Are you looking for a free open source wiki software for Windows? Here is a full list of the best free open-source wiki software that you can use to collaboratively create, modify, organize, and maintain web pages.
A wiki software enables multiple users to work on web pages and edit content online. It can be used by individuals, teams, organizations, and communities to create, edit, and share knowledge hubs of relevant topics. Now, these are wiki software that can be used to do the same for free. Plus, all these software are open source which means you can access, download, and manipulate the source code of these wiki software without any restrictions.
All these wiki software have some basic requirements to run. You need a web hosting server like XAMPP, WAMP, and others to work. Plus, you need a web browser to run most of these software. You can see the exact system requirements for each software on their respective websites.
These wiki software let the site administrator add multiple users to edit web pages. You get standard editing features with customization tools. It makes it easy to generate web pages with text, images, files, etc. You can create articles, blogs, websites, knowledge bases, FAQs, essays, novels, and many other types of content. Easy navigation options, table of content creations, fast search options, revision history, and many other handy features are provided in these software.
You also get security features in these open source wiki software. Administrators can assign specific access control permissions to users. Plus, a feature to protect against spam is also available in most software. In some software, you can also export your web pages to files like HTML, PDF, JSON, etc. Let us check out the list now.
Free Open Source Wiki software for Windows 11/10
Here is a list of the best free open source wiki software for Windows 11/10 that you can use to collaboratively create, edit, and organize web pages:
- PmWiki
- MediaWiki
- DokuWiki
- Zim
- Tiki
- TiddlyWiki
Let us discuss the features of the above-listed wiki software.
1] PmWiki
PmWiki is a free open source wiki software for Windows 11/10. It is basically a wiki-based content-management system (CMS) that provides you with an environment to collaboratively create, edit, organize, and maintain web pages.
To use it, you don’t need to have an understanding of HTML or CSS language. You can start editing or adding new pages to a website just by using its simple editing rules. It provides an Edit option using which you can modify the content of a web page using it. Let us now check out the main features of this open source wiki software.
Main Features:
For data storage, it uses an ASCII file system, Besides that, some other common features include page previewing, minor changes, change summary, page indexing, Page History and Revision Differentials. full-text searching, etc.
You can also add pages to different categories, sort pages into distinct namespaces, use page redirection, create customized page list formats, and do more. A lot of syntax features are also available in it such as HTML Tags, Math formulas, Tables, Markdown Support, Emoticon Images, Syntax Highlighting, FAQ Tags, Quoting, etc. Most of these features can be enabled by using plugins.
Some linking features like free links, backlinks, and image links are also provided in it. You also can view various statistics related to web pages like Recent Visitors, Most/Least Popular Pages, Orphaned Pages, Wanted Pages, etc.
XHTML 1.0 Transitional output, CSS style sheets, HTML Export, XML Export, PDF Export, and ATOM, Dublin, and RSS Feeds are some nice output features that you can use in it.
It provides great access control features. Using these features, the site administrator can password-protect an entire website, groups of webpages, or separate webpages. This basically enables a website owner to control who can read pages, edit pages, and upload attachments. It works with password databases like LDAP servers, .htaccess, and MySQL databases.
You also get more security features in it including a Spam protection function. This lets you filter out spam by using various methods including blocking words, IP addresses, limiting the quantity of non-approved URLs, encrypting email IDs, etc. Access Control Lists and User Authentication are
It offers multiple Skins and HTML templates using which the site administrator can easily customize the look & feel as well as the functions of the software.
This wiki software also supports plugins/ extensions called recipes. These extensions help you extend its feature set and add hundreds more functions to it. Many of the above-mentioned features require you to enable the required plugin to use them.
It is a great feature-rich wiki software that is also easy to use. You can get it here.
Read: How to use Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine.
2] MediaWiki
MediaWiki is another nice free and open source wiki software for Windows 11/10. This software allows you to edit and manage Wikipedia pages and various other websites. As it claims, this PHP-based wiki software is used by thousands of active websites, companies, and organizations. It is multilingual that allows you to create pages in multiple languages.
Key Features of MediaWiki:
You can use various handy features to maintain your web pages. For example, easy navigation, editing, formatting, and referencing options, features to customize the look & feel of pages, content management and sharing, etc. You can also upload images or audio files. Apart from that, it provides options like full-text search, multimedia support, extensions support, etc.
You can also view special report pages that include a list of newly created articles, images, and users, orphaned articles, orphaned images, popular articles, most wanted articles, etc.
It offers a basic editor with standard text customization features like bold, italic, internal link, external link, headline, etc. You can also use its built-in preview option to have a look at the output page. And if all s good, you can use the save changes to the created/ edited page. It also offers a handy Change User Groups feature. Besides that, you can also use options like Special Pages and Page Information.
You can also keep a track of modifications done using various related features. These features include Watchlist, User contributions, Extended recent changes, Side-by-side differences, Related changes, and On-page credits.
From the security point of view, it provides a lot of good security features. You can assign distinct rights and access controls to signed-in users, anonymous users, sysops, bureaucrats, and developers. It also provides protection against spam and vandalism.
It is another good free open source wiki software that can be downloaded from mediawiki.org.
Read: Best Free Mind Mapping software for Windows.
3] DokuWiki
DokuWiki is free open source wiki and knowledge base software for Windows 11/10. This software is used for multiple purposes that include creating a private notebook, project workplaces, software manuals, etc. You can use it as a Content Management System (CMS).
This software lets you insert HTML syntax into your pages and use standard text customization tools like standard tools like Bold, Italic, Internal Link, External Link, etc. You can also add your media files, edit each section of a web page, categorize your content in namespaces, customize Interwiki links, and do much more. It also supports unlimited page revisions and comes with CamelCase support. You can use its Automatic save feature to avoid losing edited data accidentally.
It provides you with fast lookup and rendering features including index-based full-text search, page caching, and Ajax-enhanced Interface. Also, it automatically generates a table of content. Easy navigation, Locking, Easy Toolbar and Accesskeys, layout templates, RSS or ATOM feeds, Authentication Backends (LDAP, MySQL, Postgres, etc.), and support for more than 50 languages are some other features that make editing web pages simple.
It also offers security features that include Access Control and Anti-Spam Measures. Extended Access Control Lists, Spam blacklist, Delayed Indexing, Mail address obfuscation, and rel=nofollow support features are provided in it.
All in all, it is a nice and simple wiki and knowledge base software. You can download it from here.
Read: Best free eBook Editor software for Windows 11/10.
4] Zim
If you want to use free open source personal wiki software, then try Zim. Using it, you can view, edit, and manage locally saved wiki pages on your PC. It has a multi-tab interface that enables you to work on several pages at once.
To edit and format pages, you can use standard editing tools that include Headings, Bullet Lists, Numbered Lists, Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, etc. Besides that, you can insert images, import text from files, and do more. Find, Find Next, Find Previous, and Search Backlink are some search options that you get in this software.
It allows you to export a single page or multiple pages to different file formats. these output formats include HTML, MHTML, Latex, Markdown, and RST. You can further extend its feature set using various plugins like Arithmetic, Attachment Browser, BackLinks Pane, BookmarksBar, Command Palette, Diagram Editor, Distraction Free Editing, Sequence Diagram Editor, and many more.
It is a basic wiki software that allows you to organize and maintain a collection of wiki pages. You can download it from its official website.
Read: How to create an eBook from Wikipedia?
5] Tiki
The next free open source wiki software on this list is Tiki. Just like other software, this one also enables you to edit, create, and organize web pages effortlessly. You can use it even if you have little to no knowledge of HTML language. It is very user-friendly and provides collaboration features to edit web pages in teams. You can create forums, articles, blogs, and other types of web pages through it.
You can make use of Wiki Syntax to edit your pages. It also lets you insert graphics and attach other types of files to pages. Besides that, you can add wiki links to Tiki Sites, External Wiki Links, and Web Links to your web pages. It provides features to export pages to PDF files and to directly print the pages.
If there is a modification done to pages by other users, it notifies you the same via email. Overall, it is another good free wiki software that you can consider using.
See: Search Wikipedia, Google from Windows Start Search Box.
6] TiddlyWiki
TiddlyWiki is yet another free open source wiki software for Windows. It is mainly designed to be used as a non-linear web notebook software that allows you to organize and share information. It has multiple use cases including articles, blogs, to-do lists, essays, novels, etc. The good thing is that it comes in a portable package.
It provides a simple editor that makes editing web pages very easy. You can use different functions to modify or create pages like Tag, Content Type (HTML, Plain Text, Image, etc.), User Fields (Author, Dependents, Current Tiddler, etc.), and more. It offers a Set Password function to password-protect your web pages.
You can also locally save your web pages in different formats. CSV, JSON, and HTML are some of the supported output formats in it.
It comes with a Control Panel Settings feature using which you can customize the software as per your need. If you want to use it, you can download it from here.
Hope this post helps you get a suitable free open source wiki software for PC.
Read: How to use Wikipedia in Microsoft Word?
What is the best tool for creating free online private wikis?
For creating online private wikis for free, you can use software called Zim. It is a desktop application that enables you to create and organize personal wikis. We have mentioned its features in detail which you can check out in this guide. Apart from that, PmWiki is one of the best free open source wiki software that you can use for collaboratively editing, creating, and maintaining web pages. Besides that, MediaWiki and DokuWiki are some other open source wiki software that are really good. These wiki software provide simple editing features, various security functions, multiple export options, customizable skins, and many more handy features.
Is Wikipedia software open-source?
If you are looking for a free open source wiki software, there are software like PmWiki, MediaWiki, DokuWiki, and Zim. There are some more open source wiki software that you can check out in this post. It is recommended to check them all one after one before opting for one permanently.
Now read: Best GitHub Alternatives for hosting your open source project.
