Wiki software is a type of
collaborative software that runs a
wiki system. This typically allows web pages to be created and edited using a common
web browser. It 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 stored in a
relational database management system.
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Web-based
The first such system was created by
Ward Cunningham in
1995[1], but given the relative simplicity of the wiki concept, a large number of implementations now exist, ranging from very simple "
hacks" implementing only core functionality to highly sophisticated
content management systems. The primary difference between wikis and more complex types of content management systems is that wiki software tends to focus on the content, at the expense of the more powerful control over layout seen in Content Management Software (CMS) like
Drupal,
WebGUI, and
Joomla! or at the expense of non-wiki features (news articles, blogs,..) like those in
TikiWiki CMS/Groupware (which is a Wiki-CMS hybrid). "Wiki software" could be taken as comprising all of the software required to run a wiki, which might include a
web server such as
Apache, in addition to the
Wiki engine itself, which implements the wiki technology. In some cases the web server and wiki engine are bundled together as one self-contained system, which can often make them easier to install. The majority of engines are
open source/free software, often available under the
GNU General Public License (GPL); large engines such as
PmWiki,
TWiki, TikiWiki CMS/Groupware and the Wikipedia engine,
MediaWiki, are developed collaboratively. Many wikis are highly modular, providing
APIs which allow programmers to develop new features without requiring them to be familiar with the entire
codebase. It is hard to determine which wiki engines are the most popular, although a list of lead candidates include TWiki,
MoinMoin,
PmWiki,
DokuWiki and
MediaWiki (
Google trend history comparison). TWiki,
Traction TeamPage and
Atlassian Confluence are popular on
intranets. TikiWiki CMS/Groupware is a popular Wiki-CMS hybrid. A list of some of those available is included below, and another can be found at
Wiki:WikiEngines.