BlueSpice vs MediaWiki
We give BlueSpice a 3.2 GPA and MediaWiki a 3.0, out of 4.0. BlueSpice grades higher on features and ease of use. MediaWiki grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
BlueSpice
Open-source enterprise wiki built on MediaWiki
Free plan · from $1,620/yr
How we grade them
| 3.2GPABlueSpiceVery good | 3.0GPAMediaWikiVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BPro in the cloud is $1,620 a year for up to 25 users, about $5.40 a user a month if you fill every seat, which is the cheap end of this category. But 25 is the smallest tier, so a team of 10 pays the same. There's a one-time setup fee listed at $450, and single sign-on costs extra in the cloud. | AFree of charge under the GNU General Public License, with no paid edition and nothing to upgrade to. It comes with no warranty. |
| Free plan and trial | BBlueSpice free costs nothing and has every MediaWiki feature plus a visual editor, search and about 100 extensions. But you download and run it yourself with community support only, and approvals, workflows, forms and central authentication are left out. The cloud has a 30-day trial of pro for up to 25 users. | AThe full software is a free download for your own server. Help comes from the community support desk. |
| Features | AWrite in a visual editor or wiki syntax, then add drafts and approvals, workflows, read confirmations and page assignments on pro. Forms capture structured data, the bookmaker turns pages into manuals, and draw.io and BPMN diagrams sit inside the wiki. Pro ships with about 180 extensions. | BWikitext or the bundled VisualEditor, a full history of every revision, extensions, an API and room for millions of hits a day. But the manual warns it's often not suitable when access to part of a wiki must be restricted, and third-party extensions may be unmaintained. |
| Ease of use | BNo App Store rating on record, so a B is our ceiling. On the paid cloud version the vendor hosts it for you, and the visual editor means nobody has to learn wiki syntax. Go for the free edition and you're running a server yourself. | DYou host it yourself. It needs PHP 8.3 or later, web server software, a database such as MariaDB or MySQL, and ongoing security upgrades. Ready-made hosting comes only from third parties the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't endorse. |
| Platforms and integrations | BIt's a web app, in the vendor's cloud or delivered as Docker containers or a virtual machine for your own servers. It hooks into Microsoft Entra ID, Okta and Keycloak for sign-in, plus draw.io, DeepL, Lucidchart, GitHub and Microsoft Teams. No phone or desktop apps are listed. | BA web app with the Action API, which lets programs log in, read data and post changes over HTTP. No phone or desktop apps and no integrations on record. |
| Best for | MediaWiki with approvals and vendor support | large public wikis that anyone can read |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: BlueSpice and MediaWiki. How we grade
Where they differ
- BlueSpice starts at $1,620 per year for up to 25 users, cloud-hosted (about $5.40 per user / month). MediaWiki is free.
- BlueSpice also covers templates, diagrams and forms.
In commonFree planWebOpen sourceSelf-hostableWiki
At a glance
| BlueSpice | MediaWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | $1,620 per year for up to 25 users, cloud-hosted (about $5.40 per user / month) | Free |
| Free plan | BlueSpice free is a community edition to download and run yourself: MediaWiki plus a visual editor, search and about 100 extensions. It has community support only and no approvals or workflows. | The software is free of charge and licensed under version 2 or later of the GNU General Public License, with no warranty. |
| Free trial | 30-day free trial of BlueSpice pro in the cloud, for up to 25 users | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Hallo Welt! GmbH | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Price read from | bluespice.com | mediawiki.org |
| Checked | Oct 9, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
BlueSpice
- Organizations that want an open-source wiki with vendor support
- Quality and compliance teams that need approvals and read confirmations
- Companies that must keep documentation on their own servers or in German data centers
- Teams already familiar with MediaWiki
MediaWiki
- Large public wikis and encyclopedia-style reference sites
- Organizations with a server administrator to install and update it
- Communities that already know how to edit Wikipedia
Worth knowing
BlueSpice
- The free edition is self-hosted only and lacks approvals, workflows, forms, central authentication and professional support.
- Paid editions are yearly subscriptions sold in user tiers: 25 users is the smallest cloud tier and 50 the smallest for farm.
- Cloud hosting adds a one-time setup fee, listed at $450, and single sign-on costs extra in the cloud.
- The vendor's edition page quotes euros, from 4.50 € per user a month; dollar prices come from its price configurator.
MediaWiki
- The manual says MediaWiki is often not suitable when access to part of a wiki must be restricted, because it was designed for open content.
- You host it yourself: it needs PHP 8.3 or later, web server software and a database such as MariaDB or MySQL, and ongoing security upgrades.
- It is optimized for very high-traffic sites and may not suit small sites where disk space or memory is the tighter limit.
- Hosting comes only from third parties: the site lists hosting services that the Wikimedia Foundation neither guarantees nor endorses.
Key features
BlueSpice
- Visual editor on MediaWiki
- Pages are written in a visual editor or in wiki syntax and organized with subpages and hierarchical categories. BlueSpice pro ships with about 180 extensions.
- Approvals and workflows
- The pro edition adds drafts and approvals, workflows, read confirmations, reminders and page assignments for keeping controlled documents current.
- Forms and semantic metadata
- Structured data is captured through forms with semantic metadata support, which the vendor lists among the pro edition's additions.
- Bookmaker and exports
- The bookmaker compiles wiki pages into manuals or training material. Pages export to PDF with custom templates and to XML, CSV and Excel, and Word files can be imported.
- Process diagrams
- Processes and relationships are drawn inside the wiki with the draw.io extension or modelled as BPMN diagrams.
- Cloud or on-premises
- The cloud version is hosted in Germany with a daily backup kept for 7 days and 99.9% stated availability. On premises it is delivered as Docker containers or a virtual machine.
MediaWiki
- Wikitext and VisualEditor
- Pages use MediaWiki's wikitext format, which needs no knowledge of HTML or CSS. The VisualEditor extension, bundled since version 1.35, allows editing pages as rich content instead.
- Full revision history
- Every edit is written to the database without deleting earlier versions of the page, so vandalism, spam or mistakes can be reverted easily.
- Extensions
- Administrators add functions by installing extensions. Some are bundled with the software; third-party ones may be unmaintained or incompatible with each other.
- Action API
- A web service at the api.php endpoint lets programs log in, read data and post changes over HTTP, covering features such as page operations and search.
- Built for high traffic
- The software was designed to serve sites that get millions of hits a day. It supports caching and can be coupled with proxy server software.
- Image and media files
- MediaWiki also manages images and multimedia files, which are stored in the server's file system rather than in the database.
Plans
BlueSpice
BlueSpice freeFree
Self-hosted community edition: all MediaWiki features plus a visual editor, search, improved design and security, with community support.
BlueSpice pro$1,620
per year for up to 25 users, cloud-hosted, before tax
About $5.40 per user a month; $3,240 a year for up to 50 users. Adds approvals, workflows, forms and metadata, the bookmaker and professional support.
BlueSpice farm$6,120
per year for up to 50 users, before tax
About $10.20 per user a month. Everything in pro plus multiple wikis, search across them, content transfer and multilingual content.
BlueSpice indigoCustom
Custom offer for non-standard contract and purchasing terms, separate compliance requirements and customer-specific deployments.
MediaWiki
MediaWiki$0
The full software, downloaded and installed on your own server, with help from the community support desk.
Ways to pay less
BlueSpice
- Nonprofit
Discount for registered non-profits
The pricing FAQ gives registered non-profit organizations a discount on the software subscription, excluding governmental, academic and commercial bodies. No amount is published.
MediaWiki
No public discounts listed.
