Doctave vs MediaWiki
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted wikis & documentation options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Doctave
Markdown documentation site generator with search
VS
MediaWiki
The wiki engine that powers Wikipedia
| Feature | Doctave | MediaWiki |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Wikis & Documentation | Wikis & Documentation |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 669 | ★ 5,135 |
| First released | 2021 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Confluence, GitBook | Confluence, Notion |
Why pick each one
Choose Doctave if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Doctave or MediaWiki better?
Neither is universally better. MediaWiki has the larger community, while Doctave is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Doctave and MediaWiki free and open-source?
Yes. Doctave is licensed under MIT and MediaWiki under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Doctave and MediaWiki with Docker?
Doctave: check the project docs for container support. MediaWiki: yes.