Running your own wiki: five open-source choices
A wiki gives a team one place for what it knows: how things are done, where things are, who to ask. Running your own keeps that knowledge on a server you control, with no charge per user. Five mature open-source wikis cover most needs. DokuWiki runs on ordinary PHP web hosting, MediaWiki needs command-line access as well, and BookStack, Wiki.js and XWiki need a server of their own. This article compares them so you can choose.
What a team wiki is for
The knowledge a business depends on usually lives in the wrong places: old email threads, chat messages, documents on someone's laptop, and the memory of the person who has been there longest. A wiki turns it into pages anyone on the team can find, edit and link, with a history of every change. Typical uses:
- procedures and checklists, such as onboarding a new employee or closing the month
- how-to notes for systems and suppliers
- meeting notes and decisions
- an internal help desk for common questions
Two kinds of wiki
PHP wikis are web applications like WordPress. They run on PHP web hosting, with a database or, in DokuWiki's case, without one.
Application-server wikis run as a program of their own, on Node.js or Java, usually in Docker. They need a server where you can install and keep that program running.
The five wikis
| Wiki | Licence | Built with | Storage | Runs on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DokuWiki | GNU GPL v2 | PHP 8.2 or later | Plain files, no database | Shared hosting |
| MediaWiki | GNU GPL v2 or later | PHP 8.3 or later | MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite | Hosting with a command line, or a server |
| BookStack | MIT | PHP 8.2 or later, Composer | MariaDB 10.6 or MySQL 8 | A server |
| Wiki.js 2 | GNU AGPL v3 | Node.js 22 or 24 | PostgreSQL recommended | A server |
| XWiki | GNU LGPL 2.1 | Java 21 or 25 | MariaDB, MySQL or PostgreSQL | A server |
DokuWiki
DokuWiki stores every page as a plain text file, so there is no database to set up, back up or upgrade. That makes it the simplest wiki to run and to move: copy the folder and the wiki goes with it. It suits documentation, procedures and technical notes, and a large plugin library adds what it lacks out of the box. The current stable release, "Mort", came out in 2026.
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is the software behind Wikipedia, used by tens of thousands of sites. It is the most powerful of the five for large, heavily linked knowledge bases, with templates, categories and a vast range of extensions. It releases every six months, with a long-term support release every two years; version 1.43 is supported until December 2027, and 1.47, the next long-term release, is planned for November 2026. Its maintenance scripts need command-line access to PHP, so choose a server where you control the command line.
BookStack
BookStack organises knowledge as shelves, books, chapters and pages, which non-technical staff find easy to follow, and has a clean editor with diagrams and page history. Its documentation states that it does not support shared PHP hosting, because installing and updating it needs the command line, Composer and Git. Run it on a server of its own.
Wiki.js
Wiki.js has a modern interface, writing in Markdown or a visual editor, and sign-in through many identity providers. Use version 2, the stable line. Version 3 is in beta and marked not for production use, and it will drop support for MySQL and MariaDB, so PostgreSQL is the database to choose now.
XWiki
XWiki is a Java wiki aimed at larger organisations, with structured data, fine-grained permissions and the ability to build small applications inside the wiki. It needs more resources than the others: its smallest sizing profile, for up to 25 active users, is two processor cores and 2 GB of memory. Its long-term support releases are the ones to run in production.
How to choose
- A small team that wants the least to look after: DokuWiki.
- A large, linked knowledge base, or something like an internal Wikipedia: MediaWiki.
- Staff who are not technical and want a tidy, book-like structure: BookStack.
- A modern editor and sign-in through your existing identity provider: Wiki.js 2.
- Structured data, applications and detailed permissions for a larger organisation: XWiki.
Whichever you choose, check three things before you start: who can read and who can edit, how the wiki is backed up, and how you would export the pages if you ever moved.
Hosting your wiki with Noiz
- DokuWiki runs on any Noiz shared hosting plan. Legacy runs PHP 8.4 and needs nothing more.
- MediaWiki, BookStack, Wiki.js and XWiki run on a Noiz Cloud server, a self-managed Ubuntu or Debian server with full root access, installed by following each project's own documentation.
If you have questions about which plan suits your wiki, get in touch.
Sources
Checked 19 October 2026.
Wikis
- DokuWiki, requirements and downloads
- MediaWiki, installation requirements and version lifecycle
- BookStack, installation and licence
- Wiki.js, Wiki.js 2 requirements and Wiki.js 3 beta
- XWiki, downloads and instance sizing
Noiz
Note: while some of this content was produced with the help of AI, the final editing has been done by a real human being.
