I am one of the project admins for Tiki. I wrote this to clarify certain things. I am concerned (and sometimes annoyed) by some negative things written about TikiWiki.
TikiWiki has an all-in-one approach to features. Think of it as a suite of applications like Open Office. Tiki has more built-in features than any other Web app (if you know of one, please let me know). The features are built-in and all optional instead of offered via 3rd party modules/extensions/plugins, and
. Some people are concerned about all the features and that "it can't work" or "it's not the way to do it". Since Tiki has a different model than the "conventional wisdom", I feel it's important to explain how it works and
it works. I like to think of it as
. About explaining
in mind. Please see the
. We use Tiki's features to manage our processes and to solve our challenges. This is one of the reasons we've arrived at a phenomenal, tightly integrated and robust set of
. We are quite lucky to be a community that is building a community management system. Some people could think or say that we are suffering from
syndrome. TikiWiki offers a large number of
with services, standards, data format, etc., however, it is designed to be great as an all-in-one standalone application. Many
. That means that if you want to emulate what they do, you need to install separately a wiki and a CMS. With Tiki, you have this all-in-one. What is wrong with installing several applications? Read on :-)
| I don't like Tiki Wiki/CMS/Groupware because... | my response
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| I believe in installing only what I need. I prefer a collection of small applications that I assemble. | This can work only if you have the skills to tweak these applications to make them work together. And when each component is upgraded, you have to make sure the glueware is still working. And you need the programming skills to make this happen. If you don't complete the job, you will have a "Frankensite" patchwork of 3-4 apps, each with their own username/group & permission system. Each has its own template & menu system (if you care to unify the look & feel + navigation). Each will have its own search engine.
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| I like simple apps because I can easily tweak the code to my liking. | Tiki is a large application. There is a learning curve. However, it is very easy to tweak. It was designed with simplicity & community development in mind. Please see the introductory documentation for developers
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| Xoops and other systems have several "modules" to choose from. Since there is competition amongst the "modules", it is the survival of the fittest | That sounds like it could work. However, this is open source software, not biology... There are several challenges with this approach. #1 the site admin has to find, evaluate, test, install and maintain each one of these modules. If there are 3 wikis for xoops for example, which one to choose? In Tiki, we believe if several people want to work on a specific feature, it is a lot more efficient, (and fun!) to work together. Please see this interesting Drupal note and this one too. #2 The site admin must manage the versionning of the application vs the "modules". Some "modules" can be abandonned by their authors. So in the end, it is very important to choose your modules well. And again, choosing the tool according to your needs.
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| Yes, but competition is good | Competition is not the only path to innovation. Say you wanted to have the best possible definition for a word on WikiPedia and you have 9 volunteers to help. What would you do? Would you create 3 teams of 3 and pick the best definition? Or would you have all 9 people collaborate? If you split into 3 teams, chances are, when you evaluate what the three teams came up with, each team will have something you like. Yet, by picking 1 team and discarding the two others, you are wasting talent, motivation and energy. Now, it makes perfect sense to split the 9 people in smaller teams according to specific responsibilities towards a common goal. If this model makes perfect sense to generate content for WikiPedia, why is it not a good model for software development? Imagine 2 communities of the same size. One with the competition model and the other, with the collaboration model. Which one will have the most code review? which one will have more code/functionality duplication?
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| If there is only one of each feature, what happens when it doesn't do what I want/need? | It's free software. If you can code, just add the feature you need. If you can't code, try to find someone to help you.
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| What about feature-creep? If you let just anyone add anything, it'll be chaos. | TikiWiki is a shared resource. We want it to be useful for various people, to solve various needs, in various contexts. If it's not solving your problem, chances are, an enhancement would be useful to other people. The trick to try to use & extend the existing feature set. If there is nothing there that can help, it's to translate your need into something as generic as possible, so many problems can be solved with the same code, by changing labels or flipping a few switches. Of course, it's tricky to know this if you are new to the application, so you can work with the community to find solutions. A good example (of a generic feature) is trackers. Trackers are a database, forms and report builder, so you can create a bug trackers, a todo list, a mini-CRM, etc, whatever you want. You can build unlimited custom applications specifically tailored to your needs.
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| But too many features is confusing! | If you don't use a feature, don't activate it!
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| I was using system X. My problem: I was using a third party module. It is no longer supported. The developer has given up. I can't upgrade my site without breaking the module. Could this happen to me with Tiki? | This is called Dependency hell. The way Tiki is designed and organized, this doesn't happen. Yes, some features become unmaintained . However, they continue to work. If a developer enhances something in Tiki which breaks something else. #1 The developer has access to all the Tiki code so (s)he can test and fix anything that is risky #2 We will know quickly via bug reports & IRC #3 The developer can fix whatever he broke because everything is in CVS. The code is not scattered accross dozens of websites. Tiki is very centralized. All info on *.tikiwiki.org sites and in CVS (BRANCH-1-9, HEAD or Mods). For better or for worse, backward compatibility (we call it "Preserve Environment") is a rule of Tiki. Please see an interesting Drupal note on the matter. If you like biology, think of it as TikiWiki being more adaptable to changes because we don't have to worry about breaking hundreds of third party modules/plugins. How many times in the 5+ years history of TikiWiki have users ended up with data in dead-end abandoned code? Not a single time. (This could have happened with daily snaphosts of CVS versions, but not when using stable versions)
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| Tiki is like its own World, it is always reinventing the wheel. | While Tiki is self-sufficient, it offers many interactions with the outside World (services, technologies, standards, code re-use, data exchange, etc). eats its own dog food.
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| Yes, but what about phpBB? | Sometimes, it's less work and more future-proof to develop your own features. Just because Tiki doesn't integrate phpBB like many other projects out there, it doesn't mean we are reinventing the wheel. Tiki forums are very powerful and support threading, wiki syntax, attachments, etc.
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| Yes, but Tiki is heavy. 35 megs unzipped, with a lot of images & languages. | Hard disk is really cheap these days. You can also use MultiTiki to have one set of files for several Tiki-powered sites.
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| In CMS {add your CMS name here}, there is the core and there are 3rd party modules. There are core developers and modules developers. | In Tiki, that distinction doesn't exist. Or if you wish, all developers are core developers. We have a mods system to share code without being in the official release. However, this is the exception rather than the rule. Pretty much the opposite to Xoops and other systems...
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| "I just need a {add your feature name here}. This site is just a hobby, won't be big and professional like... " | Even if you think you just need a wiki or a forum now, isn't it nice that if you need a new feature later on, it will be there waiting for you? Just activate it, assign permissions and add links to your navigation.
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| Are you guys going to keep adding features forever? | I don't know. So far, the number of features has been an asset, not a liability. Should this change, we'll adapt at that time. It doesn't matter how many features you offer, people still ask for more.
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| Tiki is really slow, consumes a lot of RAM & CPU cycles. | In Tiki, we have a concept called WYSIWYCA. What You See is What You Can Access. The permissions system is very elaborate. Each user has a different experience, showing him/her what has changed since their last login (and only showing links for items which they are allowed to see). This takes more queries.
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| Yes, but even for anonymous users, Tiki uses way more SQL queries than other CMSs | It would be interesting to have a real analysis to see if it's true. But let's say it's true -> Short answer for 98% of websites out there: who cares? Computers are getting faster & cheaper every month. People power is more expensive than machines. Yes, the code could and should be optimized in certain places. Yes, we should put some indexes on certain tables. However, we must always keep in mind that keeping the code simple makes it easier to understand, to customize and to fix. For the 2% of high-volume read-only sites: Please contact the Tiki community to find ways to make Tiki faster. Ex.: using Tiki to manage content, but after export to simple html. Please also see http://dev.tikiwiki.org/performance http://support.mozilla.com is a great example of a very high volume TikiWiki-powered site.
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| Yes, but system Y has an API. | Tiki has no formal API. However, it is designed to be easy to add functionality. Do you think over 200 people would have contributed via CVS if it was difficult? http://dev.tikiwiki.org/Hello+World
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| Yes, but system Z has hundreds of modules. Extensions / 3rd party modules listings of popular PHP applications Drupal modules, Xoops modules, Typo3 extensions, Mambo modules | Ok, but let's not forget that some of the those features are duplicated. The important thing is do you see a feature that you want / need that is not offered by Tiki (please see feature list, modules list, mods list and plugins)
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| Yes, but Firefox uses the plugin model and it's very successful | 1- We have to be careful about comparing a web application to a desktop app. 2- Firefox has a nice installer to upgrade the extensions, which makes it very easy for the end user. 3- If you have many extensions, you will have noticed that they are not always compatible with the latest release. 4- Do Firefox plugins have any kind of interaction with other plugins? If this is what you have in mind, please see mods and plugins)
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| The code sucks | Take any open source application and ask around if the code is good, is modular, scaleable, etc. Someone will always find something to complain about. "critique" is very easy. I am sure if some of your work is available to public scrutiny, you will know what I mean :-) The question should be: Does it work or not? Does it solve my needs for now and the foreseeable future? Most people use Tiki without changing any code. So code structure/philosophy is of no importance to them. They just want something that works and something which they can upgrade easily over time.
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| The code is not modular enough | Please see: http://dev.tikiwiki.org/Modularity
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| I am a professional. Really, Tiki's design sucks. It should be more object-oriented | Often, people with strong programming skills do not understand the unique challenges & dynamics of an Open Source project, especially a community-development like Tiki. Some will design something which supposed to be "superior", but it is too complex for people to use & participate to. Over 200 people have contributed to Tiki via CVS. That is a lot of eyeballs! The code is simple and has community coding in mind. Please see the goals of Luis Argerich, TikiWiki founder.
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| Tiki's design sucks. It's too big. It won't scale. It will implode | For many years, some people have expressed these concerns. There was a lot of FUD being spread around. However, here we are. Tiki is 5 years old. It's a mature, very powerful application, with a large community of contributors, with tons of features and which is used on tens of thousands of websites & Intranets. Of course, there are a lot of things to improve and there will always be. Remember: if you don't need a feature, don't activate it. However, if you need it in the future, it's only a few clicks away. And remember also, Tiki is open source and open development. YOU can participate to its future.
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| System G has hundreds of templates | Tiki is a very powerful & flexible to make custom themes. Here are some examples. The Theme control center permits you to easily use several themes on the same site. Not just changing the .css but also the layout completely. The templates use the Smarty template engine and some basic programming is possible there. It's easy to customize the site depending on user/group/permissions whatever. You can save these custom *.tpl files in their own "theme" to override the default templates, and keep future upgrading easy.
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| Yes, but all Tiki sites look alike | How would you recognize the ones that don't? Please see http://themes.tikiwiki.org
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| I am gonna do some heavy template work but I want it to be easy to upgrade later on. | Don't modify files which are shipped with Tiki. Put all your modified templates in templates/styles/mystylename/*.tpl and they will override basic templates. You should never need to use php code in these Smarty template files because Smarty supports basic logic. However, if you really did, you can use {PHP} my php code{/PHP} to add php code to your template without changing the default php code.
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| Yes, but I prefer {add your CMS name here} | Ok, I guess if you prefer another system, you are here because someone has forced you to use Tiki. Sorry about this. But if you really have no choice, how about making the best of it? If you see a user interface which is not as intuitive as your preferred system, can you log a feature request with a screenshot? Is Tiki missing a favorite feature? Ask in IRC. Maybe the feature exists but you haven't discovered it yet.
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| Tiki is run by a ragtag community of developers. It is not backed by a large business like some other projects. | While many Tiki developers run consultancy businesses around Tiki, yes, decisions are made in the best interest of the community, not of one or many businesses. For example, a business wants to find a way to lock you in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock-in Some could be tempted to make hosting more tricky so they can promote their own hosting offer. We want Tiki to be as easy as possible to install, via Fantastico panels for example. We are not just some geeks who are running Tiki on dedicated servers as root. We do care about the little guy on a budget shared hosting account.
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| Ok, but who decides? | The vast majority of decisions go to the ones actually doing the work (be it code, translations, documentation, etc). There is a very strong collaboration culture in Tiki. So contributors discuss and find better ways to do things.
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| Ok, that's all hippie mumbo jumbo. It the shit hits the fan, who decides? | The project admins as listed on TikiWiki.org
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| Ok, but what if these people make a really bad decision? | Anyone can take the source code and start a fork
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| Ok, but is it really free? I want to develop websites and I don't want my customers to know I am using Tiki. | Some systems have restrictions on removing promo link or logo. Some software is GPL but they ask money to remove the Copyright messages (cache). With Tiki, you can do whatever you want. There is no commercial license. Since it's LGPL, you can include in commercial apps, sell, etc. Of course, we hope that you will want to contribute code, documentation, bug fixes, bug reports, feature requests, translations, or even money, etc. and/or hire some of the consultants, but you are not required to do so.
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| Yes, but what about stability/long-term support? | Are businesses now today more stable than 5-10 years ago? You have the source code!
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| Ok, so why are you guys giving it out for free? | Arghhhhhh, please re-read previous Q & A
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| No Hablo Inglès, Je ne parle pas anglais. | http://tikiwiki.org/TikiWikiInternationalizationAndLanguages
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| So what are Tiki's weaknesses? | Again, this depends on what your goal / projet is. IMHO, weakness are 1- default themes are not very nice 2-Admin interface is not intuitive enough 3-The application is too vast for new users. We need better Install profiles to get people started 4-Tikiwiki.org is a mess. Points 1,2,3 are being worked on at the moment 1, 2, 3 and the situation is still bad but improving. #4 is bad and needs some tender loving care. #5 Release cycles are way too long. You can also take a look at: State of Tiki Dashboard.
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