PmWiki

Since I started digging into the wiki world, I tried various engines like MediaWiki or TWiki. All of them are good, complex enough to stay in front of the your computer over nights, and powerful. But on a web design point of view, most of them are more rigid than PmWiki. It's the only one I know able to deal with a quite long list of features and to offer easy customizable templates. Without I would never have developed Playgreen.org [1] and Traduwiki.org [2].

[1] http://playgreen.org
[2] http://traduwiki.org

The PmWiki engine is the most flexible and powerful system to process markup for a wiki I have seen. The way PHP is leveraged in the core markup system is ingenious.

It is very easy to customize and integrate into third party applications. The codebase is small and very well documented and there are lots of plugins.

Don't let the plain look and feel fool you. This is a serious tool for serious developers. There is nothing I was not able to change the way I needed it to work with very little effort.

If you do want to make your own customizations that go further than just tweaking some plugins and the look and feel of your wiki you do need to spend some time understanding how the internals work. If you don't understand how it works you will be stabbing in the dark when it comes to resolving mark-up conflicts.

After reading "The Wiki Way" by Ward Cunningham in 2004 I started looking for a "good" wiki engine. After a while I decided to try PmWiki -- and never regretted that choice. I use it for a couple of websites (private and public ones).

What I like most about PmWiki is its flexibility (as a PHP novice I managed to sketch one or two extensions (aka recipes) within a couple of hours) and the outstanding support via its mailing list (one of the most delightful lists I've subscribed).

I had looked at the various wiki engines available but was disappointed at the complexity and learning curve of most of them - I'm just not SQL-friendly.

I installed PmWiki on my in-house network and found it to be the best wiki I've ever used. PmWiki installation was quick and easy and allows me to have a powerful yet very user-friendly wiki without all the hassle of some of the other wiki's that are out there. PmWiki is easy to use and its text formatting rules are easy to learn. Couple that with skinning ability, add-ons, security, a search facility and more and you've got one great wiki.

I've been looking for a Wiki package for ages, but they all seemed so complicated to set and I just didn't like the layout they displayed.
After a short time playing with PmWiki, I've managed to get it installed and looking how I want it to.
Now to add content....

I use it instead of a CMS system, and haven't looked back.

It's a good mix of power and simplicity. There's a very large, active, diverse and helpful user community. All changes are well thought out (aka debated).

Installation and upgrades are easy. It works five minutes out of the box, and is easy to modify on the fly. Recipes are straight-forward to install.

NONE BETTER-- enough said. Thanks PM and everyone involved with this project.