The XWiki alternative that needs no developers.
XWiki can do almost anything, as long as somebody writes Velocity and Groovy and maintains the Java server (Tomcat or Jetty). Many companies want a wiki that gets by without developers of their own. ThurWiki fetches the documents through the XWiki API, draw.io drawings included.
What XWiki 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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A steep learning curve, a complex interface.
«Text editing is not a smooth process as other platforms.» – Capterra, 2022
ThurWiki: A ribbon with three tabs, macros with a search field, help at the question mark beside every field: 60 topics, written for end users.
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A long setup, a lot of hand work.
«Rather lengthy setup phase (couple months) to really understand all the Catalina / Tomcat performance options.» – Capterra, 2016
ThurWiki: Operation and updates by ThurData. In XWiki, approvals come through extensions; in ThurWiki, approvals, charts, Excel on the page, Jira and Git are part of the product.
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Rights that are hard to scale.
«Rights are getting hard to scale as the userbase grows.» – XWiki forum, July 2025
ThurWiki: Nine rights across user, space and page, rules written onto groups, a rights matrix per space. What stands there applies.
How the move out of XWiki works.
- Route
- Through the XWiki API with an address and access, wiki by wiki.
- Comes across
- Documents with their hierarchy, text, tables, attachments, draw.io drawings (still editable), links.
- Check afterwards
- Pages with scripts (Velocity, Groovy) and applications; those come across as text, not as a program.
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 XWiki 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 XWiki side by side.
| ThurWiki | XWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| A page tree as deep as you like | yes, as deep as you like | yes |
| Search inside PDF, Word and Excel attachments, tolerant of typing mistakes | attachments yes, including scans and archives; typing mistakes yes, and by meaning | attachments yes, typing mistakes no |
| An editor without markup | yes, a ribbon like Word’s | yes, with hurdles |
| Simultaneous editing | yes | yes |
| Four-eyes approvals | yes, without an add-on | through extensions |
| 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 and scripts |
| SSO (OIDC, SAML) without a price per user | yes, included | through extensions |
| An AI assistant | yes, with your rights, without credits | through an extension |
| Operation, backup and updates by the provider, data in Switzerland | yes, ThurData in Switzerland | cloud at the maker or 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 XAR, HTML or PDF |
| 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; support and cloud are paid for |
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 XWiki users
Do our draw.io drawings come across?
Yes, as editable drawings. In ThurWiki, draw.io runs on our own server.
What becomes of XWiki applications with scripts?
They come across as text. Applications you genuinely need we discuss: much of it is covered by a macro or a connector, some of it is not. We say so beforehand.
We have several wikis in an XWiki farm.
The import runs wiki by wiki; every wiki of the farm becomes a space of its own. You set the rights afterwards, per space.
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 · MediaWiki · DokuWiki · BookStack · Wiki.js · Docmost · Outline · Notion · SharePoint
ThurWiki is an XWiki alternative for companies that want a wiki without a scripting language, without maintaining Tomcat or Jetty and without hunting for suitable extensions: an editor like Word, approvals, charts, Jira and Git in the box, operation in Switzerland. XWiki migration through the API, with draw.io drawings.
Anyone wanting to replace XWiki or move away from XWiki finds the route, the comparison and the trial import here.
Twenty of your XWiki 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.