System Requirements

MediaWiki 1.46 requires a web server with PHP, a supported database, and a small set of PHP extensions. This page describes the minimum and recommended requirements.

Always back up your database before attempting to install or upgrade MediaWiki.

PHP

MediaWiki 1.46 requires PHP 8.2.0 or higher. PHP versions below 8.2 are no longer supported by the PHP Group and will not receive security or bug fix updates. On 32-bit systems, either the bcmath or gmp extension is also required for scrambling Temporary Accounts.

Required PHP Extensions

All of the following extensions must be enabled. Most PHP distributions include them by default.

Extension	Purpose
`calendar`	Calendar conversion functions
`ctype`	Character type checking (`ctype_digit`, etc.)
`dom`	XML DOM manipulation
`fileinfo`	MIME type detection for file uploads
`iconv`	Character set conversion
`intl`	Internationalization and locale support
`json`	JSON encoding and decoding
`libxml`	XML parsing foundation
`mbstring`	Multibyte string handling
`openssl`	Cryptography, HTTPS client support
`xml`	Core XML parsing (`xml_parser_create`, etc.)
`xmlreader`	Streaming XML reading

Recommended PHP Extensions

These extensions are optional but strongly recommended for performance and functionality:

Extension	Benefit
`apcu`	Faster web responses overall
`bcmath`	Increased performance; required on 32-bit systems
`curl`	Faster HTTP services (InstantCommons, Swift, Etcd)
`exif`	Processing EXIF metadata in uploaded images
`gd`	Thumbnail generation for file uploads
`gmp`	Increased performance; alternative to `bcmath` on 32-bit
`igbinary`	Faster serialization via igbinary
`imagick`	ImageMagick integration for image manipulation
`memcached`	Memcached caching backend
`mysqli`	MySQL and MariaDB database driver
`pdo`	SQLite database driver
`pgsql`	PostgreSQL database driver
`posix`	CLI concurrent processing (e.g. `runJobs.php`)
`pcntl`	CLI concurrent processing (`runJobs.php`, `rebuildLocalisationCache.php`)
`readline`	CLI history and autocomplete (`eval.php` and other REPLs)
`redis`	Redis caching backend
`sockets`	CLI concurrent processing (`rebuildLocalisationCache.php`)
`wikidiff2`	Faster text difference engine
`zlib`	GZIP compression for `SqlBagOStuff`, `$wgCompressRevisions`, `$wgUseFileCache`

Database

One of the following database servers is required:

MariaDB 10.3+

The recommended choice for most deployments. Fully supported and widely used by Wikimedia.

MySQL 5.7.0+

Supported alongside MariaDB. Requires the mysqli PHP extension.

PostgreSQL 10+

Supported for production use. Requires the pgsql PHP extension.

SQLite 3.31.0+

Suitable for development and small wikis. Requires the pdo PHP extension.

Web Server

MediaWiki runs on Apache, Nginx, or PHP’s built-in development server.

Apache
Nginx
PHP Built-in Server

Apache 2.4+ with mod_php or PHP-FPM is the most common production setup.Enable mod_rewrite for clean URLs:

a2enmod rewrite

A basic virtual host configuration:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName wiki.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wiki

    <Directory /var/www/html/wiki>
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

MediaWiki ships with an .htaccess file that handles URL rewriting when AllowOverride All is set.

Nginx with PHP-FPM is a popular alternative, particularly for high-traffic wikis.A basic server block:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name wiki.example.com;
    root /var/www/html/wiki;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrite;
    }

    location @rewrite {
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?title=$1&$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~* ^/w/(cache|includes|languages|maintenance|serialized|tests)/ {
        deny all;
    }
}

PHP’s built-in web server is suitable for local development only. It is not for production use.The composer serve script starts it on http://127.0.0.1:4000 with 8 workers:

composer serve

This sets MW_LOG_DIR=logs, MW_LOG_STDERR=1, and PHP_CLI_SERVER_WORKERS=8.

Memory and Disk

PHP memory limit: 128 MB minimum; 256 MB or more recommended for wikis with file uploads and extensions.
Disk space: At least 200 MB for the MediaWiki application files. Additional space is required for file uploads, database files (SQLite), and log files.
Composer dependencies: The vendor/ directory after composer install is approximately 150–200 MB.

If you are using SQLite, allocate sufficient disk space on the volume where $wgSQLiteDataDir (or the --dbpath passed to the installer) resides, as the entire database is stored as a single file.

Overview

Installation

Core Concepts

System Requirements

PHP

Required PHP Extensions

Recommended PHP Extensions

Database

MariaDB 10.3+

MySQL 5.7.0+

PostgreSQL 10+

SQLite 3.31.0+

Web Server

Memory and Disk

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Overview

Installation

Core Concepts

​PHP

​Required PHP Extensions

​Recommended PHP Extensions

​Database

MariaDB 10.3+

MySQL 5.7.0+

PostgreSQL 10+

SQLite 3.31.0+

​Web Server

​Memory and Disk

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

PHP

Required PHP Extensions

Recommended PHP Extensions

Database

Web Server

Memory and Disk