The MediaWiki alternative that the office writes in too.
MediaWiki is magnificent for Wikipedia. In a company, usually only the people who know wikitext write in it, and an upgrade with many extensions easily costs a weekend. ThurWiki takes the pages through the MediaWiki API and gives everyone an editor like Word.
What MediaWiki users run into. And what ThurWiki changes about it.
Voices from public forums and reviews, some of them shortened. More reasons for switching stand on the migration page.
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Outside IT, hardly anybody writes.
«… too hard to edit to the point that documentation will tend to fall out of date without anyone wanting to update it over time.» – Hacker News, 2017
ThurWiki: A ribbon with HOME, INSERT and TABLE, keyboard shortcuts, no markup. Anyone who can operate Word is writing on the first day.
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Upgrades break the extensions.
«Upgrades broke the installation a few times. … Mediawiki is complex, and takes more time to administer.» – Hacker News, 2025
ThurWiki: Operation, backup and updates are done by ThurData. There are no third-party extensions, so nothing falls away at a version jump either.
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Edit conflicts.
«Edit conflicts can be a real pain and turnoff for beginner users.» – Hacker News, 2025
ThurWiki: Several people write on the same page at once, with cursors in their own colour. There is no conflict for anybody to resolve.
How the move out of MediaWiki works.
- Route
- Through the MediaWiki API with an address and access, namespace by namespace. No dump needed.
- Comes across
- Pages with their wikitext as formatted text, tables, images, categories as labels, links. Out of the markup comes a document anybody can edit.
- Check afterwards
- Templates with parameters, infoboxes and pages with a lot of parser logic; those come across as text.
Pages that quietly go stale no longer exist.
The most common ailment of a wiki is not the missing page but the wrong one: an instruction that has not been right for two years, and nobody notices. A review date turns that into an appointment.
- A name, a date, a rhythm. Per page a responsible person, a date and, if you want, a repetition: every 30 days, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.
- The notice stands on the page, not only in a mailbox. Once the date is reached, everyone who opens the page sees it – including the engineer who needs the instruction right now. A reminder only one person gets does not help the reader.
- Confirming is one click. The responsible person is reminded and confirms right in the notice. With a repetition the next date counts from today – anyone confirming three months late is not immediately due again.
- Two overviews. “My reviews due” for the individual, and in the wiki administration all the reviews due across the wiki. The responsible person is an organisational note and not a right: they get no access they do not have anyway.
And back out again: as one PDF.
A wiki you cannot get out of is a trap – you know that, moving out of MediaWiki right now. That is why the exit lies open.
- One document out of many pages. Tick across spaces, up to 300 pages per export; each begins in the PDF on a new sheet, in the order of the page tree. You choose how large it prints: 45 to 100 per cent, for type and content at once.
- Just as the page looks. What is printed is the real view, not a second rendering: macros, charts, draw.io drawings and tables stand in the PDF as they do in the browser.
- With your rights, not with everybody’s. A page you are not allowed to read stops the export rather than quietly going missing. An export that drops pages would be worse than one that never arrives.
- And by machine. Through the API every page as Markdown, with attachments – for an archive or for the move to the next system.
ThurWiki and MediaWiki side by side.
| ThurWiki | MediaWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| A page tree as deep as you like | yes, as deep as you like | flat, sub-pages only through a slash in the title |
| Search inside PDF, Word and Excel attachments, tolerant of typing mistakes | attachments yes, including scans and archives; typing mistakes yes, and by meaning | attachments and typing mistakes only through extensions |
| An editor without markup | yes, a ribbon like Word’s | VisualEditor is shipped; templates stay markup |
| Simultaneous editing | yes | no |
| Four-eyes approvals | yes, without an add-on | FlaggedRevs as an extension |
| Invoices, tickets, issues and files from other systems on the page | yes, 41 connectors, from bexio, Odoo and Jira to Zabbix and Proxmox | through extensions |
| SSO (OIDC, SAML) without a price per user | yes, included | through extensions |
| An AI assistant | yes, with your rights, without credits | no |
| Operation, backup and updates by the provider, data in Switzerland | yes, ThurData in Switzerland | yourself |
| Run it yourself (open source) | no, run by ThurData | yes, open source |
| Export chosen pages and whole branches as PDF | yes, chosen pages and whole branches as one PDF; every page as Markdown through the API | yes, as XML; PDF through an extension |
| A review date per page with a reminder | yes, a responsible person, a date, a repetition, a notice on the page | no |
| Price | per wiki, from CHF 4.90 a month | free, you run it |
As of September 2026, based on the makers’ public statements and on user reports, without warranty. We also write down where we are not ahead.
Questions from MediaWiki users
Why not simply switch on the VisualEditor?
It has shipped with MediaWiki since 1.35 and takes the markup off many people’s hands. At templates, infoboxes and parser functions it reaches its limits, though, and the templates themselves stay markup. In ThurWiki there is no second mode; the document is the document.
Do our categories and links survive?
Categories become labels, and links between pages are rewritten to the new addresses. Whatever the import cannot read, it reports in the preview.
Can we keep MediaWiki running alongside?
Yes, read-only, until the new wiki has settled in. The import can be repeated to pick up changes made in the meantime.
How do we stop pages going stale?
With a review date per page: a responsible person, a date and, if you want, a repetition (30 days up to yearly). Once the date is reached, a notice stands at the top of the page – visible to everyone who opens it, not only to the responsible person – and that person is notified. Confirming is one click in the notice; with a repetition the next date counts from today. Whoever administers the wiki sees all the reviews due in one place, and each person sees their own in the user menu.
How do we get back out of ThurWiki?
In the interface as PDF: you tick in the page tree what should come along – per row either the page alone or the page with all its sub-pages – across spaces, up to 300 pages in one document. What is printed is the view you see, so with macros, charts and drawings. Through the API, additionally every page as Markdown, with attachments. There is no bulk export of the whole wiki as an archive today; we would rather say so beforehand.
More alternatives pages: Confluence · DokuWiki · XWiki · BookStack · Wiki.js · Docmost · Outline · Notion · SharePoint
ThurWiki is a MediaWiki alternative for companies that want a wiki without wikitext, without maintaining extensions and without upgrade risk: an editor like Word, simultaneous editing, search into attachments, approvals, operation in Switzerland. MediaWiki migration through the API, namespace by namespace, with a preview.
Anyone wanting to replace MediaWiki, retire a MediaWiki company wiki or move from MediaWiki to a modern wiki finds the route, the comparison and the trial import here.
Twenty of your MediaWiki pages in ThurWiki, before you decide.
We set up a demo wiki and import a slice of your collection, with a preview. You see search, macros and the editor working on your own content.