MediaWiki reviews

It rocks. I already had mysql installed, and installing MediaWiki was like 4 very trivial steps. The one configuration change I wanted to make was on the FAQ, and after that I was all set. --Fcrick

I'm a MediaWiki developer and one of the founders of Wikitravel. We've been using MediaWiki for about a year and a half as of this writing.

MediaWiki is a great piece of software, but difficult. Development is principally aimed at Wikimedia servers, which is a pretty high-end configuration (multiple Web servers, multiple roll-over databases, array of reverse cache squid servers, lots of extra PHP caching engines). Since Wikitravel is hosted on an off-the-shelf Web service provider (I wouldn't have it any other way), we don't have access to these luxuries. So, our performance is kinda poor.

Developers also throw in features which are primarily for Wikimedia projects that may or may not be useful for other projects, without adding configuration variables to enable/disable those features. A lot of the work I do as a developer is figuring out how to turn off features that aren't useful for our project.

There's not a lot of concentration on making the software customizable or skinnable. Third-party extensions are hard to write and interfaces are pretty much undocumented.

The code base is really bloated and monolithic. There are tons of dummy modules and functions built in for compatibility with code that no longer exists. Logging is practically non-existent, unless you're willing to turn on "debug logging", which vomits out everything.

Within Wikimedia, system administration and programming are completely intertwined. If you want to talk about some class in some module in MediaWiki, be prepared to listen to lots of hard-disk optimization talk on the mailing lists and IRC channels. Also, there's practically no collaborative design process -- developers with CVS access stick in their pet projects and expect others to deal with the consequences.

Finally, there's hostility from Wikimedia developers and users. There's not a lot, and people are usually pretty great, but every once in a while people tell you to shut up if you don't like their software. There's also not a lot of openness to criticism, and people get pretty defensive. It's understandable: Wikimedia is a great project that commands a lot of loyalty. But still.

Bottom line? For admins outside Wikimedia, unless you're happy with MediaWiki as it is straight out of the box, I'd recommend against using this software. --Evan 19:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As a barely knowledgable MediaWiki user, the scripts are akin to being handed a running internal combustion widget: it's powerful, it's doing something, but you're not entirely sure what. And it just might hurt if you try to do something with it.

The documentation is poor to non-existent. The support, via the mail list, has always be quick and helpful. But there's a high noise-to-information ratio. The online support varies: most days it's fabulous - some days it sucks. (Today has been one of the latter, but I'm trying to keep it in perspective.)

Some basic documentation issues which come up repeatedly (and which would save a lot of time and effort by developers if they were in an easy-to-find FAQ or how-to-guide) include:


 * how to customize, especially the logo
 * how to upgrade (easy and long forms, for the current versions)
 * how to get the math/LaTeX system working
 * how to extend the magic words

The fact is, MediaWiki is a purpose-built software, and you aren't their purpose. On the support side of things, everyone is scrambling too hard to provide much support infrastructure. That isn't their purpose either. (IMO this is actually costing more developer time than building the appropriate infrastructure.) If you think you might need help setting up or maintaining a mediawiki site, well, that isn't the purpose of MediaWiki.

It's a good software - power hungry but able to scale - but it is not designed for small setups and there is poor support for amateurs. Accept it as is, or be the change you want to see. - Wikipedia:User:Amgine