A big step forward in the development was the re-design of the parser and the renderer mechanisms based on contributions by Harry Fuecks in January 2005.

The new parser and the introduction of a cache mechanism led to significant performance improvements, thus making DokuWiki usable for larger projects.

[9] The introduction of DokuWiki into the Debian[10] and Gentoo Linux[11] distributions in April and July 2005 respectively significantly increased the visibility of the software.

The winning logo, designed by Esther Brunner, represents editing pages (by pencils of different colors, i.e. different people) and linking them.

These projects usually bundle the DokuWiki software, select plugins, a customized design and sometimes pre-built content for specialized use cases.