head to head · open source
wiki vs gollum
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars, 3,335 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gollum has 14,338 stars, 1,560 forks, 91 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. wiki leads on adoption by 103% (29,128 vs 14,338 stars). wiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; gollum is written in Ruby under MIT. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, gollum 11%. wiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (documentation, markdown, wiki), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| wiki | gollum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 14K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wiki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gollum if
- You want the gollum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and gollum fits your workflow better
About wiki
A modern, lightweight and powerful wiki app built on NodeJS Official Website Documentation Requirements Installation Demo Changelog Feature Requests Chat with us on Discord Translations (We need your help!) Special Thanks Contribute Follow our Twitter feed to learn about upcoming updates and new releases! Donate Wiki.js is an open source project that has been made possible due to the generous contributions by community backers. If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider becoming a sponsor, becoming a patron, donating to our OpenCollective, via Paypal or via Ethereum (
About gollum
gollum A git based Wiki Gollum is a simple wiki system built on top of Git. A Gollum Wiki is simply a git repository of a specific nature: A Gollum repository's contents are human editable text or markup files. Pages may be organized into directories any way you choose. Other content can also be included, for example images, PDFs and headers/footers for your pages. Gollum pages: May be written in a variety of markups. Can be edited with your favourite editor (changes will be visible after committing) or with the built in web interface. Can be displayed in all versions, reverted, etc. Gollum strives to be…
read the full gollum overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or gollum more popular?
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars and gollum has 14,338. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and gollum free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and gollum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and gollum?
wiki is written in TypeScript and gollum in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wiki or gollum?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (29,128 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gollum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.