Wikipedia Offline Clients for iOS

Posted:

In my quest to be a little more productive offline, I did a quick comparison of the offline, English-language Wikipedia clients for iOS. This isn’t meant to be exhaustive, yet it probably has some value for someone as I didn’t find anything comprehensive online. The comparison was done in June 2015, and oddly it seems that several have been withdrawn in the 4 months since.

Recommended

  • Minipedia: Largest database has only 250k articles (3.2Gb download) but it’s the only one with the Wikipedia summary tables (they’re generally on the right at the top of the article). Easy to evaluate as there’s a free database that has the top 10,000 articles and shows you which articles are available in the databases that are available (there are 6 different sizes). Seems the database has been updated since June too.

The others

  • Prizma. Hasn’t been updated in 2 years but has a trial database. I found the three-pane layout confusing. Claims to have table support but I couldn’t see the all-important Wikipedia summary tables. Full database download is 7Gb.
  • Wiki Offline 2 (Avocado Hills): I was scared off by the App Store comments about broken downloads and the lack of developer activity. Doesn’t have a free trial or any detail on the developer website so I chose not to evaluate.
  • All of Wiki Offline. No table support. 5Gb database. No longer available on Australian App Store and no developer site.
  • Wiki encyclopedia offline (BitMagic). Last update 2012. No trial. 5Gb download. No longer available in Australian App Store and no developer site.
  • Wiki Offline Free (Orient Light). Downloaded but didn’t work - search didn’t work. Free trial available. No longer available in the Australian App Store and no developer site.