XWiki for teams that want documentation that breathes
Your team has docs in Google Drive, a few Word files stuffed in email, and a dusty old wiki that nobody trusts. People ask the same questions every sprint. New hires ping the lead for the same setup steps. You try to centralize knowledge and it gets stale in a month. That is why I keep coming back to XWiki. It is a Java wiki that feels like a living space for teams, not a document graveyard.
Right now Java 8 is around the corner, but most of us are still on Java 7 and Tomcat 7. XWiki runs there without drama. It is open source, it speaks LDAP and Active Directory, and it lets you shape content with structure when you need it. Think of it as a Confluence alternative that you can run on your own box and bend to your needs. The big win is not a shiny editor. The win is that it turns scattered notes into a team knowledge base that stays fresh.
Three cases from the field
Case 1: Onboarding playbook that updates itself
A growing team wanted a single place for onboarding. The first try was a long page with screenshots. It aged in a week. We switched to XWiki page templates and classes. We created a simple doc type with fields like Owner, Last reviewed, Audience, Repo link, and Risk notes. Every onboarding item became a page with those fields and a clean layout. Managers saw a list view sorted by last review date. New hires got a path of child pages with checkboxes.
The team used comments for questions. Owners got email when someone commented or watched a page. Every month a short watchlist report landed in inboxes with pages that needed a look. Thanks to fine grained permissions we kept HR bits locked while dev setup stayed open to the whole engineering group. When someone asked for a PDF copy, the built in export handled it. The result was not a manual. It was a living playbook with version history and clear owners.
Case 2: Decision log that ties to work
Another team kept losing decisions in chat and standups. We built a simple decision log space in XWiki. Each decision had a page with Status, Context, Options, Choice, and Next review. We linked to Jira issues and pull requests with short links. A small macro showed the status on top with a colored label. The page tree grouped decisions by project.
When someone changed a decision, watchers got a diff in their inbox. During retros, the team filtered pages by tag to see all security decisions or all database choices. No more hunting through emails. Since XWiki stores decisions as pages, it is easy to embed a list of recent decisions on the project homepage. New teammates see what changed and why. The bonus is the audit trail. Before a release you can scan through the related decisions and spot mismatches early.
Case 3: Support knowledge base that stays accurate
Support teams need speed and trust. We used XWiki for a shared support knowledge base. We defined an FAQ entry type with fields like Product, Error code, Steps, and Workaround. Authors filled a form and the page rendered as a clean answer card. The Solr powered search in XWiki made it easy to find entries by product or error code. Support leads set up a review queue by filtering FAQs with old review dates.
Some answers were public. Others were internal only. Permissions per page and space kept that tidy. We also used the Office importer to pull a batch of old Word docs into proper pages. That saved hours. The result was faster replies and less tribal knowledge.
Objections and straight answers
- Isn’t XWiki too Java for a small team
It is Java, yes. You drop the WAR into Tomcat and point it to MySQL or PostgreSQL. Give it a sane heap, say 1 gig to start, and you are fine. For dev teams already running Tomcat this is routine. For others, a one page runbook covers it. Once it is up, most of the work is editing pages. - Our users hate markup
No problem. XWiki ships with a solid WYSIWYG editor. You can still switch to wiki syntax when needed, but most people never do. Paste from Word works better than you expect. Tables and images are point and click. - We already have Confluence
If that setup is great, stay with it. If you want self hosted, more control, and flexibility, XWiki shines. You can build small apps inside pages with its App Within Minutes feature, and you can script with Velocity or Groovy when you need to. Licensing costs are not a blocker because the core is free. - Security and audit are a concern
XWiki handles LDAP and Active Directory, and it supports single sign on through popular stacks. Rights can be set at the wiki, space, and page level. Every edit is tracked. You can see who changed what, roll back, and keep an eye on sensitive pages. - Search on wikis is always bad
XWiki’s Solr based search is fast and ranks results well once your content has a bit of structure. Add fields and tags and search gets even better. You can also add a quick search box to any page.
How to get moving this week
If you want a team wiki that stays alive, give XWiki a fair shot. Here is a simple path that has worked for me.
- Spin up a test server on Tomcat 7 and Java 7 with MySQL or PostgreSQL. Keep it inside your network for now. Use the standard distribution and let it create its database.
- Create a Team space and a clean homepage. Add a short intro. Add links to your sprint board, repos, and chat. Make it the new starting point for the team.
- Install App Within Minutes from the Extension Manager. Build one small app: a Decision page type with Status, Context, and Links. Publish a list of recent decisions on the homepage.
- Set up LDAP so people use their regular accounts. Map groups to spaces. Keep admin rights small. Add a Watchlist for the whole team so weekly digests land in inboxes.
- Migrate a few high value docs. Onboarding, a current runbook, and a recent postmortem. Clean them up. Add owners. Set review dates. Tag them and add to the sidebar.
- Wire SSL and clean URLs. Put Apache or Nginx in front. Use nice page links. People are more likely to link to pages that look good.
- Plan a short doc gardening slot every week. Ten minutes in standup to review stale pages, assign owners, and clear dead content. Small moves keep the wiki honest.
- Announce a simple rule: If it is not in XWiki, it did not happen. Decisions and runbooks live there. Chat is for chatter.
The tools around us keep changing. Today we are on HipChat all day and we ship from GitHub more than we did last year. That pace makes a steady team brain even more valuable. XWiki gives you structure when you need it, a friendly editor when you do not, and enough power to grow with you. If your current wiki is gasping for air, move a small slice of work to XWiki and watch what happens when your docs start to breathe.
Keywords: XWiki, Java wiki, team documentation, enterprise wiki, open source wiki, Confluence alternative, knowledge base, LDAP, Active Directory, WYSIWYG editor, App Within Minutes, Tomcat, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Solr search, permissions, versioning, self hosted wiki