[Cialug] Dokuwiki

[Josh More]

DokuWiki is a nice light system that runs well.

You run into a few issues:

1) Since it's file based, it tends to consume more disk resources than
a DB version.  This is not a problem for low use.
2) It doesn't scale well.  This is also not a problem for low use.
3) It doesn't always upgrade well.  This has been a problem for most
wikis with which I have worked, so I do not consider that to be a
showstopper.
4) It's not as extensible as MediaWiki.

Number 4 is the only one I'd care about.  I've used LOTS of different
wikis in the past 5 years, and only MediaWiki hasn't hit a wall.  It
takes a bit more time to set up, but when you compare that to the time
needed to transfer data from one wiki to another, it's pretty
unimportant.

The big thing that you are overlooking is ease-of-use over the long
term.  MediaWiki has a larger user base that is less technically aware
than that of most other wikis.  Thus, they have better built-in help,
and they support funky things like image and document embedding.   They
also have all sorts of neat extensions in case you need to do something
really weird.  Personally, I think that it is a better system to use in
a business environment.


 

-Josh More, RHCE, CISSP, NCLP, GIAC 
 morej at alliancetechnologies.net 
 515-245-7701



>>> <jaybabel at mchsi.com> 11/28/07 9:39 AM >>> 
I'm looking at using a wiki to setup an online operations manual for a
small company.  I saw Dokuwiki was highly rated and pretty easy to setup
and use.  No database is required since all data is stored in plain text
files.  I'm assuming the biggest downside would relate to performance
and that impact would be negligible as long as we're only talking about
10 or 12 users.  Is there something big I'm overlooking?

Jay