Baike.com was founded in 2005 by CEO Pan Haidong,[1] who had moved back to China after earning a PhD in systems engineering from Boston University in 2002.

[2] Baike.com, a 2007 RedHerring 100 Asia company, developed its own wiki software platform, called HDWiki, as a rival to MediaWiki.

The system has some social networking-like interactive features, such as user profile, friends and groups.

[3] The HDWiki software is free for non-commercial use, has been downloaded 200,000 times and currently supports over 1,000 other web sites in China (as of December 2007), consisting mostly of tech researchers, software groups, government, universities, and high school students.

[2] On 22 February 2011, Baike.com submitted a complaint to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce asking for a review of the behavior of Baidu, accusing it of being monopolistic.