This article has comparisons between several options: https://thelinuxcode.com/best-self-hosted-wiki-software/
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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I'm a simple person, I see DokuWiki and I install it some plugins. Easy to self-host on a cheap VPS (no database required!) or on your own machine (if you have access to eg.:Docker). But that's more for a general wiki kind of thing, useful but not specialized like having tools aimed for worldbuilding.
Haven't checked any of the offerings here but I'm told by a couple fellows that they've had decent story with Hammer. Would probably start looking there.
Seconding Fantasia Archive. It is probably the most feature rich FOSS Worldbuilding tool.
There's also Hammer which is underrated imo.
WorldLoom is another one but currently undergoing a rewrite.
Although not specifically for worldbuilding, Manuskript is another option.
Wavemaker is another option but has optional AI.
Unless there's readily available templates, you'd have to rework logseq a lot for this simple task imo. Take a look at mdSilo which is similar to Obsidian and with graph views. If you want something like Notion take a look at Appflowy or Affine but both are super into AI. If you're fine with self hosting, there's Colanode which is similar to Notion and into AI.
Wouldn't a word processor do trick? you can add links, images, refs, notes,... and have as many pages as you need (edit: and search them, add a table of content, and so on). LIbreOffice is most certainly already installed on your Linux distro and is also available for Mac and Windows.
Ehh, libreoffice doesn't even come close to what I am going for, I doubt libreoffice can come anywhere close to being used in any wiki, world building or not, transitions between pages are not seamless, and the best thing it can do is just make a document look good, which is of course useful for like all other use cases, but not for a wiki, think along the line of fandom.com or wikipedia, it would be difficult to recreate something like that with libreoffice, it simply just addresses a different use case.
I may have missed something, here so to make sure:
- Do you want a wiki specifically, or are you looking for a tool that would allow you to easily create and manage some worldbuilding bible, be it a wiki or not a wiki?
- Isn't LibreOffice able to export to MediaWiki (Wikipedia)? I have not checked, and never used it, but I think it's there somewhere.
the best thing it can do is just make a document look good,
It can also help you write the actual book, worrying about the document 'look' aka its formatting is optional (and if done properly, using Styles, it's almost 100% automated) ;)
- Probably the second, I am not hard set on a wiki
- I know but, the tools you have during the creation process itself, its useful for writing books as you said, styling, but easy cross-page linking and a whole host of other things you might need for worldbuilding I think isnt avalible in libreoffice.
See this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
What is best will depend on your exact needs. Which media formats? Do you need change history? How do you want the text stored? How long will you use it at max? Will it be used by other people? Does it need access over internet, requiring authentication?
Zim is already mentioned, it might be quite good for what you described. Being a desktop apo, it is quicker to access than a local web app. One which can be hosted local but is web-based and quite nice is Gollum. DokuWiki is more heavyweight (and perhaps more difficult to install) but has many features good for organizations.
Another one which has high performance as well as very powerful features for content organization, interlinking and so in, is CLiki, a Wiki in Common Lisp: https://www.cliki.net/ , see also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLiki .
The pandoc program can export/convert quite a few wiki markup formats to other documents, like LaTeX or PDF.
Because Wikis are often used for long term information storage where "long term" might mean 10 to 30 years, stability of the software and data being stored in readily accessible formats is probably important. As an example, there exists a nice Wiki software called MoinMoinWiki with many good features, but it was written in Python 2 and the developers did not have the time to port it, so it is likely advisable not to use it any more. Some languages have definitely more churn than others (with Common Lisp being on the extremely stable end).
I like Zim. Used it for years. The big advantages you can have many 1000s of pages and it just uses a folder tree not a database, so you have direct and attachment access if you need it. Zim is a true hierarchical wiki not a simple notes app. There a plugins you can enable for more advanced features.
Zim does get slower with more pages for some operations like searches and some changes. I have one wiki with 4500 pages and do feel it is getting a bit slower sometimes. You can however just create another notebook at any time as long as your content has reasonable dividing lines.