# MediaWiki Hosting UK Source: https://dijituldns.co.uk/mediawiki-hosting/ Updated: 2026-10-08 > dijitul hosts MediaWiki sites in the UK for company knowledge bases, clubs and community wikis. We install or migrate the wiki, set up short URLs, the job queue, image thumbnails and spam controls, and back it up daily behind Cloudflare. It's dijitul Complete Hosting at £1 a day + VAT, with older wikis welcome. ## Key facts - MediaWiki 1.43 LTS needs PHP 8.1 or newer - Short URLs such as /wiki/Page_Name set up with rewrite rules - Job queue run by cron with runJobs.php instead of on page views - ImageMagick for thumbnails, with upload size limits set to suit - Spam controls: ConfirmEdit with QuestyCaptcha, restricted account creation - Older wikis hosted on older PHP while they're upgraded in stages - £1 a day + VAT with daily backups and SSL ## MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia MediaWiki is the same software that runs Wikipedia, and it's a popular choice for internal documentation, product manuals, hobby communities and fan wikis. It's free, stable and well documented, but it's not a one-click CMS. A few things need setting up properly for it to behave. Because wikis grow quietly over years, they often end up holding knowledge that exists nowhere else: how a machine is set up, how a club runs its events, the history of a game or a hobby. Losing one to an expired hosting account or a failed upgrade is painful, which is why we put backups and a sensible PHP version first. ## What we configure - **PHP:** MediaWiki 1.43 LTS needs PHP 8.1 or newer, with extensions such as intl, mbstring, xml, fileinfo and the MySQL or MariaDB driver. - **Short URLs:** rewrite rules plus $wgArticlePath, so pages live at /wiki/Page_Name rather than index.php?title=Page_Name. - **Job queue:** $wgJobRunRate set to 0 and maintenance/runJobs.php run by cron, so link updates and notifications don't slow page views. - **Uploads and thumbnails:** ImageMagick for resizing, with upload limits matched in both PHP and LocalSettings.php. - **Caching:** Cloudflare for static files, with the wiki's own caching tuned for anonymous readers. ## Stopping wiki spam An open MediaWiki will be found by spam bots within days. We set sensible defaults and adjust them to how your wiki is used: - For internal wikis, editing and reading restricted to logged-in users through $wgGroupPermissions. - For public wikis, account creation protected with ConfirmEdit and QuestyCaptcha, using questions only a genuine visitor would know. - New accounts limited until they're confirmed, plus AbuseFilter rules for common spam patterns. - Cloudflare filtering a lot of bot traffic before it reaches the server. If your wiki is already full of spam, we can help clean it up as part of the move. ## Moving or upgrading an older wiki Old wikis are common: someone set one up in 2010 and it became essential. We copy the files, images folder and database, check LocalSettings.php and get it running on the right PHP version. Very old MediaWiki versions may need upgrading in stages, running update.php at each step, rather than jumping straight to the latest release. Until that's done, we can run the old version in isolation. See [old website hosting](https://dijituldns.co.uk/old-website-hosting/) and [website migration](https://dijituldns.co.uk/website-migration/). ## Private and internal wikis A company wiki often holds information you'd rather not publish. Beyond MediaWiki's own permissions, we can add a second layer of protection, such as password protection on the directory or restricting access to your office IP addresses. Daily [backups](https://dijituldns.co.uk/website-backups/) include the database and uploaded files. [Order dijitul Complete Hosting](https://clients.dijitul.uk/order). ## Extensions most wikis need MediaWiki ships with a set of bundled extensions you can switch on in LocalSettings.php. The ones we see in almost every business or community wiki are: - **VisualEditor** for editing pages without learning wikitext, which matters if non-technical staff will contribute - **ParserFunctions** for templates with simple logic - **Cite** for footnotes and references - **CategoryTree** for browsable category menus - **ConfirmEdit** and **AbuseFilter** for spam control Third-party extensions need more care, because many stop being maintained and block upgrades. Before moving a wiki we list every extension it loads and check each one against the target MediaWiki version. ## FAQs ### Where can I host a MediaWiki site in the UK? dijitul hosts MediaWiki in the UK on Plesk with current PHP, short URLs, a cron-driven job queue, spam controls and daily backups. It's £1 a day + VAT on dijitul Complete Hosting, and we'll migrate an existing wiki, including older versions, for you. ### How do I stop spam on my MediaWiki? Restrict account creation, add ConfirmEdit with QuestyCaptcha questions specific to your topic, limit editing to confirmed users and use AbuseFilter for common spam patterns. For internal wikis, require login to read and edit. dijitul sets these up when hosting your wiki. ### What PHP version does MediaWiki need? MediaWiki 1.43, the current long-term support release, needs PHP 8.1 or newer. Older MediaWiki versions need older PHP. On dijitul hosting the PHP version is chosen per site, so an old wiki can keep running while it's upgraded. ### How do I set up short URLs in MediaWiki? Add rewrite rules so /wiki/Page_Name maps to index.php, then set $wgArticlePath to /wiki/$1 and $wgUsePathInfo in LocalSettings.php. The exact rules depend on the web server. dijitul configures short URLs for you on our Plesk hosting. ### Can I make my MediaWiki private? Yes. Set $wgGroupPermissions so anonymous users can't read or edit, and disable open account creation. For extra protection, add password protection or IP restrictions on the server. dijitul can set up both layers for company wikis. ## Pricing and ordering dijitul Complete Hosting is £1 a day + VAT (£365 a year + VAT). Order at https://clients.dijitul.uk/order?product=complete-hosting&ref=dijituldns&src=mediawiki-hosting or call 01623 650333.