What is the best single-user wiki?

Question

27

Options
Considered

737

User
Recs.

16 mins

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 22 OptionsWhy?

Best single-user wiki	Price	Markdown support	Technology
90 DokuWiki	Free	Yes	PHP
-- Obsidian md	Free / paid	-	-
-- WackoWiki	FREE	No	PHP
74 TiddlyWiki	Free	Yes	-
-- Zim	Free	Export	Python

See Full List

21 Other Options Considered

Obsidian md

Top Pro

Locally stored, not dependent on cloud

LOG¹⁰ See More

Top Con

WYSISYG editor is not as good as Typora

Formatting is inferior, lacks convenient ways to create elements, etc. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Web

Offline access:Yes

Collaborative:Upcoming

Extension language:JavaScript

See All Specs

Top Pro

Not locked to a provider

No lock-in to a certain company - just markdown files on disk. See More

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Helps visualize personal knowledge in ways nothing else allows

Top Con

No table editing yet

(Available as a plugin). See More

Top Pro

Backlinking

This allows you to link notes back and forth really easily. See More

Top Con

Proprietary software lock-in

Creates dependence on the application with the promise that the content is yours but that cannot be entirely true without the application being free and open source software. You will end up altering the way you create the content to take advantage of Obsidian features and your processes will evolve for its workflows. This replicates the lock-in pain that people experience moving their highly personal information from one proprietary platform to the next when that initial platform stops serving them well, goes out of business, or becomes a bad actor. See More

Top Pro

Functionality extensions with a growing number of plugins

Top Con

Still in beta

Top Pro

Easy to add links

Top Con

No ability to add dates that link to a daily note, when that day/note may not yet exist

(You can create a backlink which doesn't yet exist; it just doesn't auto-fill for you) See More

Top Pro

Intuitive and easy to use with an excellent help system built-in

The app doesn't frustrate the user - the built-in help is excellent. See More

Top Con

Pretty new software, so at this moment there is a limited amount of resources / howto's available

Top Pro

In-line tagging

Ability to tag-as-you-write and find each occurrence of a tag in the entire vault makes it very easy to organize and retrieve notes. See More

Top Pro

Markdown makes for flatter learning curve

Top Pro

Daily Notes with template

Daily Notes plug-in, when clicked, generates a new note with the current date. Great for journaling and reduces friction in your writing habit. You can create a custom template for your Daily Note. See More

Top Pro

Very easy to use and link notes, preserves the standard form of markdown

Linking notes is a game changing feature. Very easy to use and link notes. Their implementation of markdown doesn't deviate from the standard form of markdown and so the same files can be used by other markdown programs without any consequence. See More

Top Pro

Page previews on hover

When you hover on an internal [[link]], you get to preview the note without opening it on a new pane. Page preview plugin must be enabled. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and very customizable

Top Pro

Fast growing

It's becoming more powerful everyday, it seems like they add many functions within several days. See More

Top Pro

Mindmaps

Available as a plugin. See More

Top Pro

Fast development with regular releases

Top Pro

Cross-platform: works on Linux, MacOS, and Windows

Top Pro

Random Note

A plugin that, when clicked, surfaces a random note from your vault. See More

Top Pro

Support for tags

Top Pro

Readable as it hides the [[ ]] around links when in Preview mode

This is a big difference, as having to read through long-form texts laden with [[links]] gives friction. See More

Top Pro

Community of developers building themes and plug-ins

Due to the tool being very developer-friendly, there are tons of cool developments being made to it by 3rd party devs. See More

Top Pro

Multiple cursors

A feature unseen in other tools. From the help doc, "This can be useful when modifying a lot of lines in the same way, for example putting - at the beginning of multiple lines to turn them into a list, or appending [[ to a series of links you’ve copied from elsewhere." See More

Top Pro

Multiple Vaults

A Vault in Obsidian is like a database. Internal links and files are not shared across Vaults. Each Vault is opened with a separate instance of Obsidian. Each Vault can have its unique app settings and plug-ins. Useful if you have distinct/unrelated projects or "data spaces" requiring different workflows and data relations. See More

Top Pro

Infinite panes, split panes, lock panes

In Obsidian, pane = window = note = page Obsidian allows you to open as many notes as you can fit concurrently in your screen. You can split a pane horizontally/vertically. You can lock/link panes so they scroll in sync, useful for and edit & preview modes. See More

Top Pro

Great onboarding experience

The onboarding consists of well-written help documentation (saved as a vault) served in small chunks and organized systematically so that you become familiar with all its features as well as get hands-on experience in real time. See More

Top Pro

Markdown rather than outline/blocks

See All

WackoWiki

Top Pro

Supports namespaces

It allows pages to be divided among "directories / namespaces" using forward slashes. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Access control

WackoWiki has built-in ACL support. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

You can use themes and plugins (actions, handlers, highlighters) to extend functionality. See More

Top Pro

File upload and management tools

WackoWiki allows to upload and manage uploaded files for certain pages and for the whole system. See More

Top Pro

Very fast, consuming very few resources

WackoWiki allows to run it on web hostings with few resources. See More

Top Pro

Forum component

WackoWiki allows to organize wiki pages with comments to a forum. See More

Top Pro

Hierarchical page tree

WackoWiki has a hierarchical page tree and page categories. See More

Top Pro

Version control

WackoWiki offers unlimited page revisions. See More

Top Pro

Built-in template engine

It has a powerful and easy to use templating system. See More

Top Pro

RSS-feeds

WackoWiki allows to feed recent changes, recent comments and news as RSS. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Distributed under the BSD License. See More

Top Pro

Runs on any PHP server

It requires a webserver running PHP. See More

Top Pro

A dedicated page for Alphabetic pages catalog

A dedicated page for Alphabetic page tree catalog is set by default. See More

Top Pro

News component

WackoWiki allows to organize wiki pages with comments to a news feed. See More

Top Pro

Multilingual with UTF-8

WackoWiki is multilingual with full UTF-8 support See More

Top Pro

Search functionality

WackoWiki allows searching through pages. See More

Top Pro

A dedicated page for recent changes

A dedicated page to quickly note what has changed recently is set by default. See More

Top Pro

A dedicated page for recent comments

A dedicated page to quickly note what pages has been recently commented is set by default. See More

Top Pro

Responsive Mobile-friendly template

Has responsive mobile-friendly design template. See More

See All

TiddlyWiki

Top Pro

Free and Open Source

No commercial interests, no ads, no registration, no nonsense. You own your notes 100%. See More

Top Con

Without JavaScript nothing is visible

Rizwan Ishak's Experience

It can be run as an HTML file or using an in built node server in which case your information is stored in flat file formats See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android

Top Pro

Single html file

It's a single file and all your notes will be "accessible even in 25 years" because they can be seen in plain html text. See More

Top Con

Unintuitive, terrible user interface

Just useless. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

A non-linear personal notebook written in JavaScript used as a single HTML file in the browser or as a powerful Node.js application. See More

Top Pro

Extremely customizable

This is a major aim and point with TiddlyWiki; people can relatively easily modify it to fit their particular application needs. See More

Top Con

Relies on browser performance, online or offline

TiddlyWiki is a single HTML file. Thus, if you directly embed e. g large images or videos in it (instead of using the features to display externally stored images and videos) it would make the file big and performance slow. See More

PerfectInuus's Experience

Utter garbage. 20yrs in IT support and this was a head ache to install and get going. Lacks intuitiveness in spades. See More

Top Pro

Self-hosted and indefinitely accessible

All content is stored within the same html file as the interface. See More

Top Con

No links, no pages, no cross referencing

Every entry is a card on one page. No nesting and cross-referencing support, and very difficult to organize information. See More

BraveTiddalik's Experience

Tiddlywiki is by far the most versatile of all personal Wiki's I know See More

Top Pro

Relational links

Allows for relational links and lists between notes to keep things organized. See More

MerryHanbi's Experience

Used it for years. Just drop af tiddlywiki html file in a project folder, and you have a nice place for non-code documentation, todo's etc. Accessible just by double-clicking on the html-file. See More

Top Pro

10+ years mature

Mature software, active community with members from all over the world. See More

Krom's Experience

I gave this software a good go, and found it horrible to get started with. My sentiments mirrored what I read elsewhere on the net "When you first try to get familiar with TiddlyWiki, it looks like you’ll need an MSc in Computer Science to be able to use it, but when you get to know it a little better, it should be clear that you’d be better off with a PHD!!!" See More

Top Pro

Lots of plugins

CulturedOmoikane's Experience

Been using it on and off for years. I love I can store anything I write, and can find it quickly. I have multiple files, each with different types of information. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Low barrier of entry for the non IT knowledgeable. See More

Top Pro

Multiple, user-defined usages

The list of possible usages is practically infinite in TW, and more importantly it lets the user define their own method of dealing with their content. See More

Top Pro

Progressive user level, from ease of use to programming your own plugins

Basic users can start with simple note-taking, progressively discover predefined features and existing plugins, then start using more fancy features (like filters, widgets, macros), in order to adapt their wiki to their needs. See More

See All

Zim

Top Pro

Plain text data format rather than proprietary

If/when the app is no longer developed (or if the user simply decides to no longer use the application or view/edit it on a non-supported platform), this can still be done with any plain-text editor. See More

Top Con

No mobile app support

This is a desktop app and there are no mobile versions available. This can make it more difficult to use on-the-go if using cloud storage to store files from the app, as there is no mobile app version to access those files. See More

Stir Fry's Experience

Vim is an excellent client for coding or taking notes, so long as you accept that you are using a test editor not a modern publishing program. One can choose colour themes to apply - some of which help with eye strain when you are working for 8 hrs on a file - but ultimately WYSIWYG. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Markdown support:Export

License:GPL

Technology:Python

Top Pro

Allows for organized, wiki-style navigation

Notes can contain links to other notes, allowing you to reference important information when needed. This way the user can connect and reference many different pages in the app, keeping things clean and structured, unlike Evernote, which makes this a good Evernote alternative. See More

Top Con

No native sync support

Zim notes don't automatically synchronize with other devices or offer built-in cloud sync support. Of course the user can add the files to Dropbox, or something similar, to then open them on another device with the app installed. But this is more of a work-around than a built-in solution. See More

ElatedPraxidike's Experience

Been using it at work and at home for more then 10 years. Simple, it just works. Many interesting extensions (journal, todo, tags, sorting, etc.) See More

Top Pro

Support for multiple platforms

Windows, Linux, and BSD are supported with their own clients. This is nice for those that use multiple operating systems but still want to use the same app on each. See More

CooperativeEgeria's Experience

Been using it for at least 3 yrs for work and personal use. See More

Top Pro

Automatically manages files and folders

Zim will automatically create a folder structure that fits your page hierarchy and adds/removes files such as images to/from appropriate folders. See More

Top Pro

Good export options

Zim supports HTML, LaTeX, Pandoc Markdown, and RST. This allows ones documents to be easily used in a wide selection of other apps. Plus exporting to html can be easily scripted, and placed in Dropbox, then opened on your mobile device. See More

Top Pro

Good image and file attachment options

Paste clipboard image as bitmap, attach any file and navigate with attachment browser. See More

Top Pro

Extensions Journal + Todo + Tags can lead to a very effective Tasks Manager

Top Pro

Able to download via .EXE setup

Top Pro

Codebox with syntax highlighter

See All

VoodooPad 5

Top Pro

A desktop wiki

VoodooPad 5 is focused on use by an individual. It is a mature application. Its polished refinements are based upon many years of user experiences and feedback. See More

Top Con

OS X only

There are no Windows or Linux versions of VoodooPad. See More

Top Pro

Markdown support

You can use Markdown syntax to write your documents. See More

Top Con

Costs $24.99 USD

Price can be found here: http://www.voodoopad.com/ See More

Top Pro

Good task management features

Within the collections palette you'll find "to-dos" that are all @todo entries that you've left across all of your pages. See More

Top Con

Breaks compatibility with VoodooPad 4

VoodooPad 5 uses a new file format that is not backwards compatible. See More

Top Pro

Synchronize via Dropbox

You can utilize Dropbox to keep VoodooPad synchronized across all of your devices and allow for collaboration with other people. See More

Top Pro

Java scriptlet & Event scripts support

To dynamically change HTML, ePub and PDF exports you can use Java scriptlets. To extend the functionality of VoodooPad you can use Event scripts. See More

Top Pro

Export to ePub and PDF

Alongside being able to export a page as HTML, RTFD, Plain Text, or as a Word Document, you can export the whole document as XML, RTFD, Plain Text, .doc, ePub, PDF or to an iOS device via VP Reader. See More

Top Pro

Collections palette

Collections allow creating an organizational structure of your pages. See More

See All

WikidPad

Top Pro

No remote server needed, or wanted

Top Con

No MarkDown support

PatientHorus's Experience

I downloaded it as a free approximation of Scrivener, an organization and word processing tool for writers. I was able to get it set up with a lot of the same structure: a main page, branching lists of characters, locations, scenes, and so on. Works even better than I thought it would. The learning curve seems steep at first. The startup page on the Help Wiki seems very complicated to begin with. Once I got started on my own Wiki, though, I learned as I went pretty quickly and the organization started to make more sense. It will look like your pages are duplicated even when they're not if you look at the tree on the left, which can be confusing. (Don't do what I did and get bogged down in sub-folders trying to get around that.) Once you figure it out, though, it's pretty easy to use even complex features like linking pictures and transcluding files. 5/5, would recommend. 👍👍 See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Markdown support:no

Top Pro

Free

SociableDaramulum's Experience

I have been using it for several years to organize a lot of notes about different topics. I copy the windows folder content to a directory on my android phone and tablet. You can also use dropbox or onedrive to sync if that is your preference See More

Top Pro

Export to HTML built in

Export to HTML built in and can work with Dropbox. See More

PhilosophicalFurrina's Experience

Intuitive markdown-like syntax -- easy to create well-organized outlines just by typing, without needing toolbars or menus for formatting. Excellent performance, no lag in display, navigation or startup. Open source python project. Works on linux from source code + wxgtk. See More

Top Pro

Data is stored in standard Text files

Data can be viewed, edited, searched, exported easily, and can work with Git. See More

Top Pro

Instant cross-referencing methods

On the fly WikiWord linking, as you type. See More

Top Pro

Quick, auto-saving, and auto-organizing

Auto-organizing with URL and file linking, and instant new-page methods. See More

See All

Notion

Top Con

Very limited offline functionality

Currently, in order to access a page offline, you need to have it open before going offline. Additionally, the program is a wrapper for their website, meaning it can be as slow as navigating a website at times. See More

Top Pro

Awesome for wikis

You can easily start writing a bunch of web pages, share it with co-workers and choose whether to publicize or keep your contents private. It's also easy to hyperlink pages. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web

Markdown support:Export

Offline access:No

Collaborative:Yes

See All Specs

Top Con

Designed with teams in mind, and less formatting than Evernote.

Evernote may be more individual-oriented and has more formatting and such options available, but whether that affects you is down to personal preference. Try both and see which you prefer. See More

Top Pro

Highly visual, with icons next to every new page and so on

This feature makes it very easy to find certain notes and such. And great for visual people as well. You could also add images as icons instead, if you like. See More

Top Pro

Cross Platform

Works with Android, iOS, Windows, & Mac OSX See More

Top Pro

Amazing view flexibility

You can create different views for a page's content and easily toggle between kanban, table, etc. (As long as the content is able to allow different views.) See More

See All

logseq

Top Pro

Privacy-first

Logseq is a privacy-first tool for thought. See More

Top Con

Still in Alpha

Logseq is still in Alpha and is under heavy development. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Open source

Logseq is opensource. See More

Top Pro

Local-first software

Every topic is its own flat file. Nothing is better than keeping your data in the file system with an option of git source control or online backup. See here. See More

Top Pro

Daily journal is capture on Steriods

The daily journal feature allows you to quickly capture disparate topics under today's date and by way of tags make things organized and findable from any topic page. See More

Top Pro

Networked notes

Similar to Roam's technique of letting the notes flow with links to each other. See More

See All

Trilium Notes

Top Pro

Note encryption

Top Con

Not markdown

It will import and export markdown but it does not store content as markdown. This isn't necessarily a problem if you don't need it. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, Mac

License:AGPL 3.0

Technology:JavaScript

Top Pro

Note versioning

Top Con

Synchronization requires use of Trilium's sync server

This can be problematic to set up unless you have a web server that will support the requirements of this. See More

Top Pro

Synchronization with a server

You can set up synchronization but you need a server to do this. See More

Top Con

Interface can be confusing

There is a fair amount of flexibility to the interface but it can also become confusing, especially when some parts are not necessarily simple to use. Most of the basic features nevertheless are intuitive. See More

Top Pro

Database storage rather than files

This enables the tool to do a lot of things that would be difficult with plain text file storage. See More

Top Pro

Graph of node connectivity

Top Pro

Attributes that can be assigned to nodes and inherited

Top Pro

Free and open source software

Top Pro

Archival functionality

Top Pro

Excellent WYSIWYG interface

Top Pro

Code Functionality

Supports code blocks and runs Javascript. See More

See All

Wikmd

Top Pro

File based

SpontaneousAhauChamahez's Experience

I did considser alternatives but this is a simple way to view/edit my markdown files. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Docker

Top Pro

Simple and clean UI

Top Pro

Uses markdown

Top Pro

Open source

See All

BookStack

MDwiki

Top Con

Discontinued

Seems to be discontinued as of October 2018. See More

Top Pro

Possibly more secure on web server

Due to the lack of a built-in editor MDwiki may be less susceptible to spam and defacement compared to other options when served from a web server. See More

Specs

Markdown support:Yes

Top Con

External program must be used for editing

A separate program must be used to make changes to documents as MDwiki lacks a built-in editor. See More

Top Pro

Doesn't require a web server

MDwiki is a self-contained JavaScript app that is very fast and can run in some web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox. See More

Top Con

Requires additional permissions in Google Chrome

Supposedly, you can get it to work in Google Chrome by modifying JavaScript permissions, but these same changes may decrease security. See More

See All

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score 125 · Accepted Answer

DokuWiki

Top Pro

Highly customizable

You can use themes and plugins to extend functionality. See More

Top Con

Lots of plugins to manage

DokuWiki is highly modular. Even things like WYSIWYG editors and categories have to be added separately as plugins. This can quickly lead to managing lots of plugins. See More

DetailedKishar's Experience

It is so much easier and more customizable than mediawiki and other wiki's that arent FANDOM. See More

Specs

Markdown support:Yes

Technology:PHP

Local hosting:Yes

Top Pro

Plain-text file storage

Dokuwiki does not require a database, it stores everything in plain-text. See More

Top Con

Too complex for many use-cases

Maxim Kamalov's Experience

Seemingly the only Wiki that supports themes AND makes it easy to find a dark theme. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Licensed under GPL2. See More

Top Con

It is very difficult to set up on a linux environment

TrustingHesat's Experience

Home use. Coming from Media Wiki the search is superior to MediaWIki See More

Top Pro

Good selection of plugins

DokuWiki offers over a thousand plugins to extend its functionality. See More

CoherentTenenet's Experience

I've been using Dokuwiki for about 10 years for my work documentation and notes. Easy maintenance and a great user base making using and modifying your wiki a breeze! See More

Top Pro

Access control

DokuWiki has built-in ACL support. See More

Top Pro

Good selection of themes

DokuWiki offers over a hundred templates to change the visual appearance of the site. See More

Top Pro

Version control

Dokuwik offers unlimited page revisions. See More

Top Pro

Search functionality

DokuWiki allows searching through pages. See More

Top Pro

Easy to set up and mantain

To install you need a webserver running PHP 5.2 or later where you unpack the downloaded archive and navigate to install.php in your browser, fill out the necessary information required for the one-page installer and you are done. See More

Top Pro

Runs on any PHP server

It requires a webserver running PHP 5.2 or later of any kind. See More

Top Pro

A dedicated page for recent changes

A dedicated page to quickly note what has changed recently can be set up. See More

The Best 1 of 22 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for DokuWiki

My Recommendation for DokuWiki

Highly customizable

Lots of plugins to manage

Plain-text file storage

Too complex for many use-cases

Free and open source

It is very difficult to set up on a linux environment

Good selection of plugins

Access control

Good selection of themes

Version control

Search functionality

Easy to set up and mantain

Runs on any PHP server

A dedicated page for recent changes

Local and open source

Very last, consuming very few Local

21 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Obsidian md

My Recommendation for Obsidian md

Locally stored, not dependent on cloud

WYSISYG editor is not as good as Typora

Not locked to a provider

Closed source

Helps visualize personal knowledge in ways nothing else allows

No table editing yet

Backlinking

Proprietary software lock-in

Functionality extensions with a growing number of plugins

Still in beta

Easy to add links

No ability to add dates that link to a daily note, when that day/note may not yet exist

Intuitive and easy to use with an excellent help system built-in

Pretty new software, so at this moment there is a limited amount of resources / howto's available

In-line tagging

Markdown makes for flatter learning curve

Daily Notes with template

Very easy to use and link notes, preserves the standard form of markdown

Page previews on hover

Lightweight and very customizable

Fast growing

Mindmaps

Fast development with regular releases

Cross-platform: works on Linux, MacOS, and Windows

Random Note

Support for tags

Readable as it hides the [[ ]] around links when in Preview mode

Community of developers building themes and plug-ins

Multiple cursors

Multiple Vaults

Infinite panes, split panes, lock panes

Great onboarding experience

Markdown rather than outline/blocks

My Recommendation for WackoWiki

My Recommendation for WackoWiki

Supports namespaces

Access control

Highly customizable

File upload and management tools

Very fast, consuming very few resources

Forum component

Hierarchical page tree

Version control

Built-in template engine

RSS-feeds

Free and open source

Runs on any PHP server

A dedicated page for Alphabetic pages catalog

News component

Multilingual with UTF-8

Search functionality

A dedicated page for recent changes

A dedicated page for recent comments

Responsive Mobile-friendly template

My Recommendation for TiddlyWiki

My Recommendation for TiddlyWiki

Free and Open Source

Without JavaScript nothing is visible