Picking a project is a strategic decision. Beyond the project, you are picking an ecosystem, you are picking a sustainability model. It will impact you over the long term, and it will impact many future decisions. If you are reading this, it's likely that you're comparing WikiSuite with other solutions, and this page is here to help. It is a wiki page, so if something is inaccurate, unfair or incomplete, please correct 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. As projects tend to be good at reaching their set goals, 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 others.This 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 and other solutions are:
| Other solutions | WikiSuite |
|---|---|
| Some are personal self-hosting platforms and not designed for teams, and lack corresponding features. Examples: Cozy, FreedomBox. | WikiSuite is designed for teams (although you can be a team of one!). |
| Some are focused on a narrower use case (typically around file synchronization or web apps). | WikiSuite offers most (over 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. Examples: 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: 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. Examples: 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 synchronization, and to add workflows around files, etc., and then let desktop software edit the actual file. Example: 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, for example: 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. Example: 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). Example: There is a FLOSS community edition, but as soon as you start using it seriously, you find features missing that are only in the proprietary "enterprise" edition. This vastly limits collaboration, as the project leaders will want to limit contributions that could cannibalize the sales of the enterprise edition. For a real-world example: see Frank Karlitschek's video: Why I forked my own project and my own company - ownCloud to Nextcloud. Or there is some odd licensing scheme that makes you wonder: "Why do they even call themselves Open Source"? This has many names, including openwashing. Examples: ONLYOFFICE, Open-Xchange, Odoo, GoFAST. Please see why you should always try to use Free/Libre/Open Source software. | 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. Examples: Adaxa, Open365, CommonsCloud | How to install WikiSuite. |
Some 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 February 4, 2019, the two most solid alternatives to WikiSuite are OpenPaaS and Nextcloud. All three solutions are fully FLOSS
See Frank Karlitschek's video: Why I forked my own project and my own company - ownCloud to Nextcloud.
Linagora (the company behind OpenPaaS) calls this ‘Free-Free’ software (free as freedom and free as in accessible for all). Source: https://linagora.com/vision
, 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. We could very well see the emerge of a chat-centric solution as well.