Picking a project will impact you over the long term, and it will impact many future decisions. If you are reading this, it's that you're comparing with other solutions., and this page is there to help. It is a wiki page, so if something is inaccurate or incomplete, please fix it
Each project is unique. And enterprise suites have so many features, and they evolve, so it's risky to compare just the feature set. It's useful to understand the deep drive of each project. If you are working on or thinking of starting an alternative, please see advice for alternatives
All projects are unique but some are more unique than othersThis is a play on the quote in Animal Farm by George Orwell:
All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than others
We assume that you are not interested in proprietary solutions, so we'll focus just on the ones that are at least partially Free / Libre / Open Source.
In general, the differences between WikiSuite an other solutions are:
Other solutions | WikiSuite |
---|---|
Some are personal self-hosting platforms and not designed for teams. Ex.: Cozy, FreedomBox | WikiSuite is designed for teams (and you can be a team of one!) |
Some are focused on a more narrow use case (typically around file sync or web apps) | WikiSuite offers most (80%+) of the data and information management features all organizations need: OS and Network, Web and Intranet, Email and Calendar, Files and Sync, BPM and Analytics, Commerce, Chat and Video Conference and Security. |
Some are focused on facilitating self-hosting of many apps, including apps with identical functionality. Ex.: Cloudron, YunoHost, Sandstorm | WikiSuite is self-hosted as well but it's an enterprise suite that is very opinionated about the apps that compose it. We believe supporting more than one application for the same need adds unnecessary complexity and fragmentation. Please see: http://pluginproblems.com/ and Constructive Cost Model COCOMO. |
For some, beyond ease of installation, there is little effort to provide interoperability between the apps | In WikiSuite, we are actively focusing on making all the features work well together. Ex.: A unified user experience with Bootstrap or single sign on between Openfire and Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware |
Some are file-centric. Thus, a lot of functionality is added to manage file metadata, version history, file sync, add workflows around files, etc. and they let desktop software edit the actual file. Ex.: Nextcloud | In WikiSuite, we want to move away from files. Everything should be editable via the web interface, everything should be stored in a database. See Spreadsheet, Word Processor (Wiki), Slideshow, Diagram and Files vs web pages. Given all the legacy content in files, we also have an extensive feature set: https://doc.tiki.org/File-Gallery |
Some are inbox (mail)-centric. Ex.: OpenPaaS | We need to move away from this model. We should be task and project-centric, and email is just one of many data formats we need to deal with. Ex: Customer Relationship Management. This being said, we are working to improve the email experience via JMAP. Also mail-centric solutions tend to also be file-centric and they add tools to manage email attachments but don't focus on making files a thing of the past. |
Partly Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS). Ex.: there is a FLOSS community edition, but as soon as you start using seriously, you are missing features that are only in the proprietary "enterprise" edition. Or there is some odd licensing scheme that makes your wonder: "why do they even call themselves Open Source"? Ex.: ONLYOFFICE, Open-Xchange, Odoo | WikiSuite has one edition, is fully Free/Libre/Open Source, and everyone collaborates to improve it. This is the true power of collaboration. Please see: Constructive Cost Model COCOMO |
Not readily available for downloading and self-hosting. The software can technically be FLOSS, but there is no download link or obvious instructions to self host. Ex.: Adaxa, Open365, CommonsCloud | How to install WikiSuite |
Some of the others listed here are not really ready or feature complete, but are added here because they share a similar vision of a unified platform to manage most of the information of your organization, using FLOSS. As of 2019-02-04, the two most solid alternatives to WikiSuite are OpenPaaS and Nextcloud. All three solutions are fully FLOSS, focused on team work and managed by experienced software development teams. Interestingly, each app has a different core strength:
WikiSuite is actively working to become a solid solution for mail-centric and file-centric use cases. It is expected that OpenPaas and Nextcloud will similarly address any weaknesses they have.