Difference between revisions of "MediaWiki v Confluence"

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| {{checkmark|yes}} almost anything
 
| {{checkmark|yes}} almost anything
 
| {{checkmark|no}} mostly Atlassian products
 
| {{checkmark|no}} mostly Atlassian products
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| MediaWiki can be, and is, integrated with a wide variety of other systems.  Most importantly for the Enterprise user, a whole open authentication framework allows MediaWiki to be integrated with just about any existing authentication system.  
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| MediaWiki can be, and is, integrated with a wide variety of other systems.  Most importantly for the Enterprise user, a whole open authentication framework allows MediaWiki to be integrated with just about any existing authentication system. Because MediaWiki is open source software, with rich internal and external APIs, you can see exactly how you should integrate new functionality, new systems, etc.  In contrast, Confluence is a closed system that supports only what is built into the system. "If you attempt to use an unsupported or custom JDBC driver collaborative editing will fail. You must use a supported driver." <ref>https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/database-jdbc-drivers-171742.html</ref>
  
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Atlassian likes to brag about how integrated Confluence is with their other systems (BitBucket, JIRA, Bamboo, FishEye, Crucible, HipChat). While it's true that these might be integrated <ref>On their '''own installation''' of Confluence, there is an ''[https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/page-and-space-operations-troubleshooting-211648541.html error displaying integrated content]'' from JIRA at the bottom of the page.</ref>, these extra products come at extra cost.  Integrating Confluence with any product that is not sold by Atlassian is a different question.
−
Atlassian likes to brag about how integrated Confluence is with their other systems (BitBucket, JIRA, Bamboo, FishEye, Crucible, HipChat). While it's true that these can be integrated (and work well out of the box), these extra products come at extra cost.  Integrating Confluence with any product that is not sold by Atlassian is a different question.
 
 
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! Customization
 
! Customization
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| {{checkmark|yes}}
 
| {{checkmark|yes}}
 
| {{checkmark|no}}
 
| {{checkmark|no}}
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| With 32,795,351 registered users on Wikipedia alone <ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics</ref>, there is a good chance your staff and new hires have used MediaWiki before. With options to edit in WYSIWYG, wiki markup, and other advanced options, MediaWiki is just as accessible and easy to use for the Sales Manager as it is for the Engineering Intern. The mobile website and other desktop clients give many ways to search, view, and edit.
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| With 32,795,351 registered users on Wikipedia alone <ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics</ref>, there is a good chance your staff and new hires have used MediaWiki before. With options to edit in WYSIWYG, wiki markup, and other advanced options, MediaWiki is just as accessible and easy to use for the Sales Manager as it is for the Engineering Intern. The mobile website and other desktop clients give many ways to search, view, and edit. Technical users might find it easy to use an IDE such as Emacs or Vim to edit text files without a browser. MediaWiki has interfaces to allow you to edit from a git repository <ref>https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git-remote-mediawiki</ref>, or from desktop clients like LibreOffice.
 
   
 
   
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Confluence wiki no longer supports editing with wiki markup - a decision that takes away ease of use for advanced users.
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Confluence wiki no longer supports editing with wiki markup - a decision that takes away ease of use for advanced users. Advanced Search macros (filters) require a proprietary language, Confluence Query Language (CQL) <ref>https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/search-724765412.html</ref>; while advanced search filters are built-in to MediaWiki
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 +
|-
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! Search
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| {{Checkmark}}
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| {{Checkmark|no}}
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| MediaWiki Search is powered by ElasticSearch - which is built on top of Lucene. Several members of Elastic Co engineering contributed improvements to Lucene in 2017 <ref>https://www.elastic.co/blog/this-year-in-elasticsearch-and-apache-lucene-2017</ref>.
 +
 
 +
Confluence Search is powered by Lucene, but doesn't have the breadth of syntax options and power of ElasticSearch<ref>Compare [https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/confluence-search-syntax-724765423.html Confluence Search Syntax] with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching MediaWiki Search Syntax]</ref>
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|-
 
|-
 
! Intended Audience
 
! Intended Audience
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| Wiki
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| {{checkmark|yes}} Any size group, organization or website.  Public or private access.  Open network or private network.  Full end-to-end encryption available.
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| Confluence
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| {{checkmark|no}} Smaller teams in a private LAN.  SSL termination must be done at the gateway or proxy.<ref>Synchrony, the collaboration engine does not support HTTPS, so the communication within the application/data center must be done over plain HTTP. </ref>
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| discussion
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| With low standard limits on page indexing, and database pool connections <ref>In the latest [https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/confluence-6-2-upgrade-notes-894219489.html release notes for v6.2], the default pool size for database connections is 15</ref>, you may have a difficult time making Confluence scale and perform in larger installations.  On the other hand, MediaWiki can scale to just about any size given the proper resources.  What's more, MediaWiki is capable of not just creating a knowledge resource, it can also be used for general purpose websites, catalogs, documentation etc. 
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Confluence is limited in making documentation since page titles must be unique across the whole space
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|-
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! SSL
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| {{Checkmark}}
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| {{Checkmark|no}}
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|
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If you want to use SSL, [https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/running-confluence-over-ssl-or-https-161203.html there are instructions for Confluence], but it's totally up to you, and not supported by Atlassian.  MediaWiki distributions like QualityBox offer SSL encryption built-in to every site by default, using the LetsEncrypt Certificate Authority.
 
|-
 
|-
 
! Gartner Magic Quadrant
 
! Gartner Magic Quadrant
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Confluence has a variety of support options available through a single company (Atlassian in Australia) with full support starting at $35,000 <ref>https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-support-offerings-193299636.html</ref>
 
Confluence has a variety of support options available through a single company (Atlassian in Australia) with full support starting at $35,000 <ref>https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-support-offerings-193299636.html</ref>
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|-
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! Testimonials
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| {{checkmark}}
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| {{checkmark}}
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| [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_testimonials MediaWiki Testimonials] [https://www.atlassian.com/customers?page=6&sortParam=_nodeName&productsUsed=Confluence Confluence Testimonials]
  
 
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Revision as of 11:31, 31 January 2018

Comparison Chart[edit | edit source]

Attribute MediaWiki Confluence Why is it important?
License Gtk-yes.svg GNU GPL Gtk-no.svg proprietary Fully free software protects your investment because it's reversible and extensible from the bottom-up. It's never tied to the fate of a sole proprietor, and not subject to vendor lock-in.
Integration Gtk-yes.svg almost anything Gtk-no.svg mostly Atlassian products MediaWiki can be, and is, integrated with a wide variety of other systems. Most importantly for the Enterprise user, a whole open authentication framework allows MediaWiki to be integrated with just about any existing authentication system. Because MediaWiki is open source software, with rich internal and external APIs, you can see exactly how you should integrate new functionality, new systems, etc. In contrast, Confluence is a closed system that supports only what is built into the system. "If you attempt to use an unsupported or custom JDBC driver collaborative editing will fail. You must use a supported driver." [1]

Atlassian likes to brag about how integrated Confluence is with their other systems (BitBucket, JIRA, Bamboo, FishEye, Crucible, HipChat). While it's true that these might be integrated [2], these extra products come at extra cost. Integrating Confluence with any product that is not sold by Atlassian is a different question.

Customization Wiki Confluence discussion
Ease of Use Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-no.svg With 32,795,351 registered users on Wikipedia alone [3], there is a good chance your staff and new hires have used MediaWiki before. With options to edit in WYSIWYG, wiki markup, and other advanced options, MediaWiki is just as accessible and easy to use for the Sales Manager as it is for the Engineering Intern. The mobile website and other desktop clients give many ways to search, view, and edit. Technical users might find it easy to use an IDE such as Emacs or Vim to edit text files without a browser. MediaWiki has interfaces to allow you to edit from a git repository [4], or from desktop clients like LibreOffice.

Confluence wiki no longer supports editing with wiki markup - a decision that takes away ease of use for advanced users. Advanced Search macros (filters) require a proprietary language, Confluence Query Language (CQL) [5]; while advanced search filters are built-in to MediaWiki

Search Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-no.svg MediaWiki Search is powered by ElasticSearch - which is built on top of Lucene. Several members of Elastic Co engineering contributed improvements to Lucene in 2017 [6].

Confluence Search is powered by Lucene, but doesn't have the breadth of syntax options and power of ElasticSearch[7]

Intended Audience Gtk-yes.svg Any size group, organization or website. Public or private access. Open network or private network. Full end-to-end encryption available. Gtk-no.svg Smaller teams in a private LAN. SSL termination must be done at the gateway or proxy.[8] With low standard limits on page indexing, and database pool connections [9], you may have a difficult time making Confluence scale and perform in larger installations. On the other hand, MediaWiki can scale to just about any size given the proper resources. What's more, MediaWiki is capable of not just creating a knowledge resource, it can also be used for general purpose websites, catalogs, documentation etc.

Confluence is limited in making documentation since page titles must be unique across the whole space

SSL Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-no.svg

If you want to use SSL, there are instructions for Confluence, but it's totally up to you, and not supported by Atlassian. MediaWiki distributions like QualityBox offer SSL encryption built-in to every site by default, using the LetsEncrypt Certificate Authority.

Gartner Magic Quadrant Gtk-no.svg Gtk-no.svg This is a red herring. There is no way that MediaWiki would ever be listed by Gartner since they review vendors. MediaWiki is produced by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), a non-profit foundation. They are not a software vendor. They'll never be listed by Gartner in any MQ unless Gartner changes their methodology. [10] Besides, Atlassian was named in the 2017 MQ for "Enterprise Agile Planning Tools" [11], not for wikis, not for collaboration, not for knowledge management.
Cost Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-no.svg MediaWiki software is Free Software (as defined by it's license). Vendors charge for added value such as support and service.

You pay per the seat for a Confluence license. There is a free option for open-source projects. There is a reduced price option for non-profit organizations. You also pay for add-ons that are included with MediaWiki (even simple ones like Title redirects!). You also pay for added value such as training. Some things are just not available at any price (e.g. customization).

Professional Support Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-yes.svg MediaWiki has paid professional support provided by a long list of individual software developers as well as companies around the world [12]

Confluence has a variety of support options available through a single company (Atlassian in Australia) with full support starting at $35,000 [13]

Testimonials Gtk-yes.svg Gtk-yes.svg MediaWiki Testimonials Confluence Testimonials


Users[edit | edit source]

Let's see who uses MediaWiki

Just about every established open source software project has a wiki.

References[edit source]

  1. ↑ https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/database-jdbc-drivers-171742.html
  2. ↑ On their own installation of Confluence, there is an error displaying integrated content from JIRA at the bottom of the page.
  3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics
  4. ↑ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Git-remote-mediawiki
  5. ↑ https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/search-724765412.html
  6. ↑ https://www.elastic.co/blog/this-year-in-elasticsearch-and-apache-lucene-2017
  7. ↑ Compare Confluence Search Syntax with MediaWiki Search Syntax
  8. ↑ Synchrony, the collaboration engine does not support HTTPS, so the communication within the application/data center must be done over plain HTTP.
  9. ↑ In the latest release notes for v6.2, the default pool size for database connections is 15
  10. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Quadrant#Criticism
  11. ↑ https://www.atlassian.com/gartner
  12. ↑ https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Professional_development_and_consulting
  13. ↑ https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/atlassian-support-offerings-193299636.html

Gnu's Not Unix, because Unix is proprietary software while Gnu is software that respects your freedom.

General Public License = A sane copyright license

Secure Sockets Layer = secure (encrypted) underpinning for HTTP

WikiMedia Foundation = the organization which runs various projects including Wikipedia.org

HTTP Secure = HTTP using SSL or the newer TLS

HyperText Transfer Protocol = the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. See HTML

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