Self-host DokuWiki
A long-lived PHP wiki engine that stores pages as plain text files — no database to run, back up, or migrate. The project's own Docker image (a PHP + Apache container with a single storage volume) is the whole install; a web installer configures the wiki on the first visit, and the plugin and template ecosystem is where most of its features live.
Key facts
Pick DokuWiki when you want the least infrastructure that can still be called a wiki: one container from the project's own image, one storage directory, no database. Pages are plain text files, so backup is a copy and migration is a move. It is the pick for a homelab or team wiki that has to keep working for years with minimal attention; if you want a Notion-style editor or real-time co-editing, look at Docmost or Outline instead.
What you need
- Any VPS with at least 256 MB of RAM
- A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
- Under an hour if you've used Docker before
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Install
Run these commands on your server:
# DokuWiki — the project's official image; one container, one storage volume, no database
mkdir -p dokuwiki/storage && cd dokuwiki
sudo chown 1000:1000 storage # must match the user: line below, or the container crash-loops on /storage
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
services:
dokuwiki:
image: dokuwiki/dokuwiki:stable
user: "1000:1000" # the storage volume must be writable by this uid
restart: unless-stopped
ports: ["8080:8080"]
environment:
PHP_TIMEZONE: Etc/UTC
volumes: ["./storage:/storage"]
EOF
docker compose up -d # → http://SERVER_IP:8080/install.php (run the installer once; it refuses to re-run on a configured wiki — delete install.php afterwards)What you take on
DokuWiki's simplicity is real, but the official image makes a few assumptions you should know about:
