MediaWiki
| MediaWiki | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Type | Wiki software |
| Initial release | 2002 |
| Operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Written in | PHP, JavaScript |
| License | GPL 2.0+ |
| Website | mediawiki.org |
| Contents | |
MediaWiki is the open-source wiki software powering Wikipedia and thousands of enterprise knowledge bases worldwide. It is developed and maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and a large community of contributors.
Key Features
- Wikitext and visual editor for content authoring
- Extensive extension ecosystem (thousands of extensions available)
- Powerful categorization and linking system
- Full revision history with diff and rollback
- User and permission management
- Semantic MediaWiki and Wikibase extensions for structured data
- Multi-language support
Enterprise Use
MediaWiki is widely used in enterprise environments for internal knowledge bases, technical documentation, and collaborative encyclopedias. Its scalability is proven at Wikipedia scale. Extensions such as Semantic MediaWiki add structured data capabilities, enabling wikis to function as lightweight knowledge graphs. Wikibase goes further, providing a full entity-statement data model with a SPARQL endpoint, used by organisations building sovereign knowledge graphs. NeoWiki is a next-generation structured data extension in development that aims to make these capabilities accessible to non-technical users.
Tips
- Use categories and templates to maintain consistency across large wikis.
- Install the VisualEditor extension to lower the barrier to contribution for non-technical users.
- Use namespaces to separate different types of content (articles, documentation, project pages).
- Regular database maintenance and caching configuration are important for performance at scale.
Managed Hosting and Services
Professional Wiki specialises in enterprise MediaWiki deployments. They offer managed hosting via ProWiki (a self-service SaaS platform) and DockerWiki (dedicated managed hosting), as well as consulting, extension development, migrations, and the AI Assistant extension that adds RAG-based AI question answering to any MediaWiki wiki.
