Wiki hosting service
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 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.
Fandom, created by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley Starling in 2004 and formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia, is a well-known example of a wiki-hosting service.
Comparison of wiki hosting services
This comparison of wiki hosting services or wiki farms is not comprehensive, it details only those 'notable' enough 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.
All the mentioned services have WYSIWYG editing.
| Hosting service | Start | Cost | Ad supported | Content license | Subdomain | Custom themes | Download, backup | Other Features | Base wiki engine | Language | Syntax support |
| Confluence | 2004 | Plugins, SSL, file storage, permissioning, WebDAV. | WYSIWYG Rich-text editor script plugin No formulas | ||||||||
| Central Desktop | 2005 | Access control, full-text search, calendaring, single sign-on to multiple projects, project templates, RSS enabled. | HTML, CSS/templating No formulas | ||||||||
| Ourproject.org | 2002 | Copyleft | 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 | No page limits, SSL, RSS & Atom, email notifications, file management, page access settings. | All HTML, JavaScript, LaTeX formulas | ||||||||
| Fandom | 2004 | Creative Commons | 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 supports ; Community Support in English, Chinese, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and several other languages. | Wikitext as used by MediaWiki, Some HTML, JavaScript, Math formula, Lua | |||||
| 2015 | Creative Commons | Common login, custom extensions and skins and custom domains | MediaWiki | All languages Wikipedia supports | WYSIWYG Rich-text editor script plugin | ||||||
| Wikidot | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | All languages Wikipedia supports | Wikitext as used by MediaWiki, Some HTML, JavaScript, Math formula, Lua |