[A Private Wiki: Everything You Need To Know](https://www.archbee.com/blog/a-private-wiki-everything-you-need-to-know)

< /blog back to main blog /blog documentationupdated march 26, 2026 dragos dragosfounder, robot with feelings from planet aiur http //twitter com/happydragos http //twitter com/happydragoshttps //www linkedin com/in/dragos bulugean/ https //www linkedin com/in/dragos bulugean/ if you’ve got unfair advantages in your market, a private wiki will help you keep them secure and easy to access read our article to find out how a private wiki everything you need to know wikipedia revolutionized the free flow of information granted, it’s not always the greatest source but the fact that we have an online, open source, massive encyclopedia of the world helped all people get educated that’s what a qualitative wiki can do when it comes to your business, a wiki can help with the free flow of information between important stakeholders on top, it’s a great asset for onboarding new team members, it improves all of your processes and it declutters management that’s more or less what a private wiki is but let’s delve into it to find out more what is a private wiki?# a private wiki is just like wikipedia, but for your project by definition, it’s a centralized hub that allows you to organize information moreover, it’s got a few defining characteristics first of all, it’s well structured when people read a wiki, it’s not hard to identify the subsection related to what they’re searching for second, it’s concise but exhaustive yup, it's hard to reach that balance, but a good wiki covers all important aspects, while never over complicating matters most importantly , it has a way to categorize information into subsets, usually called taxonomies if you’re thinking about project documentation, you got it about right the difference is in scope project documentation is, in a sense, part of a private wiki but private wikis can be about anything, including projects, ideas, stories, fictional universes and anything you’d need to manage a lot of knowledge about on top, a private wiki is usually password protected and only accessible to privileged members of your organization, or partners that need to check up on your knowledge hub the term isn’t out there for no reason it’s got a few clear benefits it makes information accessible you can easily navigate between all of your knowledge sets, and get a better grip on how to use that information it makes communication easier say you’re working with a freelancer that needs to be brought up to speed to your processes a private wiki detailing everything you do and how you do it will help here it saves time you don’t need to have lengthy conversations explaining your processes you can just refer partners to the respective wiki page it helps you improve your ideas having a wiki means laying out the most important aspects of your business, project or novel idea that incentivizes critical thinking and it’s easier to spot gaps in your reasoning when you have everything laid out in front of you it protects trade secrets sharing sensitive information about your best practices and disruptive strategies can only be done with a private wiki turn static docs into instant answers build beautiful knowledge portals that are easy to navigate, search and share start for free https //app archbee com/signup?utm source=website\&utm medium=blog inline cta\&utm campaign=a private wiki everything you need to knowbook a demo /book a demo?utm source=website\&utm medium=blog inline cta\&utm campaign=a private wiki everything you need to know yes, wikis are great but that doesn’t mean everyone should write one moreover, if you write a wiki just for the sake of having one, it can be a pointless pursuit it won’t help you if it’s rushed so let’s see what types of people should have a wiki who could benefit from a private wiki# a general rule of thumb is only creating a wiki if your idea, project or business has a lot of knowledge involved in its recurring activities so if you’re just a freelancer writing a bit of code for clients while maintaining a full time job, it might not help you all that much similarly, if you’re running a coffee shop that’s loved for the ambiance, not the specialty dishes, a wiki won’t help you but there are cases when a private wiki can greatly improve your processes even unintuitive ones let’s take an ngo dedicated to bringing technology closer to the rural area at first glance, wikis and documentation aren’t the first things they seem to need but ngos employ complex processes, just like a regular business they have procedures in place for contacting partners, collaborating with team members, recruiting volunteers, implementing projects and most importantly fundraising on top, if the ngo has an educational aspect, there’s the whole knowledge on what they’re teaching so a private wiki can help centralize all that information, and safeguard it from elements that could disrupt the activities of said ngo on top, it makes information readily available for contacting any type of sponsor if you’ve ever filed a request for funds, you’ll know they ask for big word counts if ngos could use a private wiki… imagine how much small businesses /blog/wiki software for small business can benefit from it even if you don’t have a massive team even if you’re a one man show you have processes in place and valuable information to convey to your partners so a wiki can help with communicating with clients streamlining your processes onboarding contractors and many other activities in which passing a lot of information (or using a lot of knowledge) are important a private wiki is also great if you’ve got special processes or “trade secrets” that you want your partners to be privy too because it’s a secure hub of knowledge, you can put your unfair advantages to great use that depends on your philosophy, of course but even companies that offer open source solutions need to stay afloat somehow wordpress lets you use their cms for free, but they do have processes to attract users, retain paying ones and even upsell them to paid services if you’re thinking about whether or not you need a private wiki, ask yourself these questions “do i often have to rewrite a lot of things in my emails?” “is collaboration cumbersome because of my complex processes?” “do i have to re explain a lot of things in my meetings with partners?” “do i get lost in all of the products and services i can provide?” and most importantly “do i want my strategies and knowledge protected?” if you found yourself mumbling yes, it may be time to get a private wiki how to create a private wiki# if you decided a wiki can help your projects, don’t just start writing like crazy as we’ve said, rushing into this is self defeating private wikis need to be informative don’t let bias seep in, and always aim to inform objectively exhaustive don’t over complicate matters, but do make sure you’re clarifying everything clear don’t use passive voice, don’t be vague and always define every new term valuable don’t state the obvious a wiki is only an asset if you can be insightful in your writing helpful wikis shouldn’t be a brag about your processes you’ve got marketing for that wikis should be about helping other people make the best out of your knowledge easy to navigate if you’re struggling to find a process or link through your wiki, something’s gone wrong secure without protection (at minimum a simple login page), it's no longer a private wiki and that means you need to spend some time structuring your wiki and thinking about what it will contain not to mention, having a private wiki means taking care of its hosting, linking pages together and updating it as much as needed don’t take this lightly you need to make sure your wiki meets all the criteria mentioned earlier, so it will involve some work but if you can see the benefits of a wiki, the task will be worthwhile so let’s break it down hosting a wiki# you need a place to store your wiki that’s no wonder, considering the amount of information packed into wikis the english wikipedia alone has over 3 5 billion words of course, your private wiki will not get so big, but it still might amass books worth of content you can try things like fandom https //www fandom com/ and wikidot https //www wikidot com/ , which don’t only host your wiki, but also have a special interface for editing it the problem with these tools is that they’re limited you can’t use them to collaborate with a lot of partners, the interface is not so user friendly and there’s a learning curve mostly about the lingo when you start using either tool not to mention, you couldn’t really create a private wiki with them, because you can’t protect your content from outside viewers that’s why you should rather use a tool like archbee https //archbee com/ you get tools for hosting and writing your wiki, just like you would with fandom on top, you’ve got special tools for customizing the appearance, structure, and navigation of your wiki or documentation plus, you can easily collaborate with partners because archbee makes your documentation shareable fandom and wikidot are lighter in features and harder to use, but they’re more streamlined once you get the hang of it if you don’t need complex customization, or if you’re not working on a commercial project, you can make do with their features if you want greater control over your wiki, need it to support your commercial objectives, and regularly collaborate with partners on your ideas, you'll be far better off with archbee alternatively, you can just buy space on a server and self host your wiki but that requires a lot of technical knowledge, and it’s much more time consuming, even if it’s cheaper chances are, you’re going to end up purchasing a tool to help anyway lastly, you need to consider security if you want your private wiki to only be accessible by your organization, you need a tool that protects your knowledge how to write a wiki# how to write a wiki depends on what choice you made with hosting if you choose to self host, the first step is to settle on a programming language and start coding your wiki’s interface and structure if you’ve got a good knowledge of css, you can make it work but it’s exhausting, even if you do pay for some pre made resources and that’s only the beginning up next, you’ll need to get accustomed to wiki markup, which is a formatting language for wiki content it’s based on html, so you can see how having a good knowledge of web development will help with creating a wiki up next, you’ll need to find a way to secure your server only then can you start actually writing your knowledge, structuring it and making it accessible to partners if you want to avoid all of that, you can just use archbee but having a tool doesn’t mean it will all be a walk in the park you first need to settle on a structure what’s important here is the content hierarchy if you have 5 distinct processes you need to be outlined, they should all be grouped under a larger page about your processes in general you also need to be able to tag and categorize information so if it’s development processes, they should be marked as such, if it’s outreach processes they should be tagged differently you also need an overarching table of contents, to improve navigation of your private wiki for that, you can follow a simple rule of always breaking ideas into bite sized chunks and always progressing from general to specific lastly, you need a way to browse this data if it gets too stuffy so think about also optimizing your wiki to be searchable from a browsing bar once you get the structure covered, you need to pick up the virtual pen writing a wiki is tough because you need just the right balance of technical language, a concise approach, and insightful content but you can follow some ground rules first, always aim for clarity in what you write if you’re talking about inter departmental collaboration, make sure you explain who’s responsible for what second, don’t over complicate matters your wiki is a formal document but it’s not useful for machines it needs to be readable by people, and it needs to actually help them do their job better that’s why you should always try to simplify your language that doesn’t mean dumb it down… and it definitely doesn’t mean being vague but a simple rule to follow is this if you can say it in fewer words, always do it there are some other tips for example, you should avoid passive voice it just leads to confusion, because it’s never clear who’s acting upon what another thing you can do is try to read the wiki as if you were a partner or a new employee being onboarded are your ideas conveyed good enough to achieve the purpose of a private wiki? private wikis are similar to software documentation, so you can read our piece on how to improve software documentation https //archbee com/blog/7 tips that show you how to improve software documentation to find out more to wrap it up# don’t go out of your way to create a private wiki if you don’t really need one it’s just self defeating however, if you have a lot of knowledge to centralize if you need a way to better communicate with partners or investors if you need a better onboarding process for collaborators and employees and especially if you want to protect your knowledge and make the most out of trade secrets you should consider creating a private wiki frequently asked questions what exactly is a private wiki, in plain english? a private wiki is a secure, invite‑only knowledge base for your company, team, or project think wikipedia, but purpose‑built for your work and accessible only to people you choose here’s what that looks like day to day controlled access only invited users (employees, contractors, select partners) can view or edit single source of truth processes, sops, policies, product docs, onboarding guides, faqs, templates, and more live in one organized place easy to navigate clear hierarchies, categories, tags, and cross‑links make content simple to find search and history fast search plus page history and versioning help you locate answers and track changes granular permissions roles and page‑level access keep sensitive info safe how it differs from project documentation project docs are one slice of the pie a private wiki covers everything people need to do work the right way, from team rituals to troubleshooting to go‑to‑market playbooks bottom line it is a private, organized, and searchable hub that protects knowledge while helping everyone work faster and more consistently is a private wiki worth it? what are the real benefits? how can i tell if my team actually needs a private wiki? what should we get in place before launching a private wiki? how do i structure and write wiki pages people will actually use? table of contents what is a private wiki? turn static docs into instant answers who could benefit from a private wiki how to create a private wiki hosting a wiki how to write a wiki to wrap it up frequently asked questions turn static docs into instant answers build beautiful knowledge portals that are easy to navigate, search and share discover archbee https //app archbee com/signup?utm source=website\&utm medium=blog toc\&utm campaign=a private wiki everything you need to know documentation, technical writing tips and trends blog join 5000+ people from around the world that receive a monthly edition of the archbee blog newsletter enter your email mailto\ enter your email subscribe continue reading discover more insights and expand your knowledge documentation /blog/why teams are abandoning madcap flare a modern documentation alternative liberating your documentation the compelling case for switching from madcap flare to archbee /blog/why teams are abandoning madcap flare a modern documentation alternative smart teams are moving from madcap flare to modern documentation platforms discover how these tools are transforming workflows and enhancing productivity /blog/why teams are abandoning madcap flare a modern documentation alternative documentation /blog/multi product documentation strategy how to structure documentation for multi product companies (and not lose your mind) /blog/multi product documentation strategy struggling to scale your documentation across multiple products? learn how to build a cohesive, scalable multi product doc strategy /blog/multi product documentation strategy documentation /blog/invisible roadblock poor documentation and how to break through invisible roadblock poor documentation and how to break through /blog/invisible roadblock poor documentation and how to break through poor documentation quietly hinders teams and frustrates users discover how to identify issues, address gaps, and create a system for effective documentation /blog/invisible roadblock poor documentation and how to break through