In today’s world, everyone wants instant access to information. And to keep using it, only some of them are prepared to pick up the phone and make a call. They require an immediate response, which is why you must have a solid foundation of knowledge. A knowledge base generated with a wiki can help your team better organize vital content and increase client satisfaction.
For the uninitiated, a “wiki” is a website or server program that enables user collaboration and effective information organizing. For your company’s purposes, you can develop a website that is similar to Wikipedia in the same way that Wikipedia is. Although I prefer the former, you have the option of using a hosted (SaaS) or self-hosted wiki platform.
What Is a Wiki?
Wikis are a popular type of website that enables public user collaboration. The main characteristic that sets it apart from other websites is that anyone interested in the topic and possessing relevant information can edit or add to the page.
Furthermore, the organization of wikis is focused on tying together related topics. This encourages readers to move from one page to the next in order to learn more and makes it simple for them to absorb contextual information that enhances their understanding of the topic at hand.
What Is a Wiki Hosting Service?
By using a wiki hosting provider, users can create, update, and manage an online wiki. Users can create and manage an online wiki using wiki platforms, which they can use to collaborate on document creation, information recording, and website building.
Wiki hosting services allow for the hosting of online discussions in a collaborative setting. Wikia and MediaWiki are the most famous wiki hosting services, while there are others as well. The firm that owns Wikia, Inc., which was founded in October 2006, is the proprietor of the free wiki hosting platform. With over 26 million active wiki pages, MediaWiki is the most popular hosting platform for wikis.
Qualities:
Numerous features are available from wiki hosting services to make setting up and maintaining your wiki simple. Here are a few of the most typical characteristics to search for:
Simpleness of Use:
- WYSIWYG editing:
You can immediately edit your wiki pages without knowing any coding. Format and type your text just like you would in a word processor.
- Drag and drop capabilities:
It’s simple to include files other than movies and photographs on your wiki pages.
- Themes and templates:
To start your wiki quickly, select from a number of pre-designed templates and themes.
Working together:
- Permissions and user accounts:
Establish user profiles and designate varying degrees of access to manage who can add, remove, and view material on your wiki.
- Version management:
Maintain a record of the modifications you make to your wiki pages and quickly go back to earlier iterations when needed.
Discussion boards:
Permit users to work together on material and debate wiki issues.
Personalization:
- Extensions and plugins:
Your wiki can benefit from having extra features like calendars, quizzes, and polls.
- Personalized JavaScript and CSS:
Adjust the wiki’s appearance and feel to reflect your website or brand better.
- Embedding media:
Add media from other websites, such as pictures and movies, to your wiki articles.
Safety and Dependability:
- Restores:
Make regular backups to ensure the security of your wiki content.
- Updates on security:
To guard against vulnerabilities, make sure your wiki is up to date with the most recent security fixes.
- Availability:
Select a hosting company that has a solid uptime history to guarantee that your wiki is always accessible.
Advantages and Drawbacks of Services for Wiki Hosting
Advantages:
- The simplicity of use: WYSIWYG editing and user-friendly interfaces are standard features of wiki hosting services, which enable anyone to generate and edit content quickly—even without technical expertise.
- Working together: Because they are naturally collaborative and enable several users to add and update content, wikis are perfect for tasks that call for brainstorming or shared knowledge.
- Scalability: Wikis of various sizes, from little personal projects to massive community-driven websites, can be hosted by wiki hosting companies. As your wiki expands, you can easily update your plan.
- Economical: Wiki hosting services are an affordable alternative to hiring a developer or setting up your server to create and manage a wiki. Many provide inexpensive or free plans to accommodate various demands.
- Customization and features: Plugins, themes, and extensions are just a few of the features and customization choices that many wiki hosting services offer, enabling you to customize your wiki to meet your unique requirements.
- Availability: Wikis maintained on reliable platforms are perfect for remote collaboration and information sharing because they can usually be accessed from any location with an internet connection.
- Dependability and security: Wiki hosting providers take care of updating security patches and maintaining servers, keeping your wiki safe from threats and up to date.
Drawbacks:
- Restricted authority: Compared to self-hosting, you could have less control over the software setup and server environment while using a hosted service.
- Lock-in of vendors: Switching your wiki over to a different platform can be demanding since the platform might lock your data and content.
- Potential for vandalism and spam: Open wikis need constant moderation to preserve high-quality material because they are vulnerable to spam and vandalism.
- The price of upgraded features: Even while entry-level plans could be reasonably priced, upgrading to more expensive plans is frequently necessary to get sophisticated features or large storage capacity.
- Dependency on the hosting company: The availability and dependability of your wiki are dependent upon the hosting service’s dependability and uptime.
- Few possibilities for branding: Certain hosting providers might restrict your capacity to completely personalize your wiki’s appearance and feel to align with your brand.
What Every Wiki Hosting Package Should Contain
After choosing your wiki software, there are a few features to look for when choosing a wiki hosting plan to launch your website:
Easy Configuration:
Compared to more comprehensive web hosting plans, wiki hosting services offer the benefit of a more straightforward integration process between your web hosting account and wiki software. Look for packages from wiki hosting companies that enable one-click installation of your wiki software.
Especially Fit:
Most wiki hosting packages should work with all of the most widely used wiki software options, but to be safe, make sure the web hosting plan you are thinking about works with the specific wiki software you have selected. HostGator offers wiki hosting support for numerous wikis, including MediaWiki, Tiki, PmWiki, and WikkaWiki.
The Right Bandwidth:
This is especially important for wikis hosted by private companies, but it is equally necessary if your wiki will be publicly available on the internet. Its bandwidth will determine how much content (especially media and images) you can add to your wiki and how many users it can support. If you expect a lot of people to visit and use your wiki, make sure the web hosting package you select can handle a lot of traffic.
A reliability rate of 99%:
If your wiki is meant for a small or colossal audience, you still want it to be regularly accessible. Uptime is the duration of time that a web hosting provider keeps its websites available. The best web hosting companies provide a minimum uptime guarantee of 99%; some even go so far as to offer a money-back guarantee in addition to 99.9% uptime.
Customer Support:
Even if making a wiki is relatively easy, there’s always a chance that you’ll occasionally encounter technical issues or issues that call for help with any website. Select a wiki hosting company that provides 24/7 customer support to ensure that help will be there when you need it.
Wiki Hosting Types
WikkaWiki
Choose the WikkaWiki hosting provider that can increase the efficiency of your wiki site. That’s A2 Hosting! Your website is hosted on our blazing-fast SwiftServer platform. Please expect up to 20X faster page loads when comparing our Turbo Servers to other up-and-coming WikkaWiki Hosting providers.
PmWiki
PmWiki is another well-known free wiki software with capabilities that are beneficial to businesses. This is a straightforward version of the wiki software that contains all the capabilities required for a business wiki. With skins—which you may make yourself or purchase already made—you can easily change the appearance of your PmWiki website. Like Tiki, PmWiki protects your wiki site with a password, letting you control who can edit which pages. If you’re looking for a program to develop a basic company wiki, PmWiki is a decent choice.
DokuWiki
DokuWiki is a free, open-source wiki application with a user-friendly interface. The primary features of the application are straightforward and user-friendly, but it also provides extensive customization via a variety of plugins and presets. DokuWiki is a popular choice for business use cases, including project management and collaborative corporate workspaces.
Like many of the other choices, Dokuwiki’s access control features allow wiki authors to limit who can read and modify individual pages as well as certain sections of pages. They also provide tracking and revision management.
Matterwiki
Matterwiki is a simple, easy-to-use wiki application created specifically for small businesses. For convenience, all wiki pages are grouped under a single topic. The application maintains track of all modifications and their authors. Because Matterwiki is easy to use for staff members of all ability levels, it’s an excellent option for small teams looking for a straightforward wiki interface.
The Top 5 Wiki Hosting Companies for 2024
1. Hosting A2
Another well-known hosting business, A2Hosting, also offers wiki solutions that can help you create the wiki platform of your choice, including MediaWiki, DokuWiki, or TikiWiki. Because they are aware of the impact that even a single second of loading time may have on your website’s bounce rate, this web host is well-known for its blazingly fast servers.
2. Confluence
Confluence from Atlassian can be required to set up your team and promote effective teamwork. With its help, you can create a knowledge base that is very user-friendly and where your staff can find solutions in one convenient location. You may also organize your workspace to its fullest potential, schedule projects, and take meeting notes.
In exchange, your team will have the ability to make announcements and solicit feedback from every member. This demonstrates the legitimacy of admirable concepts and ideas. One of my favourite things about this company is that they have templates for almost anything. Writing something from scratch and sharing it is not required. All you have to do is use the templates, fill in your details, and continue.
3. AllAnswered
An incredible all-in-one knowledge management solution is called AllAnswered. All of your questions are addressed with their help. The power of a wiki, community, process, and Q&A section may all be combined into one system. So what is the best thing? You can have all of them for a single, affordable price. To sum up, you may create new and updated information, share knowledge, host questions and answers, and save a ton of time with artificial intelligence.
4. Document 360
With Document360, an outstanding internal wiki platform, teams can collaborate, exchange information, stay organized, and manage all company knowledge in one place. It’s the perfect platform to host your wiki on and easily share and update pages on process documentation, corporate policy processes, training, onboarding, how-to manuals, and other workplace documents.
5. Vultr
It takes simply one click to install Mediawiki on Vultr, the open-source program that powers Wikipedia. With this versatile tool, you may produce collaborative content for knowledge bases, documentation sections, or even news portals without the requirement for web design expertise.
