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I'm looking for a personal wiki that has a desktop version.

I've come across recommendations for zim-wiki and tiddlywiki-online, but I'm not sure if these are what I'm looking for.

I have a lot of material either as Word documents, Excel files, PDFs etc. that I'd like to connect via a wiki style software where I can make notes and add/attach links to various files as necessary.

I'd also appreciate if there is one that has a backup feature, or portability between Mac and Windows.

Any suggestions?

Update: I have tested Onenote for almost a week pretty extensively. While not quite a wiki, it seems to be doing a great job in helping me organize/link documents and take notes. It's a note-taking software more than wiki. I'm not going to uptick an answer since I'd rather more suggestions come through to identify a good wiki-style software that isn't complex as MediaWiki.

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  • What do you mean by "Desktop Version"? That you can edit without browser? Or that the Content is hosted on your local machine?
    – Marcel
    Sep 14, 2015 at 5:11
  • Is it for home or office use?
    – Marcel
    Sep 14, 2015 at 5:12
  • For personal use - but im happy to consider paid versions. And yes, one that can be hosted locally just because i want to avoid uploading/downloading of content. My main focus is the one where i can make links within the content and point towards locally hosted files (pdf, word etc.) and add custom tags so i can search easily too
    – Freewill
    Sep 14, 2015 at 11:22
  • Not sure why zim doesn't fit the bill. You can link to local files too, and attach files.
    – Tanath
    Sep 20, 2015 at 16:17
  • I'm looking for the same thing, with a possibility to sync between the desktop version and the online mediawiki wiki.
    – Quidam
    Nov 3, 2019 at 17:27

6 Answers 6

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While not a wiki by the common definition of the term, Microsoft OneNote meets the requirements described.

OneNote provides note-taking (including handwritten when using an appropriate tablet device and stylus), supports linking and embedding documents, can backup and synchronize notebooks via OneDrive, and has apps for Windows, Mac and mobile devices.

This blog post outlines its pertinent features.

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  • thanks gm2. While not quite a wiki, I've downloaded and tested onenote at your suggestion and it seems to be pretty good so far. Since, I'm using it on a mac, it has lesser features than the windows version e.g. no custom tags can be added to a note/section of a note etc. No linkage to local files stored on hard drive.
    – Freewill
    Sep 13, 2015 at 12:34
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If you're feeling adventurous, and you have the gut for it, you could try installing MediaWiki on a Windows computer.

Please note: This is not something that I have tried myself, it's not something I'm ever likely to try, and this could be quite an ambitious project. I'm a little leary of posting this at all for these very reasons; I try not to recommend anything that I wouldn't be willing to do myself.

This being said, MediaWiki has been ported to Windows, and could very well work, if you were willing to figure it out.

Here's a link to their (big surprise:) wiki page: Go Here

Note on background, just for anyone who doesn't know: MediaWiki is the power, the muscle, behind Wikipedia and a whole host of online wikis. If you scroll down to the bottom of a Wikipedia page, like this one, you should see a notice saying "Powered by MediaWiki". You can't do a three-point turnaround on the internet without running into MediaWiki. It's like Wordpress in that respect (which might also work for you, depending on what you need).

So yeah. That's what I've got. Please, please, please don't take my word for it. Do your research, but perhaps start here.

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  • I don't think this meets the original question as it's media wiki running on a server - hosted in a VM or similar. It isn't exactly an application that the user runs on their computer.
    – user3791372
    Jan 31, 2016 at 17:15
  • Yes, that's not an answer, it's required to be "desktop".
    – Quidam
    Nov 3, 2019 at 17:27
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There is a decent Wikipedia page covering this topic. Of the ones listed, I've tried MoinMoin desktop edition and DokuWiki. Both work well. Since they are both absolutely free, I'd encourage you to just try them out. DokuWiki was particularly easy to set up as it doesn't use a database and is fun to use.

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TagSpaces may be what you are looking for. It can point to local files and has extensive tagging support and it's offline as well. It also supports making Markdown documents.

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I use and love ConnectedText as a Windows-based personal wiki found here...

http://www.connectedtext.com/index.php

I can easily drop-and-drag links to docs and web pages on my local harddrives and much more.

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  • Unfortunately ConnectedText is no longer developed according to WikiPedia..
    – riot_starter
    Jun 1, 2021 at 10:08
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Another option for a Windows-based personal wiki is MyInfo. It has a WYSIWYG text editor, automatically renames links between pages and can be exported as a web site.

As with other mentioned solutions here, it offers extensive tagging and links to local files.

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