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A wiki hosting service, or wiki farm, is a server or an array of servers that offers users tools to simplify the creation and development of individual, independent wikis.
Prior to wiki farms, someone who wanted to operate a wiki had to install the software and manage the server(s) themselves. With a wiki farm, the farm's administration installs the core wiki code once on its own servers, centrally maintains the servers, and establishes unique space on the servers for the content of each individual wiki with the shared core code executing the functions of each wiki.
Both commercial and non-commercial wiki farms are available for users and online communities. While most of the wiki farms allow anyone to open their own wiki, some impose restrictions. Many wiki farm companies generate revenue through the insertion of advertisements, but often allow payment of a monthly fee as an alternative to accepting ads.
Some examples of wiki hosting services are: Fandom, a for-profit wiki-hosting service created by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley Starling in 2004,[1][2] and Miraheze, a non-profit wiki-hosting service created by John Lewis and Ferran Tufan.[3]
This comparison of wiki hosting services or wiki farms is not comprehensive, it details only those 'notable' enough (in Wikipedia terms) to be included. A useful comprehensive comparison of wiki farms can be found on MediaWiki's site, at mw:Hosting services.
Online services which host wiki-style editable web pages. General characteristics of cost, presence of advertising, licensing are compared, as are technical differences in editing, features, wiki engine, multilingual support and syntax support.
This table compares general information for several of the more than 100 wiki hosting services that exist.[4]
All the mentioned services have WYSIWYG editing.
| Wiki hosting service | Founded | Cost | Ad supported | Content license | Subdomain | Custom themes | Database download / backup | Other Features | Base wiki engine | Language | Syntax support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Confluence Hosted | 2004
|
Non-free[a] | ? | No | ? | ? | Plugins, SSL, file storage, permissioning, WebDAV. | WYSIWYG Rich-text editor[5] script plugin No formulas | |||
| iMeet Central | 2005
|
Non-free | ? | No | ? | ? | Access control, full-text search, calendaring, single sign-on to multiple projects, project templates, RSS enabled. | [?] (custom) | HTML,[4] CSS/templating No formulas | ||
| Ourproject.org | 2002
|
Free | No[6] | Copyleft (choice of Creative Commons, GNU FDL, other licenses) | Yes | ? | ? | Mailing lists, FTP, SSH, ddbb, email alias, backups, CVS/SVN, forums, task management. | MoinMoin by default; custom supported | Supports English, Spanish, French, and many other languages. | |
| PBworks | 2005
|
Non-free | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No page limits, SSL, RSS & Atom, email notifications, file management, page access settings. | [?] (custom) | All HTML,[4] JavaScript, LaTeX formulas | ||
| Fandom | 2004
|
Free | Yes | Creative Commons | Yes, but not for multilingual wikis | Yes | Yes | Common login and common preferences to all wikis of FANDOM for the same user. Blog, User Page, and User Talk pages for users. | MediaWiki | All languages Wikipedia exists for (and some more); Community Support in English, Chinese, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and several other languages.[citation needed] | Wikitext as used by MediaWiki, Some HTML,[4] JavaScript, Math formula, Lua |
This section is for hosts that were previously in the list above but no longer are up and running.