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Tiki vs MediaWiki


MediaWiki is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. Since MediaWiki is so well-known, a frequent question is: What is the difference between MediaWiki and Tiki?

Nobody ever got fired for picking MediaWiki

MediaWiki is the most deployed wiki engine. As such, it enjoys a massive virtuous circle. However, since MediaWiki is primarily developed to run Wikipedia (and your project is not Wikipedia!), it may very well be that MediaWiki is not your best choice. Many people pick MediaWiki just because so many others do. Similar to "Nobody ever got fired for picking IBM", often, people will not go through a proper analysis and consider other wiki engines such as DokuWiki, TWiki, XWiki_old, MoinMoin, etc. Since it's so well-known, you will likely need arguments to explain this. This page is here to help :-)

If you are already using MediaWiki and you are thinking of moving to Tiki, you can use the MediaWiki importer

Video interview from OSCON 2011

Similar

Different

Wiki Matrix

Compare them at http://www.wikimatrix.org/compare/Tiki-Wiki-CMS-Groupware+MediaWiki

Openhub comparison

https://www.openhub.net/p/_compare?project_0=MediaWiki&project_1=Tiki+Wiki+CMS+Groupware&submit_1=Go

Contributors (All Time) click "View as graph"
Commits (All Time) click "View as graph"

About MediaWiki as the de facto standard wiki engine

Evan Prodromou, MediaWiki developer wrote:

So, one thing to note is the great Wiki:TopTenWikiEngines list, which does a nice job of narrowing down the field of contenders for new implementers.

I think choosing MediaWiki as the de facto standard wiki engine is a horrible idea:

  • MediaWiki development has always and will always be focused on Wikipedia.
  • It is difficult to extend.
  • The code is indefensibly badly written. I know – I’ve written quite a bit of it.
  • It is difficult to skin.
  • It requires a database.
  • No WikiWords.
  • It is so slow that it requires tons of Squid server, memory cache add-ons, etc., etc. just to run correctly. The code is developed as if you have all these extra servers available, and if you don’t they’re stubbed out.


That’s not to say that I don’t think that MediaWiki is important for any discussion of wiki technical interaction, but I don’t think MediaWiki is the VHS of the wiki world. I do think that wiki engines should have an easy way to turn on “MediaWiki syntax mode”, so that admins who know they’ll have a WikiPedia-savvy community can easily get started that way. (I think PmWiki 2 will have MediaWiki syntax as an option.) But as we move into the WysiwygWiki era, I think that’s going to be less important.


Source:
http://www.communitywiki.org/TooManyWikiEngines

Opinion of a Wikipedia trainer & consultant

The simple answer is this:

  • Tiki Wiki is designed to meet your needs;
  • MediaWiki is designed to meet the needs of the Wikimedia collection of projects, and heavily rooted in its unique ecosystem.


Source: https://www.quora.com/Which-one-should-I-choose-MediaWiki-or-Tiki-Wiki

Complexity

"It’s great that MediaWiki is so flexible and versatile, but that comes at the price of complexity. It can be troublesome to set up and maintain, which may lead to chronic frustration."
Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-alternatives-mediawiki-hosting-wiki/

Alias

Upcoming Events

1)  21 Mar 2024 18:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting
2)  25 Mar 2024 17:00 GMT-0000
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10)  17 Oct 2024 14:00 GMT-0000
Tiki Roundtable Meeting