Choosing a wiki package is impossible unless you know what you are looking for. Ask yourself the following questions to help you choose a wiki package that will suit you right now and as your wiki evolves.
Is a free wiki package essential at the moment?
Many wiki packages offer a free option. This is usually a trimmed down version of the paid options with less storage and less options for customisation. In most cases, the companies hope the free option will hook you into upgrading to a paid option.
If you do want a free option at the moment, don’t just compare the free options of various wiki packages. You should look to the future and make sure that paid upgrades of the wiki package you choose can accommodate your future needs.
Hosted paid options can cost as little as five dollars per month with the ability to cancel any time you like. This may well be a price worth paying if you get the features you want.
Some wiki packages offer special rates for non-profit organizations.
Do you need a wiki package, which includes hosting?
Using a hosted wiki package frees you from the responsibility of maintaining the integrity and security of your data. On the other hand, if this is of extreme importance, you may not want to trust it to someone else. If you do use a hosted package, you will probably want to be able to download a backup of your data to your own computer.
Is WYSIWYG editing essential?
WYSIWYG editing may be essential to you, especially if non-technical or occasional users will be contributing to your wiki. The original wikis were edited using a simple markup language and many wikis continue this tradition. Wiki markup is easy to use and certainly has not slowed the development of Wikipedia, which still uses it.
Try out markup language by making a simple edit on Wikipedia or visit their sandbox to play around. Then consider the target audience for your wiki. Will they feel comfortable using this or should you stick to a wiki package that has WYSIWYG editing?
Is your own domain name a must?
Not all hosted wiki packages allow you to use your own domain name, such as: www.mychoice.com. Most will provide you with a sub-domain name, such as: www.mychoice.wikiprovider.com.
This may be an important consideration for you. Or maybe not.
Do you want full control over the look and feel of your wiki?
Getting full control over the look and feel of a wiki requires access to the underlying code, in particular (x)html and CSS. This may not seem important to you when you first start out but, if you get serious about your wiki, you will almost certainly want to start digging into the code.
How finely do you want to be able to assign permissions to your wiki?
Most wiki packages will give you some control over who can read, edit or create pages on your wiki. This is essential; otherwise, your wiki will soon be overwhelmed by spam and vandalism.
Access to wikis is controlled by assigning permissions. For example you might want to give everyone permission to read your wiki and comment on your pages, allow particular individuals permission to create and edit pages but keep personal control over deleting or locking pages to yourself.
Different wiki packages group permissions in very different ways. For example in some wikis, everyone who can edit pages is also allowed to create and delete pages. Other wikis use different groupings or keep these permissions separate.
Wiki packages also vary in the granularity of detail in which permissions can be assigned. For example, some wikis only allow you to assign permission to the whole wiki, for example: people given permission to edit pages can edit any page on the wiki. On other wikis, you can assign permissions in finer detail and allow different individuals different levels of access to different individual pages. This gives you tighter control over your wiki pages.
You need to give quite a bit of thought to how you want people to contribute to your wiki and how much control you need over this, before you can decide which wiki package is right for you.
How important is the security of your data?
Wikis are wonderful because they allow and encourage contributions, however, this poses a challenge to the security of your data. As well as the physical integrity of your data on the server, there are also threats from: spam, vandalism, lack of respect for your privacy by your hosting company, collapse of your hosting company and poor data management. If your data is important you want to be certain that it is safe.
How important is the security of data transfer?
Data is also at risk whilst it is being transferred to and from your server. This may be very important, for example: for online financial transactions. Secure data transfer can be provided by many wiki packages, but usually only in paid plans.
How important is the support you will receive?
We all need some support at some stage. The level of available support varies from wiki to wiki. One of the best ways to discover how much support there is available is to visit the wiki provider’s community forum. Some are very active and there is a buzz, which you may want to be part of. However, when you visit others you get the feeling the ship is sinking.
Do you want to make money from ads on your site?
If you want to make money from ads on your site make sure the package you choose supports this.
What content do you want on your wiki now and in the future?
Most wikis can handle words and images, but some are much better than others. If images are going to be an important part of your wiki, check out how easy it is to insert them and how flexible image placement is before you commit yourself to a wiki package.
Other content you might want could include: non-English language content, document attachments, flash, video, audio, mathematical notations, calendars, task lists, maps, RSS input, instant messaging, etc.. You are unlikely to find all of these options available on one wiki. You need to decide what you want before you choose your wiki package.
Once you know the answers to these questions you are ready to decide what you want from a wiki and reading reviews of wiki packages.
Good luck with your deliberations.
Tagged with: Comparisons • Wiki
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