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Finding the right wiki software

Sometimes people ask me what wiki software to use.  The short answer is "I don't know.
Written by Phil Windley, Contributor

Sometimes people ask me what wiki software to use.  The short answer is "I don't know."  But I can't say that.  So usually, I ask these three questions:

  • Are you willing to pay for it?
  • Do you want to host it yourself?
  • Do you want to hack it?

Generally, with that information I can point them at one of the handful of wiki packages I know about. If you're willing to pay, you're usually in a different class than people who want to hack it.  I personally use Kwiki, for example, because I can hack it and because other people hack it, I don't mind hosting it myself, and I'm not willing to pay.    For people who want a professional, hosted tool, I usually recommend SocialText

Today, I found a tool that might help me answer that question for people a little more comprehensively.  WikiMatrix lists 21 wiki packages.  Click the radio buttons next to the one's you're interested in and press the button, you'll get a click comparison matrix that compares the tools on dozens of feature points.   No coverage of commercial (or maybe it's hosted?) wiki packages that I can see (JotSpot and SocialText aren't there, for example).  Even so, this is very useful and I'll be pointing people at it.

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