SHSelfHostIndex

Gollum vs PmWiki

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?
GO Gollum A simple, Git-powered wiki with a sweet API VS PM PmWiki Wiki-based system for collaborative creation and maintenance of
FeatureGollumPmWiki
CategoryWikis & DocumentationWikis & Documentation
LicenseMITGPL-3.0
LanguageRubyPHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbinary, docker, sourcebare-metal
GitHub stars★ 14,308—
First released20102020
ReplacesConfluence, Notion—

Why pick each one

Choose Gollum if…

  • Pages are plain files in Git
  • Easy version control
Gollum details

Choose PmWiki if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Written in PHP
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
PmWiki details

Frequently asked questions

Is Gollum or PmWiki 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 PmWiki free and open-source?

Yes. Gollum is licensed under MIT and PmWiki under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Gollum and PmWiki with Docker?

Gollum: yes. PmWiki: check the project docs for container support.

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