and organization is based on text files in folders. You can make decent wikis with it, but it’s minimalist and can be hard for the users to use it.
Then we have enterprise solutions for collaboration by Microsoft, Google, Atlassian, etc. They can’t be used in our workplace, due to organization policy.
I went with Bookstack for a wiki to be used by a group of people. The interface and fonts are pretty, it’s super fast, installation is easy, and automatic updates have been problem free so far. The content must be organized in terms of shelves/books/chapters/pages, but some people want any number of categories and titles. It doesn’t allow a lot of customization, but the choices made are OK.
Mediawiki is complex, and takes more time to administer. It could make sense for large number of users. I stopped using it after upgrades broke the installation a few times, and, frankly, the interface looks outdated to me in most themes, and needs customization which takes time. Obviously, it’s very customizable, there are tons of resources and we know it can scale to billions of people!
It depends on your use case. The simplest and oldest wiki might be Docuwiki. There is no database, and organization is based on text files in folders. You can make decent wikis with it, but it’s minimalist and can be hard for the users to use it.
Then we have enterprise solutions for collaboration by Microsoft, Google, Atlassian, etc. They can’t be used in our workplace, due to organization policy.
I went with Bookstack for a wiki to be used by a group of people. The interface and fonts are pretty, it’s super fast, installation is easy, and automatic updates have been problem free so far. The content must be organized in terms of shelves/books/chapters/pages, but some people want any number of categories and titles. It doesn’t allow a lot of customization, but the choices made are OK.
Mediawiki is complex, and takes more time to administer. It could make sense for large number of users. I stopped using it after upgrades broke the installation a few times, and, frankly, the interface looks outdated to me in most themes, and needs customization which takes time. Obviously, it’s very customizable, there are tons of resources and we know it can scale to billions of people!
I have slightly different needs I suppose, but I settled for https://tiddlywiki.com/ as my SOHO wiki. There is a learning curve, but once you grasp some rather uncommon concepts it's quite good and very easy to setup, backup and manage locally or remotely.
Dokuwiki is my go-to tool for internal wikis. Unfortunately it won't help you with the two issues listed above: It's still PHP and there's no conflict resolution to speak of. It also hasn't changed much in two decades.
What it does right is that it's trivial. Trivial to understand, trivial to use, trivial to upgrade, and trivial to write plugins for. These plugins can then suck in data from external systems and CMDBs which is perfect for internal documentation. Mediawiki is designed for another use case and much more complicated.
What it does right is that it's trivial. Trivial to understand, trivial to use, trivial to upgrade, and trivial to write plugins for. These plugins can then suck in data from external systems and CMDBs which is perfect for internal documentation. Mediawiki is designed for another use case and much more complicated.
Check out https://bookstackapp.com (PHP/Laravel).
If it's for personal use I'd recommend https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium
* APIs with deeper functional inroads in multiple languages. There are lots of great tools for writing bots, but if you want to write a parser extension, you're stuck with PHP right? Or has that changed?
* Multiplayer. Edit conflicts can be a real pain and turnoff for beginner users. I wish that simultaneous use felt more like a collaborative social experience and less like a minefield.
...but I do think mediawiki is wonderful, and I'm inclined to use it despite these drawbacks.