Half the software filed under "wiki" is not a wiki. MkDocs, Docusaurus, and Read the Docs are documentation generators: pages live as Markdown in a Git repository, edits arrive as commits, and the output is a static site with no server-side logic at all. A true wiki — MediaWiki, Gollum — is edited in the browser by whoever shows up. One question sorts you onto the right side: will people who don't use Git ever need to write a page?

How to choose a wiki engine

Three axes decide it. First, who edits: if everyone writes through pull requests, a generator like MkDocs (22,376 stars, runs happily in 128 MB) gives you review, history, and rollback for free, because it's all just Git. If your colleagues in support or HR need an edit button, you need browser editing, which means a real wiki engine. Second, what the content is: versioned product documentation wants Docusaurus (66,083 stars), which has versioning and internationalization built in; a living internal knowledge base wants a wiki; a personal notebook is better served by the notes category or TiddlyWiki. Third, operational appetite: a static site needs a web server and nothing else, MediaWiki needs PHP plus a database, and self-hosting Read the Docs is genuinely hard — 2 GB of RAM minimum and a build pipeline to babysit.

Where to start

MkDocs with the Material theme is the fastest route to a professional docs site for a technical team: one YAML file, Markdown pages, a built-in preview server, done in an afternoon. MediaWiki (512 MB, PHP) is the pick when dozens of non-technical contributors need to edit collaboratively — it runs Wikipedia, so scale will never be your problem. Docusaurus wins for open-source projects that ship versioned docs alongside releases, provided you're comfortable with Node tooling and don't need web-based editing.

The trap: picking Wikipedia's engine for five people

MediaWiki's pedigree tempts small teams, and it's usually a mistake at that size. Wikitext has a real learning curve, the extension ecosystem needs ongoing maintenance, and you inherit an admin burden designed for sites with millions of pages. A five-person team that wants browser editing gets 90% of the value from Gollum — every page is a file in a Git repo, 14,318 stars, no database — at a fraction of the upkeep. Save MediaWiki for the day you have fifty contributors and a gardening rota.

For a first-timer with a technical team, start with MkDocs. It's the easiest install in the category, the content is plain Markdown you can migrate anywhere later, and outgrowing it costs you nothing but a copy of the files.

Curated picks

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Wikis & Documentation comparisons

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