When comparing MediaWiki vs BookStack, the Slant community recommends MediaWiki for most people. In the question“What are the best multi-user wikis?” MediaWiki is ranked 2nd while BookStack is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose MediaWiki is:
Mediawiki is a widely used wiki engine. It is used to power Wikipedia and thus most people will be more comfortable/accustomed to using MediaWiki.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro The de facto standard
Mediawiki is a widely used wiki engine. It is used to power Wikipedia and thus most people will be more comfortable/accustomed to using MediaWiki.
Pro It has a powerful templating system
Pro Free and open source
Licensed under GPL.
Pro Version control
MediaWiki allows viewing past revisions of pages.
Pro It has a usable WYSIWYG editor
Pro Thanks to Wikipedia it is thoroughly documented
Pro Runs on any PHP server
It requires a webserver running PHP 5.2 or later of any kind.
Pro Great multilingual support
MediaWiki has full support for over 65 languages and partial support for over 300.
Pro Multiple database support
MediaWiki can store data in MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and SQLite databases.
Pro Clean & simple default interface
The stock interface design has a modern feel and is simple for new users to use.
Pro Free and open source
Released under the MIT license.
Pro Full role and permissions system built in
Granular permissions can be set up for specific roles on a per-content basis and permissions will waterfall down to child content.
Pro Multilingual
Over 9 different languages are built in to BookStack which can be set at a per-profile level.
Pro Feature rich and stable
Markdown editing, syntax highlighting, WYSIWYG, keyboard shortcuts, versioning, SSO, LDAP, different roles, performant and fast developer response.
Pro Support for domain authentication
Can be deployed within an active directory environment with its features to connect over LDAP.
Pro Supports SSO using Google Apps
Very convenient when you're a company that uses Google Apps, that makes logging into Bookstack more secure and more convenient.
Cons
Con Access control requires an extension
There is no built-in access control, but you can download an extension for ACL.
Con Limited customisability
Customisation options are limited with only the main theme color, logo and name being customisable.
Con No support for readable markup languages
The content entered through the WYSIWIG editor is stored as HTML. The HTML can be edited directly, but no other markup language is parsed. Speak ReST, Markdown, etc.
Con Limited to 2 levels of content
Bookstack implements a "Book / Chapter / Page" system which works fine, but lacks flexibility when you need to have more levels of imbrication.
Con Complicated installation
The current installation process involves many steps and may be a lot to take in for people not familiar with setting up Laravel applications.