Gollum 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?
Gollum
A simple, Git-powered wiki with a sweet API
VS
MediaWiki
The wiki engine that powers Wikipedia
| Feature | Gollum | MediaWiki |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Wikis & Documentation | Wikis & Documentation |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,308 | ★ 5,135 |
| First released | 2010 | 2002 |
| Replaces | Confluence, Notion | Confluence, Notion |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Gollum or MediaWiki better?
Neither is universally better. Gollum has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Gollum and MediaWiki free and open-source?
Yes. Gollum is licensed under MIT and MediaWiki under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Gollum and MediaWiki with Docker?
Gollum: yes. MediaWiki: yes.