Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Foswiki VS BookStack

Compare Foswiki VS BookStack and see what are their differences

Foswiki logo Foswiki

Foswiki is the free and open source enterprise collaboration platform.

BookStack logo BookStack

An open source knowledge management application that's focused on ease of use.
  • Foswiki Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-28
  • BookStack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-31

Foswiki features and specs

  • Open Source
    Foswiki is an open-source platform, meaning that it is free to use and its source code can be modified and customized to meet specific needs.
  • Extensible
    Foswiki offers a flexible plugin architecture, allowing users to extend its functionality with a wide variety of available plugins.
  • Robust Permissions
    It provides robust access control and permissions settings, enabling secure management of user roles and content access.
  • Version Control
    Versioning capabilities allow tracking changes over time, making it easy to revert to previous states of a document or page.
  • Active Community
    There is a supportive and active community around Foswiki, offering help, extensions, and regular updates.
  • Platform Independent
    Foswiki can be installed on any server that supports Perl, making it platform-independent and versatile for different environments.

Possible disadvantages of Foswiki

  • Complex Setup
    The installation and setup process can be complex, especially for users not familiar with Perl or server configurations.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Users may encounter a steep learning curve due to its broad feature set and extensive customization options.
  • Outdated Interface
    Some users find the default user interface outdated and not as intuitive or modern as other wiki solutions.
  • Performance Issues
    There might be performance issues with large-scale deployments, requiring optimization or additional resources.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    While extensible, Foswiki's core installation has fewer built-in features compared to competitors, relying heavily on plugins.
  • Maintenance Overhead
    Regular maintenance is required to ensure security and compatibility with plugins, which can be resource-intensive.

BookStack features and specs

  • Open Source
    BookStack is an open-source platform, meaning it is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to. This ensures a large community support and continuous updates.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The software has a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy for users of all skill levels to create and manage documentation.
  • Integrated WYSIWYG Editor
    The application includes a built-in 'What You See Is What You Get' editor, making it simple to format text and add multimedia without HTML knowledge.
  • Permission Management
    BookStack offers granular permission settings, which allow administrators to control access on a per-page, book, or shelf level.
  • Customizable
    With open-source software, the level of customization available is high, allowing organizations to tailor the software to their specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of BookStack

  • Hosting and Maintenance
    As an open-source product, users need to handle their own hosting and maintenance, which could be challenging for those without technical expertise.
  • Limited Integrations
    BookStack does not natively integrate with as many third-party applications compared to some proprietary knowledge management systems.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, setting up and customizing the platform may require a learning curve, especially for those unfamiliar with open-source software.
  • Performance
    In some instances, performance issues have been reported, especially when handling a large volume of data or concurrent users.
  • Feature Limitations
    Some advanced features found in proprietary knowledge management systems, such as advanced analytics or AI-driven search, may be lacking.

Foswiki videos

Lonely Data vs Linked Data (with Foswiki)

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial - How to create a new user
  • Tutorial - Vadim Belman - "Foswiki, And How To Redesign 20 Years Old Code"
  • Review - Introduction to Foswiki - The free and open source Wiki
  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial on how to create, edit and control a new topic
  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial on how to create, edit and control a new topic

BookStack videos

BookStack Review- 7 Brief Lessons in Physics

More videos:

  • Review - Bookstack, a free, open source, self hosted documentation wiki with style.
  • Review - Bookstack - Meine favorisierte Wiki Software

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Foswiki and BookStack)
Note Taking
43 43%
57% 57
WiKis
38 38%
62% 62
Knowledge Base
18 18%
82% 82
Content Collaboration
36 36%
64% 64

User comments

Share your experience with using Foswiki and BookStack. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Foswiki and BookStack

Foswiki Reviews

We have no reviews of Foswiki yet.
Be the first one to post

BookStack Reviews

Best Gitbook Alternatives You Need to Try in 2023
Bookstack is a simple, self-hosted platform for organizing and storing information, focusing on creating a knowledge base. It is similar to Gitbook in its functionality but differs in how it is organized and presented. It allows you to collect information in a hierarchical structure, similar to a book, with chapters and sections. This can make it easier to navigate large...
Source: www.archbee.com
The 10 Best Self-hosted Wiki Software for Linux System
Another powerful self-hosted Wiki software for Linux is BookStack. One of the most attractive features of BookStack is its cross-book sorting capability. It can sort all books based on tags such as title, author name, publisher, and genre. Users can even use it to search for particular titles based on a keyword. Other features of this open-source software include image...
Best 11 Open-source Free Wiki Engines for teams and enterprise in 2022
The BookStack App is not just a Wiki Engine, but it works the same. It aims for creating books by easing collaboration among writers and editors, we run it for us and some clients as a Wiki Engine, where they use books as projects.
Source: medevel.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Foswiki should be more popular than BookStack. It has been mentiond 5 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Foswiki mentions (5)

  • Otter Wiki: A minimalistic wiki powered by Python, Markdown and git
    Do you know a wiki where one can add metadata to the pages? I used https://foswiki.org and it was great for combining structured and non structured information. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Making a Company Directory
    Use FOSWiki. It's best suited for a corporate intranet, but has a learning curve. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Software for an organization, think 'teams' and 'sharepoint'
    The best software around is FOSWiki, which is an enterprise wiki with numerous plugins, eg for taking meeting notes, setting up workflows, searching, appending files to wiki pages, etc. The only drawback is that it comes as a blank page, but there are foswiki consultants available for this job. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Does anyone else create cooking "plans" before a large meal? What's that called?
    I host my own instance of https://foswiki.org/ on my home linux box. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Recommendations: Standard Compliance Audit software
    Use an enterprise wiki with forms and workflows. A lot of work to customise the system, but if you use FOSwiki, you can use pattern matching queries to extract the standards from the text of a page (eg from documentation), having the advantage that whenever you edit the documentation, the standards (and questions) change automatically ;-) You should think about versioning, though. Source: almost 4 years ago

BookStack mentions (3)

  • Customize the theme a bit?
    That said, is it possible to customize the theme a bit? Specifically, how can I set the code-block background to dark-grey? Also, how can I make the horizontal line a bit taller than 1px? I saw the Customizing Visuals page on bookstackapp.com (specifically the "Changing Code Block Themes" topic) but was a little lost on exactly how to make the changes. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Looking to move internal docs from share Onenote to.. ?
    Maybe look at BookStack to see if it fits your needs. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Self hosting WordPress website
    If you’re looking for a books-styled documentation platform, look into https://bookstackapp.com. Source: over 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Foswiki and BookStack, you can also consider the following products

WackoWiki - WackoWiki is a light and easy to install multilingual Wiki-engine.

DokuWiki - DokuWiki is a simple to use and highly versatile Open Source wiki software that doesn't require a database.

TiddlyWiki - a non-linear personal web notebook

MediaWiki - MediaWiki is a free software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia.

Wiki.js - An open source, modern and powerful wiki app built on Node.js, Git, and Markdown.

XWiki - A powerful Open Source collaborative platform enhancing collaboration and communication.