Starting and Running a Wiki Website/Hosted Wikis

There are companies that host wikis for free or for a price. This means that you do not have to deal with complex programs like Ruby, PHP, MySQL, or Apache. The wiki host will do this for you.

Beware! Some hosts delete wikis without notice. Make sure you are saving your own backup copy of the data in your wiki. Some hosts make it easy to download everything you would need to run your wiki somewhere else, by using an open source wiki engine and providing backup dumps with full edit histories. Other hosts lock you in more, e.g., with proprietary wiki markup languages, proprietary wiki engines, or limited backups.

Free wiki hosting

You can also find a comparison of wiki farms on Wikipedia and a list of hosting services on MediaWiki.org.

@Wiki(Atwiki)

Includes a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and Wiki-mode editor. Users receive a sub-domain and personal wiki upon signup. Unlimited pages and users.English documentation is minimal and it is unclear how to backup pages. Now allows MediaWiki-like monobook. (Atwiki has temporarily stopped new registration as of October 2011.)

Frihost

Free webhosting that supports most wikis. Manual installation of a wiki is required. No ads and users receive their own subdomain. Users need to be active at the forum to keep their wiki.

GForge

People who put their source code at GForge also get a free associated wiki. Includes a WYSIWYG editor.

Intodit

User friendly WYSIWYG Editing, Custom Page Hierarchies, Comment and Reply Forums, Page Locking, Keyword Search, Skins, RSS, Profiles, Site Activity Report, Widget Support e.g., YouTube and Google Video.

MemeBot

Hosting based on Oddmuse. FTP and CGI access allows expert users to customize their configuration. Users receive their own sub-domain.

MyWikis

Everyone gets their wiki and can customize it however they wish. No staff user groups except in the main wiki, and plans start at $10/mo for unlimited resources and support. You cannot create a wiki automatically but this allows for the wiki to be customized on request. WARNING: This hosting provider reserves the right to censor or delete any content, explicitly including advocacy for the separation of church and state, that they find offensive. Users have no recourse except arbitration by another MyWikis staff member in the case of any dispute, as per their TOS.

OddWiki

Hosts wikis up to a certain size with no advertising. Based on the MotherWiki concept. Simple support for backup and migration to your own Oddmuse wiki.

ShoutWiki

Free wiki hosting supported by advertising on a subdomain of *.shoutwiki.com. Choice of Aurora, Vector, Monobook and Monaco skins. Only 5 wikis per user are allowed. Hosts wikis for individuals, companies, school, universities and communities. Wikis can be created through Special:CreateWiki. Offers three types of wikis: public wikis, private wikis and school/university wikis.

SourceForge

As of 19 Jun 2012, SourceForge no longer supports Hosted Apps, including MediaWiki. SF projects may migrate current MediaWikis, or install their own wiki using their Project Web.

TiddlySpot

Public or private access to wikis based on TiddlyWiki yet fully compatible with MonkeyPirateTW, MonkeyGTD and d3 plugins. Brilliant for notes, todos, follow-ups. Easy for download, edit off-line and keep the online version up-to-date, or even easier to edit on-line (password protected). Hosts free wikis.

WetPaint

True WYSIWYG Editing, Custom Page Hierarchies, Comment and Reply Forums with Comment Ratings, Access Control, Keyword Search, Tags, Tag Filtering, Skins, RSS, Page Locking, Profiles, Site Activity Report, Page and Comment Watching, Uploading YouTube Videos.

Wikia

Community support and development through advertising-supported wiki hosting. Uses the MediaWiki engine with a choice of WYSIWYG or wikitext editing, easy image and video insertion, the Oasis skin (other skins can be set in one's user preferences but logged out users will always see Oasis), and a number of extensions. Wikis are owned by Wikia rather than the community or the founder, which means that the community can decide to leave but they cannot have the wiki deleted or advertise their new location, should they decide Wikia is not the best choice. All content is freely licensed under the Creative Commons license to make it compatible with the Wikimedia projects. See Start a new Wikia to create a wiki instantly. Offers free database backups, full CSS customization except on individual pages, spam blacklisting and vandal patrol, help from Community Team. Focuses on a young audience.

Wikidot

Offers free Wiki sites in the wikidot.com subdomain and 1 free custom domain mapping. Uses the modified Text_Wiki engine to produce valid XHTML. Growing number of extensions. Several available licenses (Creative Commons, GFDL and others), customizable themes, AJAX interface, no size/traffic limits, full-text search, RSS import and export (for page changes, forum discussions, favorite items, account notifications etc.) and many more features.

Wiki-site.com

MediaWiki with WYSIWYG farm with unlimited pages and users, wiki spam protection user rights control. Interface in 150 languages. Fast setup. A free *.wiki-site.com domain is offered. Google text-ads added to the right sidebar.

Wikispaces

Public (free), protected (paid for), and private (paid for) wikis. Includes WYSIWYG and plain wikitext editing and a personalized sub-domain. Supported by text ads; no limitations on number of pages, members, or space usage. Includes integrated discussion areas and RSS feeds for page changes and messages. Backups of current content available through the site in zip or tgz form. Backups of historical information available by request. Run by Tanigent LLC using proprietary wiki software.

Wiki Spot

Public wikis (free) intended for a community, be it a city, common interest, field of study, or project with several participants. (No private or commercial wikis, please.) Hosted by a non-profit organization supported by donations, you can host your wiki in an established wiki community that can help you out with your project. No advertising, user accounts work on all wikis, use bookmarks and track changes across multiple wikis. Customizable CSS by wiki and user CSS. Simple, intuitive syntax. No limits on pages/disk space. RSS feeds available on all pages. Easy to create a wiki and configure settings. Run on Sycamore, creative commons licensing. Wikispot will be shutting down its service on April 1st of 2015.

Wiki.yt

Free MediaWiki hosting for non profit and no budget projects. Semantic MediaWiki possible.

Wikkii (Not working right now)

Free MediaWiki hosting allowing full back-end control with FTP and Cpanel access. Wiki farm service also available. See its features.

XWiki

Hosting based on the XWiki engine. Features include quick group editing, version control of documents, attached files, searching and rights management). Pages can be exported to PDF. Full MySQL exports can be provided by the host admin and installed using the open source XWiki engine.

EditThis.info

A very easy and fast way to set up your wiki. You won't get a subdomain for your wiki (for example, if the name of the wiki you create was Example, the url of it would be editthis.info/example/). The only available skin for your new wiki would be Monobook. You don't need to be a registered user to add a wiki and you can create as many wikis you want.