MediaWiki
MediaWiki is the open-source wiki software that powers Wikipedia. It is written in PHP, runs on MySQL or MariaDB, and is designed for collaborative editing of large reference works. It is not a traditional CMS and was never meant to build a conventional website.
How it models content
- Pages are the basic unit, identified by title and organised into namespaces (Main, Talk, User, Template, Category, and others)
- Categories are tag-like groupings applied to pages. A page can belong to many categories
- Templates are reusable content blocks with parameters, used for infoboxes, navigation, and formatting
- Wikitext is the markup language for content. It is not HTML, though HTML is partially supported
- Revision history is stored for every page, with full diffs
MediaWiki’s content is fundamentally different from a blog or CMS. There are no posts, no publication dates, no author bylines in the traditional sense, and no separation between draft and published states unless extensions add those features.
MediaWiki and WordPress compared
| MediaWiki | Closest in WordPress |
|---|---|
| Wiki pages | Pages or posts (depending on how you reorganise) |
| Categories | Categories or tags |
| Templates | Reusable blocks or shortcodes (no direct equivalent) |
| Wikitext markup | Block editor or classic editor HTML |
| Talk pages | Comments (loosely) |
| Revision history | Revisions (stored but less visible) |
The main work is converting wikitext to HTML and deciding how to restructure content that was organised as a wiki into something that works as a conventional site. Templates, interlinking, and category structures all need rethinking rather than direct transfer.
Current status
Very actively maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation. MediaWiki 1.46 is the current stable release. It remains the dominant wiki platform worldwide.