XWiki

What XWiki does

XWiki is a long-established enterprise wiki written in Java, developed by an open source community together with the French company XWiki SAS. At first sight it is a wiki with a WYSIWYG editor, page history and real-time co-editing, which has been part of the standard distribution since version 16.2. Underneath, it is closer to an application platform: pages can hold structured data and scripts, and the Extension Manager installs ready-made applications such as blogs, forums, meeting notes and task lists.

That depth is why XWiki is often used for intranets and as a replacement for Confluence in larger organizations. One installation can host several independent sub-wikis, rights can be set on a single page, a branch of pages or a whole wiki, and pages can be translated into several languages. Notifications and RSS feeds keep people informed about changes.

Moving from Confluence and Office

XWiki can import Office documents, Excel and CSV files and content from other wikis, and export to PDF, ODT, RTF, XML or HTML. XWiki SAS offers a Confluence migration toolkit and a paid migration service. A REST API is available for custom integrations.

Self-hosting XWiki

There are several production install paths: official Docker images, .deb packages for Debian-based systems, and a .war file to deploy in a servlet container such as Tomcat. A standalone package with Jetty and the HSQLDB database exists for testing only. In production you need Java (version 21 for current 18.x releases, 17 or 21 for the 17.10 long-term support release), a servlet container and a relational database such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or Oracle.

Search uses an embedded Solr by default; for large wikis the docs suggest a separate Solr instance. As a sizing reference, the docs note that XWiki SAS gives its own cloud instances 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of disk by default. Long-term support releases are maintained alongside the current branch, which suits organizations that upgrade on a fixed schedule.

Hosted version

XWiki SAS runs XWiki Cloud, hosted with OVH, with a free trial. xwiki.org also mentions free hosting on myxwiki.org for individuals and non-profits. Support contracts are sold separately.

Limitations

XWiki is heavier to run than Node.js or PHP wikis: Java, a servlet container, a database and Solr all need care. The interface and administration offer many options, which makes it more complex for small teams that only want pages. Some extensions are paid Pro applications from XWiki SAS. There are no desktop or mobile note apps; it is a server wiki. Issues are tracked in XWiki’s own Jira rather than on GitHub.

Who it suits

XWiki suits organizations that need a full intranet wiki with fine-grained rights, sub-wikis for departments or customers, structured data and a vendor that offers support, hosting and a Confluence migration path. Smaller teams that want a lighter setup should compare BookStack, Wiki.js and Docmost. See also our alternatives to Confluence.