Upgrade from Socialtext

TWiki in a Nutshell for Socialtext Customers

Founder PeterThoeny: "On behalf of the open source community I would like to make this offer to Socialtext customers: You are invited to upgrade to TWiki. Among the enterprise wikis, TWiki is the only structured wiki platform that enables your users to create situational applications; it also has the largest number of extensions to customize the wiki. TWiki is in use by the majority of fortune 500 companies. Many consultants are available to migrate your data, provide support, and to streamline your wiki at the workplace."

About TWiki: TWiki is the most widely used wiki behind corporate firewalls. The TWiki open source enterprise collaboration platform gets downloaded more than 10,000 times a month. It is a StructuredWiki and pioneered the concept of wiki as an application platform. TWiki is typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins. Over 300 extensions are available for download.
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On this page:

Comparing Socialtext 2.0 Enterprise and TWiki 4.1
- Executive summary
- Comparison of advanced features
Upcoming TWiki features
Discussion

Comparing Socialtext 2.0 Enterprise and TWiki 4.1

This topic compares some advanced features of Socialtext 2.0 Enterprise and open source TWiki 4.1. Features that are taken for granted in an enterprise wiki are not compared, such as multiple workspaces, commenting, table editing, revision control, page creation, advanced search, backlinks, file attachments, fine grained access control, cross linking between workspaces, and more.

Executive summary

Socialtext 2.0 Enterprise:
- Appliance with a polished user interface.
- Offering a standard wiki with some extensions, such as blogging, e-mail integration.
- The functionality is fixed, with some ways of customization.
TWiki 4.1:
- Enterprise level wiki used primarily in the corporate space.
- It is a structured wiki with a built-in database that allows wiki champions and users to create wiki applications.
- Over 300 extensions can be downloaded from twiki.org.
- Very functional UI, designed by a user interaction designer

Comparison of advanced features

Feature	Socialtext 2.0	TWiki 4.0
WYSIWYG content editing	• Simple and fast WYSIWYG editor (based on open source Wikiwyg editor).	• Extensive and not so fast WYSIWYG editor (based on open source Kupu editor) • Wikiwyg, TinyMCE and other editor integrations available
Team Weblog Publishing	• Simple weblog publishing. • Post directly in the weblog or by email. • Subscribe to updates by RSS.	• Free state of the art weblog application available, BlogPlugin. • Enterprise blog application available as a product from consultants.
Integrated with Email	• Send an email in to any wiki page. • Send any wiki page out by email	• Send an email in to any wiki page with MailInContrib • Send page content with pre-installed MailerContrib. • Send e-mail with link to current topic
Notification & syndication	• E-mail, with control over hour, daily, weekly updates • RSS feeds. • RSS syndication and aggregation.	• E-mail, with scope (all, include/exclude topics, topics with wildcards, with children to level N • RSS feeds with search string. • RSS/ATOM syndication and aggregation with HeadlinesPlugin
Content tagging	• "Tags" allows easy creation of personal categories and workflow.	• Personal and collective tagging across whole site. • One click tag voting and tag search with ranking to find relevant content quickly (with TagMePlugin)
Personalized and Customizable Navigation	• Both personal and team-created navigation sidebars. • See recently viewed and changed pages in a sidebar	• Both personal navigation and web specific sidebars. • "You are here" breadcrumb. • Recent changes view per web. • "My recent contributions" across all webs. • Multi-faced naviation by webs, tags, subject area, and org chart possible
Network and Directory Integration	• Enterprise directory integration (Active Directory and LDAP). • Automated or manual backup to network file storage. • Backup and monitoring agents. • Enterprise search integration • Professional field engineering for custom integration	• Enterprise directory integration (Active Directory and LDAP) on Apache level, or TWiki code level with LdapContrib and other modules. • Flexible login manager and password manager architecture to support other directories, such as Shibboleth. • File based system for easy backup with existing backup system. • Open system to hook up with existing server monitoring agents. • Enterprise search integration available for Google Search Appliance (ask for others) • Professional field engineering for custom integration
Customization of look and feel	• Can change icon and colors with CSS.	• Look & feel and layout can be changed completely on CSS level with default PatternSkin. • Good documentation on customization available in distribution and on twiki.org.
Application platform	• N/A (fixed functionality)	• TWiki is an application platform where wiki champions and end users can build situational applications quickly, which results in more productive teams. • Examples of applications in production use: • Corporate project tracker with custom views per department • Enterprise blog application • Team portal for easy navigation by org chart • Corporate glossary of terms • Client database with multiple tables • Hardware inventory systems • Export compliance sign-off sheets • Call-center status board • Test result tracking database • Team status reports with rollup • To-do lists
Extensibility	• Limited	• Over 300 extensions (add-ons, code contribs, plugins, skins) available on TWiki.org. • Enhance the functionality of TWiki with features such as: • Action tracking • calendaring • charting • database access • global search & replace • LaTeX support • slideshow presentations • spreadsheet calculations • web form handling and reporting • XML and XSL transformations • Browser based point and click plugin installation
Market penetration	• 2000 customers	• Most widely used wiki behind corporate firewall • > 10K downloads per month • Corporate installations estimated at 40,000 sites as of March 2007
Training and Support	• Custom 30- to 90-day consulting and training packages available	• local 7x24 support (including comercial support contracts), training and consulting from experienced TWiki consultants

Upcoming TWiki features

Upcoming TWiki releases will have additional useful features for the enterprise:

Many usability enhancements
Ajax framework for speedy and intuitive user interaction
User selectable edit syntax between TWiki markup, MediaWiki markup and WikiCreole (for users who prefer to edit content without WYSIWYG editor)
Inline editor for fast WYSIWYG editing
full client and server OpenID and Joomla user database support

-- Contributors: PeterThoeny, SvenDowideit - 29 Mar 2007

Discussion

This topic is the result of a Google search for "twiki" I did. The first sponsored link was:

Upgrade from TWiki
Want open-source with 7x24 support?
Try Socialtext's business wiki
www.socialtext.com

I thought it is important to state the facts and to set the record straight on the direction of the "upgrade" path. smile

-- PeterThoeny - 29 Mar 2007

For me, the fact that you can get out of TWiki (thanks to its good XHTML compliance and rich style attributions) has been an important asset to start with TWiki in the first place, and to stop endless doubts and discussions about the "right" wiki software. In my opinion, being able to leave TWiki as a platform is a sign of self-confidence. As soon as a TWiki installation is up and running for some time, the voices about other platforms being "better" seem to die down.

-- HaraldJoerg - 29 Mar 2007