Recommended Terms
There doesn’t appear to be a professional Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) wiki yet. Currently, the best one we’ve found is A+ Medical Encyclopedia, an Online Medical Encyclopedia.
We could maintain one in the future.
Original Article
Transcoded by Jianyue SimpRead; original source: sspai.com
Have you heard of the meme about “the world’s best programming language”? This phrase originated from PHP’s early official documentation as a promotional slogan—and has since evolved into a beloved inside joke among programmers:
Though such a slogan may sound slightly “cringey,” its very existence suggests that the language must possess real substance. Indeed, there exists an open-source project that shares PHP’s early confidence and distinctive self-assurance.
Upon visiting the Wiki.js official website, a concise yet powerful slogan immediately catches your eye:
The most powerful and extensible open source Wiki software.
As the slogan states, Wiki.js is an open-source Wiki platform built on Node.js and Vue, proudly claiming to be the most powerful and highly extensible solution available. Although numerous alternatives already exist—including Confluence, Yuque, and Notion—Wiki.js anticipates nearly every need for setting up a functional Wiki site: storage backends, comment systems, visitor analytics, full-text search, and more. These features embody both “power” and “extensibility.”
Quick Deployment
For any open-source project, rich functionality alone is insufficient—if installation and deployment are overly complex, users will inevitably hesitate or abandon it altogether.
Wiki.js, however, successfully balances simplicity and power. Its simplicity lies primarily in deployment: just pair it with a standard relational database (RDBMS), such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite, and you’re ready to go. Its power will become evident throughout the rest of this article.
The Wiki.js team thoughtfully provides installation guides covering multiple approaches. The easiest and most straightforward method is using Docker Compose:
version: "3"
services:
db:
image: postgres:11-alpine
environment:
POSTGRES_DB: wiki
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: wikijsrocks
POSTGRES_USER: wikijs
logging:
driver: "none"
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
- db-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
wiki:
image: ghcr.io/requarks/wiki:2
depends_on:
- db
environment:
DB_TYPE: postgres
DB_HOST: db
DB_PORT: 5432
DB_USER: wikijs
DB_PASS: wikijsrocks
DB_NAME: wiki
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "80:3000"
volumes:
db-data:
You can even simplify things further by using SQLite exclusively. For details, refer to this article. However, according to the official Wiki.js blog post, version 3.0 will support only PostgreSQL due to its richer feature set. Thus, following the official recommendations remains the safest path forward.
User Interface: Elegant and Intuitive
Once installed, simply visit the designated URL and configure the default administrator account to begin using Wiki.js immediately.
Wiki.js ships with a refined, modern UI design featuring the classic left-side navigation sidebar and right-side content area—a layout optimized for standard left-to-right reading patterns and also serving as the default visitor-facing page.
Additionally, Wiki.js includes a comprehensive administrative dashboard. After logging in with administrator credentials, extra options appear in the top-right corner; clicking the “gear” icon takes you directly to the admin interface:
The left-hand navigation panel in the admin dashboard contains numerous configuration options—for instance, adjusting basic site metadata (to improve SEO), managing tags and pages (articles), etc. Wiki.js also supports multiple language packs; download the desired pack from the right-hand panel and customize it as needed:
Editor: Diverse Options, Full-Featured
Wiki.js ships with several built-in editors to choose from, including Markdown, Visual Editor (WYSIWYG), AsciiDoc, and raw HTML editing.
Among these, the Markdown and Visual Editors offer the richest functionality.
At the bottom of the editor window, a status bar displays the current document’s location within the hierarchy and character count. To save changes, click the “Save” button in the top-right corner. Additional page settings—such as title, description, or publication date—are accessible via the adjacent “Page” button.
Comprehensive Website Analytics Tools
Running and maintaining a website necessitates understanding visitor behavior—collecting metrics like user engagement, geographic distribution, and traffic volume. Such data underpins continuous improvement, optimization efforts, and deeper analysis of user preferences and habits.
Wiki.js integrates over a dozen widely adopted web analytics tools and solutions, including Google Analytics, Baidu Tongji, Matomo, and StatCounter.
Source: Wiki.js official website
Select one or more analytics services suited to your needs or team requirements, then input the corresponding tracking credentials.
User Management and Authentication
Although Wiki.js focuses primarily on building Wiki sites, it includes a robust, out-of-the-box user management system—an especially valuable feature for internal teams or multi-user environments. Since user management typically intertwines tightly with permission controls, implementing such logic manually often proves both complex and tedious during development.
Wiki.js eliminates this overhead by providing a complete, prebuilt user management system that streamlines login and permissions handling. By default, two user groups exist: Administrators and Visitors. You may create additional custom groups as needed, then assign users to appropriate groups via the user list for centralized administration.
Beyond native registration on your Wiki.js instance, the platform also integrates authentication with external services such as GitHub, Google, and Slack. Should you wish to integrate your own identity provider, Wiki.js offers built-in support for OAuth2, CAS, and Generic OpenID Connect protocols.
Source: Wiki.js official website
Multiple Storage and Synchronization Options
While Wiki.js requires an RDBMS backend, its admin interface also exposes alternative storage choices—including Amazon S3 object storage (and compatible S3-compatible services), SFTP, Azure Blob Storage, or even local file storage (which enables daily backup capabilities).
According to Wiki.js’s official roadmap, future releases will add support for mainstream cloud storage providers such as Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox.
What truly impressed us about Wiki.js, however, is its native Git-based storage and synchronization capability.
In essence, even if you choose not to edit content directly within Wiki.js’s built-in editors, you can still author content externally and push it to popular Git hosting platforms like GitHub or GitLab. Then, simply enable and configure Git synchronization in the admin interface—and Wiki.js automatically pulls updates onto your site without manual intervention. This creates a seamless, end-to-end workflow from writing to publishing!
A compelling real-world example is Wiki.js’s own official documentation:
Wiki.js’s documentation is synchronized directly from its GitHub repository to the live Wiki.js site. Moreover, the left-hand navigation menu closely mirrors the folder structure and document hierarchy in the GitHub repository.
Full-Text Search Engine Integration
Given its purpose as a knowledge repository, a Wiki naturally accumulates far more content than typical blogs—especially as knowledge scales. At that point, efficient content retrieval becomes essential to maximize knowledge reuse. A full-text search engine dramatically accelerates this process.
Wiki.js supports all major full-text search engines—including AWS CloudSearch, Azure Search, Elasticsearch—as well as native database-level full-text search. Furthermore, upcoming versions plan to integrate Solr, Sphinx, and Meilisearch.
Unlike storage options, only one search engine can be selected at a time. Once chosen, simply enter the required configuration details in the admin interface—the rest is handled automatically by Wiki.js.
Bonus Details That Elevate the Experience
Beyond the core features already covered, Wiki.js includes numerous thoughtful extras.
For example, Wiki.js implements a Git-like version control system built-in, automatically tracking page revision history. This lets you compare differences between versions, revert to prior states, or even synchronize with remote Git repositories.
Wiki.js also integrates Let’s Encrypt, automatically provisioning SSL certificates during setup and runtime—eliminating the hassle of manual HTTPS configuration. Additionally, you can configure email settings within Wiki.js to send notifications, welcome messages, or password reset emails.
Wiki.js exposes automation-friendly APIs: after generating an API access key in the admin interface, you can use GraphQL endpoints (documented here) to integrate with other automation tools. Webhook support is also planned for future releases.
Conclusion
This article highlights Wiki.js’s rich, out-of-the-box functionality—and these capabilities will expand even further in Wiki.js 3.0 (currently under active development).
That said, Wiki.js isn’t flawless. For instance, its theme options remain limited, and customization flexibility is relatively constrained. It also lacks third-party plugin or extension support, meaning missing features require waiting for official implementation—potentially only arriving in version 3.0.
If you’re now eager to try Wiki.js, one crucial consideration remains before adoption—either individually or as a team: Wiki.js uses the AGPL 3.0 license. If you intend to modify or customize the source code, careful evaluation is strongly advised prior to usage.
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