Kiwix

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Open-source offline browser for public domain projects

title: "Kiwix" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["2010-software", "articles-containing-video-clips", "book-censorship", "cross-platform-free-software", "ebook-suppliers", "free-and-open-source-android-software", "free-educational-software", "free-mobile-software", "free-web-server-software", "internet-censorship", "internet-privacy-software", "publishing-software", "software-development", "software-that-uses-xul", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license", "travel-gear", "wikipedia", "learning-platforms"] description: "Open-source offline browser for public domain projects" topic_path: "technology/software-engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwix" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Open-source offline browser for public domain projects ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

FieldValue
nameKiwix
logo[[File:Kiwix logo v3.svg
screenshotKiwix Desktop 2.3.1.png
captionKiwix 2.3.1 running on Windows 11
developer
ver layoutstacked
latest release version{{Multiple releases
branch1Desktop
version12.4.1
date1
branch2Android
version23.14.0
date2
branch3iOS
version33.10.1
date3
branch4Electron
version42.4.4
date4
branch5UWP
version52.4.4
date5
branch6Browsers
version63.6.0
date6
programming languageC++ (desktop), Kotlin (Android), Swift (iOS, macOS), JavaScript (browser, Electron, UWP)
operating systemAndroid, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, Windows 10 Mobile, Ubuntu Touch
size{{Plainlist
language count100
language footnote
language
licenseGPLv3
website
::

| name = Kiwix | logo = [[File:Kiwix logo v3.svg|class=skin-invert|200px|alt=Kiwix logo]] | screenshot = Kiwix Desktop 2.3.1.png | caption = Kiwix 2.3.1 running on Windows 11 | developer = | released = | discontinued = | ver layout = stacked | latest release version = {{Multiple releases |branch1 = Desktop |version1 = 2.4.1 |date1 = |branch2 = Android |version2 = 3.14.0 |date2 = |branch3 = iOS |version3 = 3.10.1 |date3 = |branch4 = Electron |version4 = 2.4.4 |date4 = |branch5 = UWP |version5 = 2.4.4 |date5 = |branch6 = Browsers |version6 = 3.6.0 |date6 = | programming language = C++ (desktop), Kotlin (Android), Swift (iOS, macOS), JavaScript (browser, Electron, UWP) | operating system = Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, Windows 10 Mobile, Ubuntu Touch | size = {{Plainlist|

  • Desktop: 121 MB
  • Electron: 71.1 MB
  • Android: 80 MB
  • iOS: 48.3 MB
  • UWP: 12.1 MB | language count = 100 | language footnote = | language = | genre = | license = GPLv3 | website = ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Kiwix_on_Android_Tablet.png" caption="Kiwix app, running on an Android tablet" alt="Kiwix, running on an Android tablet"] ::

Kiwix is a free and open-source offline web browser created by Emmanuel Engelhart and Renaud Gaudin in 2007. It was first launched to enable offline access to Wikipedia, but has since expanded to include other projects from the Wikimedia Foundation, public domain texts from Project Gutenberg, many of the Stack Exchange sites, and many other resources. Available in more than 100 languages, Kiwix has been included in several high-profile projects, from smuggling operations in North Korea to Google Impact Challenge's recipient Bibliothèques Sans Frontières.

History

Founder Emmanuel Engelhart sees Wikipedia as a common good, saying "The contents of Wikipedia should be available for everyone! Even without Internet access. This is why I have launched the Kiwix project."

After becoming a Wikipedia editor in 2004, Engelhart became interested in developing offline versions of Wikipedia. A project to make a Wikipedia CD, initiated in 2003, was a trigger for the project.

In 2012, Kiwix received a grant from Wikimedia France to build a kiwix-plug, which was deployed to universities in eleven countries known as the Afripedia Project. In February 2013 Kiwix won SourceForge's Project of the Month award and an open-source award in 2015.

Description

The software is designed as an offline reader for a web content. It can be used on computers without an internet connection, computers with a slow or expensive connection, or to avoid censorship. It can also be used while travelling (e.g. on a plane or train). It also exists as browser extensions (see below). Of course, the content being archived offline means it is no longer editable, if it was previously.

Users first download Kiwix (or a browser extension), then download content for offline viewing with Kiwix. Compression saves disk space and bandwidth. All of English-language Wikipedia, with pictures, fits on a large USB stick or external media.

All content files are indexed and compressed in ZIM format, which makes them smaller, but leaves them easy to search and selectively decompress.

The ZIM files are then opened with Kiwix, which looks and behaves like a web browser, or with a suitably enabled conventional browser. Kiwix offers full text search, tabbed navigation, and the option to export articles to PDF and HTML.

There is an HTTP server version called kiwix-serve; this enables a computer to host Kiwix content, and make it available to other computers on a network. The other computers see an ordinary website.

Kiwix Hotspot

Kiwix Hotspot is an HTTP server version for plug computers, which is often used to provide a Wi-Fi server. This is suitable for use cases where no technical skill is available; it is a "plug-and-play" solution.

Kiwix sells online Kiwix Hotspot with pre-configured content packs or with custom selections.

Available content

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/The_Goodall_girls_using_Kiwix_aboard_the_Kyrimba.JPG" caption="South Pacific]]<ref name="Sailing the South Pacific" />"] ::

A list of content available on Kiwix is available for download, including language-specific sublists. Content can be loaded through Kiwix itself.

Since 2014, most Wikipedia versions are available for download in various different languages. The project was unable to produce up-to-date complete versions of English Wikipedia after October 2018 but started making releases again in July 2020.

Besides Wikipedia, content from the Wikimedia Foundation such as Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, and Wikiversity are also available for offline viewing in various different languages.

In November 2014, a ZIM version of all open texts forming part of Project Gutenberg was made available.

Besides public domain content, works licensed under a Creative Commons license are available for download as well. For example, offline versions of the Ubuntu wiki containing user documentation for the Ubuntu operating system, ZIM editions of TED conference talks and videos from Crash Course are available in the Kiwix archive as ZIM file formats.

Historic Wikipedia articles selection releases

Between 2007 and 2011, three CD/DVD versions containing a selection of articles from the English Wikipedia were released. They are now available as Kiwix ZIM files:

  • Wikipedia Version 0.5
  • Wikipedia Version 0.7
  • Wikipedia Version 0.8

Deployments

Kiwix can be installed on a desktop computer as a stand-alone program, installed on a tablet or smartphone, or can create its own WLAN environment from a Raspberry Pi.

As a software development project, Kiwix itself is not directly involved in deployment projects. However, third party organizations do use the software as a component of their own projects. Examples include: ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Carte_localisation_Afripédia_hors-ligne.png" caption="Locations of 13 universities in 11 countries where Kiwix was deployed as part of the [[Afripedia Project"] ::

Package managers and app stores

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Kiwix_page_view.jpg" caption="[[Medical Wikipedia]] app on a [[smartphone"] ::

Kiwix is available in the native package managers of most Linux distributions. From 2014 to 2020, it was absent, due to XULRunner, a program on which Kiwix depended, being deprecated by Mozilla and removed from the package databases.

Kiwix is available on Debian and Debian-based distributions, such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint, Fedora and other RPM-based distributions, such as openSUSE, and on the Sugar, Arch Linux, and NixOS distributions. A distribution-independent Flatpak version is also available. It is also available on Android. Kiwix JS UWP and Electron packages are available in the native Windows package manager winget.

Kiwix is available in the Microsoft Store, on Google Play, and Apple's iOS App Store. It is also available as an installable HTML5 app (Kiwix JS) in the form of browser extensions for Firefox and Chromium (Chrome, Edge) and as a Progressive Web Application (PWA), all of which work offline. Electron packages of the HTML5 app are compiled for Windows and popular Linux distributions. Since 2015, a series of "customized apps" have also been released, of which Medical Wikipedia and PhET simulations are the two largest.

References

  1. (19 December 2024). "Release 2.4.1".
  2. (13 February 2025). "Release 3.14.0".
  3. (24 August 2025). "Release 3.10.1".
  4. "Kiwix JS Windows/Linux: Releases".
  5. "Kiwix JS". [[Microsoft]].
  6. "Kiwix JS".
  7. "OpenStore".
  8. Pugliese, Joe. (1 March 2015). "The plot to free North Korea with smuggled episodes of 'Friends'".
  9. "Les Lauréats du Google Impact Challenge".
  10. Sutherland, Joe. ''[https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/09/12/emmanuel-engelhart-inventor-of-kiwix/ Emmanuel Engelhart, Inventor of Kiwix: the Offline Wikipedia Browser]''. In: [[Wikimedia Blog]]. 12 September 2014. Accessed on 26 November 2014.
  11. [http://www.citazine.fr/article/afripedia-wikipedia-pour-afrique-francophone Citazine article on Afripedia (in French)]
  12. Traoré, Kardiatou. (13 August 2012). "Afripédia : un projet de promotion de Wikipédia en Afrique".
  13. (2013-02-04). "Kiwix Aims to spread Wikipedia's Reach". dice.com.
  14. (29 October 2015). "OSS Awards küren Schweizer Open-Source-Projekte". Netzwoche.
  15. "Content in all languages - Kiwix".
  16. "Kiwix". [[SourceForge]].
  17. [https://wiki.kiwix.org/Kiwix-serve Kiwix-serve]
  18. "Kiwix-plug - Kiwix".
  19. [https://kiwix.org/en/kiwix-hotspot/ Kiwix Hotspot shopping page]
  20. "Content in all languages - Kiwix".
  21. Truong, Kevin. (2020-07-10). "You Can Download the Entirety of English Wikipedia to Browse Offline".
  22. [https://download.kiwix.org/zim/ Zim archive for Kiwix]
  23. Engelhart, Emmanuel. [https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikisource-l/2014-November/002139.html ''50.000 public domain books available to everybody, everywhere, offline''.] [[Wikisource]]-l-Mailinglist, [[Wikimedia Foundation]]. 19 November 2014. Accessed on 26 November 2014.
  24. (20 November 2014). "Words and what not: #Wikimedia & Project #Gutenberg - the sum of all knowledge".
  25. ''[http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Wiki/Hilfsmittel#Kiwix Ubuntuusers Hilfsmittel]''
  26. [https://download.kiwix.org/zim/ted/ Kiwix archive for TED]
  27. [https://download.kiwix.org/zim/other/ Kiwix archive for additional content]
  28. (2007-04-27). "wikipediaondvd.com".
  29. "Index of /archive/zim/wikipedia".
  30. "Wikipedia Version 0.5 at download.kiwix.org".
  31. "Wikipedia Version 0.5 at Internet Archive".
  32. "Wikipedia Version 0.7 at download.kiwix.org".
  33. "Wikipedia Version 0.7 at Internet Archive".
  34. "Wikipedia Version 0.8 at download.kiwix.org".
  35. "Wikipedia Version 0.8 at Internet Archive".
  36. "Main Page - Kiwix".
  37. (24 January 2013). "Afripedia project increasing off-line access to Wikipedia in Africa".
  38. (7 May 2020). "Off-line solutions for reaching students with limited or no internet access". UNESCO International Bureau of Education.
  39. (17 March 2015). "Raspberry Pi in Masekelo: Bringing Wikipedia to a school without electricity".
  40. (14 May 2015). "Children in Mali can now read Wikipedia offline, thanks to MALebooks e-readers".
  41. (2016-08-31). "West African schools will test Kiwix, the offline Wikipedia reader". [[Wikimedia Foundation]].
  42. "Kiwix is mentioned on the thank-you page".
  43. [http://www.fondationorange.com/le-programme-ecoles-numeriques Fondation Orange: le programme "écoles numériques"] {{webarchive. link. (5 April 2015.)
  44. (15 November 2014). "Sailing the South Pacific with a copy of Wikipedia on board: The Goodall Family".
  45. (10 October 2014). "Hans Oleander: Using offline Wikipedia to guide tours at the bottom of the Earth".
  46. (2017-05-05). "Kiwix'le Wikipedia'ya ulaşmak hala mümkün".
  47. "Navigatrix.net - A Voyager's Companion".
  48. (30 July 2010). "Navigatrix – the first Linux distribution for cruisers".
  49. Amarilli, Antoine. "A local copy of Wikipedia with Kiwix - a3nm's blog".
  50. "Debian".
  51. (May 2023). "Debian Package Tracker: kiwix offline Wikipedia reader". Debian Foundation.
  52. "Debian -- Details of package kiwix in bookworm".
  53. "Ubuntu – Details of package kiwix in kinetic".
  54. "kiwix-desktop - Fedora Packages".
  55. "openSUSE Software".
  56. "Arch Linux - kiwix-desktop 2.3.1-3 (x86_64)".
  57. (2023-06-24). "Kiwix Nixpkg". Nix/Nixpkgs/NixOS.
  58. "Kiwix".
  59. "Kiwix, Wikipedia offline - Android Apps on Google Play".
  60. (29 May 2023). "Kiwix on the App Store".
  61. "Kiwix JS PWA".
  62. "Releases · kiwix/kiwix-js-windows".
  63. "Add Support Kiwix Encyclopedia of Wikipedia ".zim" file type · Issue #267 · goldendict/goldendict".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

2010-softwarearticles-containing-video-clipsbook-censorshipcross-platform-free-softwareebook-suppliersfree-and-open-source-android-softwarefree-educational-softwarefree-mobile-softwarefree-web-server-softwareinternet-censorshipinternet-privacy-softwarepublishing-softwaresoftware-developmentsoftware-that-uses-xulsoftware-using-the-gnu-general-public-licensetravel-gearwikipedialearning-platforms