MediaWiki vs Otter Wiki
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted wikis & documentation options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | MediaWiki | Otter Wiki |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Wikis & Documentation | Wikis & Documentation |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,174 | ★ 1,544 |
| First released | 2002 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Confluence, Notion | Confluence, Notion |
What are MediaWiki and Otter Wiki?
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is the free, open-source wiki software developed for and used by Wikipedia. It is built to handle large collaborative knowledge bases with powerful templating, extensions, and revision history.
- Powers Wikipedia at scale
- Powerful template system
- Vast extension library
- Full revision history
Otter Wiki
Otter Wiki is a minimalistic open-source wiki that stores its pages as Markdown in a Git repository. It offers a simple web interface with editing, history, and search for small teams.
- Git-backed Markdown pages
- Built-in history and diffs
- Full-text search
- Minimalist interface
MediaWiki vs Otter Wiki: key differences
MediaWiki is written in PHP, while Otter Wiki is built with Python. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for MediaWiki versus MIT for Otter Wiki. Otter Wiki is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for MediaWiki. MediaWiki is the more established project (first released 2002), while Otter Wiki arrived in 2021. MediaWiki has the considerably larger community, at 5,174 GitHub stars versus 1,544.
Why pick each one
Choose MediaWiki if…
- Battle-tested at massive scale
- Huge extension ecosystem
Watch out for
- Wikitext has a learning curve
- Setup can be involved
Choose Otter Wiki if…
- Easy to host and back up
- Clean, simple UI
Watch out for
- Basic feature set
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is MediaWiki or Otter Wiki better?
Neither is universally better. MediaWiki has the larger community, while Otter Wiki is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are MediaWiki and Otter Wiki free and open-source?
Yes. MediaWiki is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Otter Wiki under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run MediaWiki and Otter Wiki with Docker?
MediaWiki: yes. Otter Wiki: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, MediaWiki or Otter Wiki?
Otter Wiki has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for MediaWiki. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.