Which Wiki software?

April 10, 2004 8:43 PM

I'm looking to create a Wiki; actually several. The issue though is this - I don't want to have to do this twice. I tried blogger...and then after about six months I had really seen most of the blogging community/software and saw that Movable Type had the greatest flexibility + future (there was a time where I almost was going to use Greymatter!)

I was hoping with the collective strenght of Mefi - that someone would say:"yeah, this is the best of the bunch...and with a decent future"
posted by filmgeek to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Blogger, MT and Greymatter are weblogging tools -- content management systems, basically.

This is very different from Wikis.

If it's advice on CMS/blogging tools you want, there have been a number of threads already giving advice on that question. If it's actually Wikiware you're looking for, that's a horse of a different colour entirely. There are a multitude of Wiki platforms out there. Hell, I wrote one for fun in .asp a few years back, but someone else might be better able to answer your question about that -- if that's your question.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:23 PM on April 10, 2004

If you're looking for quick and dirty, you just can't do better than CGI::Kwiki. After you install the module - which is a fairly trivial procedure - it literally takes about 15 seconds to set up a new wiki. Not the fullest feature set, but it works just fine for some people.

If that doesn't suit you, just find a wiki that you like - markup and functionality still varies wildly - and use that one. Most of them are free, and pretty easy to set up. MT, as stavros says, is a horse of a completely different color.
posted by majcher at 10:20 PM on April 10, 2004

Thanks....starvos and majcher - I'm not looking to blog.
I'm looking for wiki. I'm pretty clear on the difference.

I'm don't care how difficult it is to set up. (although easier is always better).

I was using the comparison of my experience with blogging to explain I'm looking to cut out the mistake step I make when trying software. I want to do it right out of the gate.
posted by filmgeek at 10:41 PM on April 10, 2004

A list of Wiki software.

I think you should outline what your exact needs are. Is it an intranet wiki? How much programming/technical savvy do you possess? Potentially high traffic/interaction wiki? Only for select group of users? High turnover/expansion of this group of users? Volatile content modification? ...etc
posted by Gyan at 11:01 PM on April 10, 2004

It's not a direct answer to your question... but there's an article over at the WikiBook on starting your own wiki.
posted by silusGROK at 12:25 AM on April 11, 2004

The "standard" wiki is probably the software wikipedia uses: mediawiki. It might be a bit feature-rich, though.

Last time I was looking around for wikis I had trouble finding anything that was exactly what I wanted. If you know PHP or a similar language, it's not too difficult to make your own reasonably quickly.
posted by reklaw at 6:01 AM on April 11, 2004

blogger Movable Type Greymatter

- I'm not looking to blog.
I'm looking for wiki. I'm pretty clear on the difference.

if you were so clear, why have you only mentioned blogging software.
if we are comparing to horses, wikis are thorughbreds and blogs are diseased ponies whose time has past.
depending on the type of wiki(s) you want, there are a million different variants for it. mediawiki is availible and what powers wikipedia, kwiki as maj points out is the easiest wiki to setup, phearwiki is the most unique, etc.
be more specific and know what you aren't talking about next time.
posted by the aloha at 6:49 AM on April 11, 2004

as far as i know, there is no emerging standard wiki - perhaps partly because the basic idea is pretty simple (more so than a cms, i think). a few years ago everyone was writing the damn things.

at work we use twiki, but i'd not heard of it before they installed it.

you could try going to freshmeat and sorting by popularity, assuming that the most popular ones are listed there.

i suspect they're still evolving, as people try to find a way to merge more features into the basic idea. so it might be worth reading around and seeing if any "special features" make one solution particularly useful. imho some kind of fusion of wiki and blog-like features is necessary for many sites, so that the "front page" is more interesting.

(i thought your question was pretty clear, btw...)
posted by andrew cooke at 9:06 AM on April 11, 2004

I don't know PHP...I'm looking for something preconfigured.

It's going to be a high interaction wiki - probably open, but needing registrations. Volatile content modification, but with content that needs a once over after changes.

Wiki software - Wikipedia

See that? too many. Which is best?
posted by filmgeek at 3:17 PM on April 11, 2004

This might also be helpful.
posted by ajr at 8:15 PM on April 11, 2004

I'm looking for wiki. I'm pretty clear on the difference.

if you were so clear, why have you only mentioned blogging software.

I think he was trying to create an analogy between his experience with weblog software and the experience he hopes to avoid with Wikis... ie, he tried a popular, prominent choice when he started weblogging, and it turned out he saw it as inferior to another choice he made later.

The problem is choice.
posted by namespan at 8:23 PM on April 11, 2004

I've put up several Wiki sites, and after much research (and the same frustrations), I settled on WakkaWiki as my weapon of choice.
posted by oissubke at 9:07 PM on April 11, 2004