Platform Buying Guide
A wiki is write-heavy and permanent. Buy for both
Two things decide wiki hosting: how fast a save completes, and whether you can get everything back out in ten years.
The short answer
Optimise for writes and for exit. Install MediaWiki or DokuWiki on a standard plan — one click, your own domain, and a full export available for as long as you own it; a private team wiki is the same setup with an access layer added — and judge candidates on save latency and export completeness rather than on read speed.
Below: what to measure on a save, how storage and revisions grow over years, the portability test that disqualifies most hosted alternatives, and the tier we would run a knowledge base on.
By the HostingFast team · Reviewed 15 August 2026
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Most writing on this subject is a league table bankrolled by referral fees. This one is about two numbers a wiki lives or dies by: the time a save takes, and the completeness of what you can export.
Storing every page and every revision as a plain text file, DokuWiki runs with no database whatsoever. That makes it a badly underrated option for a small team on a modest plan, because backing up the entire knowledge base is simply copying a directory.
Measure the save, not the read
Time a page save with the network panel open, on a page of realistic length with a few templates and images. That single figure is the one your contributors experience dozens of times a day, and it is the one a read-focused benchmark never reports.
A save is expensive in a way a page view is not: it writes the new revision, invalidates caches, updates the link tables, queues re-rendering for every page that transcluded the one you changed, and touches the search index. On MediaWiki much of that lands in the job queue, which then competes with live traffic.
So watch two things. Save latency, which should feel immediate, and job queue depth, which should return to near zero between edits. A queue that only grows means the platform is not keeping up with your editors.
DokuWiki inverts the picture: no database, no job queue, a write to a text file. Which is exactly why it outperforms expectations on a modest plan.
How the storage curve behaves over years
Every revision is kept, which is the point. It also means disk consumption grows with editing activity rather than with page count, and a busy wiki accumulates far faster than its table of contents suggests.
Attachments compound it. Documents and images uploaded once are stored forever alongside every revision of the pages referencing them, and there is rarely a cleanup process because deleting history defeats the purpose.
Plan on the trajectory rather than today's figure. Check current size, check it again a month later, and extrapolate across the horizon you actually intend to keep the wiki — which for most teams is measured in years.
The export test that disqualifies most alternatives
Before committing anything of value, run the export and read what comes out. Hosted wiki farms whose export function returns half the content are common, and a knowledge base is a ten-year asset that deserves somewhere it can leave from intact.
A complete export means page source, full revision history, attachments and the user attribution that makes the history meaningful. Missing any one of those turns a migration into a rewrite.
On your own hosting the test is trivial, because the export is a database dump plus a directory — or, on DokuWiki, just the directory. That is the whole portability argument and it takes one command to verify.
Our pick, and the access layer
Turbo is where this page lands: 25 sites on one account, 20 GB of NVMe, LiteSpeed at server level, Softaculous handling the installation, and daily backups with restores you run yourself.
For a private team wiki, add a second layer at hosting level rather than relying only on the application: a password-protected directory or an IP allowlist in front of the whole install. Both are standard features here, and both fail closed, which is the property you want.
Then check us the way you would check any supplier — renewal rate against order rate, a hard question to support at an awkward hour, the refund terms read for carve-outs, and the company registration looked up on the public record.
Why this page has no affiliate table
Most 'best hosting' content is ranking-for-hire. We sell what we recommend and say so, which is what lets this page tell you that the lightest option is often the right one.
Every plan ships with a free SSL certificate that renews itself ahead of expiry — the padlock is never something you have to remember.
- A save you time on a realistic page
- An export you read before you commit
- Two access layers, both failing closed
- Renewal billed at the rate you ordered at
Why HostingFast
Standard on every plan
Write performance on NVMe
A wiki is judged on saves rather than reads, and saves are synchronous writes where storage latency is felt directly.
An export that is just a copy
On your own hosting, portability is a dump and a directory — verifiable in one command rather than promised in a policy.
Two ways to make it private
Application permissions plus a directory password or IP allowlist at hosting level, layered rather than relied on singly.
Turbo, the specification
25 sites, 20 GB of NVMe and per-site PHP control at one published rate that does not change at renewal.
Room for the revision curve
Storage grows with editing rather than page count, so the plan should be chosen on the trajectory rather than today's size.
Restores you run yourself
A daily backup and a one-click restore, because a bad extension update should not cost the team a morning.
Prices Side by Side
Our numbers next to the big names
Typical intro and renewal pricing across the market, lined up against ours — including the renewal figure most comparison charts skip.
| Feature | HostingFastMost popular | Typical household-name host | Typical bargain host | Typical loss-leader deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price / mo* | $2.42/mo | $4–$6 | $2–$4 | $1–$3 |
| Renewal price / mo | $2.42/mo | $10–$15 | $8–$12 | $4–$6 |
| Cheapest plan renews at its sign-up price | ||||
| SSL as standard | ||||
| Migration done for you | ||||
| NVMe drives on the cheapest tier | ||||
| Daily backups from the first tier | ||||
| Real humans on support, 24/7 |
*Our number is the lowest-priced plan we sell on an annual term, pulled live from the same catalogue that powers our pricing page — it physically cannot fall out of date. The other three columns show the ranges shared hosts in each bracket typically advertise: introductory offers that mostly demand a one-to-four-year commitment, then jump once it expires. We no longer name rivals or print their prices, because a figure we cannot verify on the day you read it has no business on this page. Line us up against whichever host you are really weighing — and give the renewal row the hardest look.
Quick Start
From order to online
- 1
Time a realistic save
A page with templates and an image, network panel open. That figure is what your contributors meet dozens of times a day.
- 2
Watch the job queue drain
It should return to near zero between edits. A queue that only grows means the platform is behind your editors and will stay behind.
- 3
Read the export before you trust it
Source, full history, attachments and attribution. Anything missing turns a future migration into a rewrite of your own knowledge base.
- 4
Extrapolate the storage curve
Measure size now and a month later. Revisions accumulate with activity, so the useful figure is the slope rather than the current total.
Built In
Loaded onto every plan
- PHP and database requirements met properly rather than approximately
- NVMe SSD under the write path, not spinning disk
- Storage headroom sized for years of revisions and attachments
- Softaculous handling installation and version updates
- Directory password protection or an IP allowlist for a private wiki
- Full export available as a database dump plus a directory
- Free SSL that renews itself well ahead of expiry
- Daily backups with restores you run yourself from the panel
- Renewal charged at the rate you ordered at
- Money-back cover: 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
Frequently Asked
What people ask us most often
Which wiki engine is lightest to host, and does it matter?
DokuWiki, by a distance, because it stores pages and revisions as flat text files and needs no database at all. On a modest plan that removes an entire tier of latency and makes the backup a directory copy. MediaWiki earns its extra weight when you need public scale and an editing convention contributors already recognise; BookStack sits between them with a modern hierarchical structure.
Why does a wiki save feel slow when reading is fast?
Because a save does far more work: a new revision is written, caches invalidate, link tables update, transcluding pages are queued for re-rendering and the search index is touched. On MediaWiki much of that goes into the job queue, which then competes with live traffic. Watch the queue depth between edits — if it never returns to near zero, the platform is behind your editors.
How fast does storage actually grow on an active wiki?
With editing activity rather than page count, because every revision is retained by design and attachments are never cleaned up. The useful measurement is the slope: record the size now and again in a month, then extend it across the years you intend to keep the wiki. That trajectory, not today's figure, is what you should size the plan against.
What makes an export genuinely complete?
Page source, the full revision history, all attachments, and user attribution — history without attribution is much less useful than it looks. Run the export before you commit anything of value and read what comes out. On your own hosting it is a database dump plus a directory, which is the whole reason self-hosting wins this particular argument.
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