If you use wiki for yourself only, you're missing a lot of the social power of the medium. It's like comparing your diary with a newspaper: One reader, one author – instead of many people interacting.
Sometimes however, a personal wiki can be the right thing to get started.
Here are some impressions.
All wikis mentioned here should work out of the box and be really easy to use for beginners. They should not depend on the existance of a webserver, either because they don't need one, or because they include one. Good looks by default and easy administration (or none required) are a must. Writing your own CSS should not be required.
This list should not try to replace Wiki:PersonalWiki. What we want here is a recommendation for people looking for a personal wiki and provide a comparison between the various candidates we recommend.
CategoryIntroductionToWiki
- TiddlyWiki – all in one file, view and edit in a browser, need write access to the file in order to save
- Instiki – easy to install package including a stand-alone webserver
- WikidPad – stand-alone application without a webserver included
- WxWikiServer
- MoinMoinDesktopEdition – stand-alone application including a webserver that just needs to be extracted to be ready to run
Discussions
- I distinguish a PrivateWiki? which has 1 writer and 1 reader from a PersonalWiki which has 1 writer but multiple readers. WebSeitzWiki:WikiTypes
- An interesting distinction. Now it becomes necessary to decide what to call a TiddlyWiki that can start out to be either Private or Personal, given that its an 'all-in-one file' making it easy to reatin on a PC as a "private" wiki, or can be sent attached to an Email as a snap-shot of a Personal wiki. Furthermore, would we need yet another name for one that is "returned to sender" having accumulated new content? – Hans