Explore Wikipedia database through Wikidata, web applications and multilingual blog. This article highlights the practical choices and wider implications…
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Rebuilding Wikipedia’s Database on My Server to Enrich This Blog and Build Web Apps
Importing Wikidata onto your own web space: an ambitious, concrete project that is now within reach
For some time now, I’ve been working on a project I would have struggled to imagine possible about twenty years ago: recreating, on my own web space, the entire Wikidata database—that is, the database associated with Wikipedia—so that I can use it to enrich this multilingual blog and, in the longer run, build modern, fast, useful web applications. Said like that, it can sound huge. And it is. We’re talking about a gigantic dataset: global, multilingual, structured, and freely accessible. That’s precisely what makes the project so exciting. We live in a time when resources that used to be reserved for very large organizations are gradually becoming accessible to independents, small companies, motivated developers, and anyone progressing with skills, curiosity, method—and now the help of artificial intelligence. In my case, this project is part of a broader vision: connecting computing, marketing, information technology, and personal development through a blog, digital tools, and web applications that make sense.Wikidata—the database behind Wikipedia—scaled down to a personal project
Wikidata, simply put, is the structured database of the Wikipedia ecosystem. It’s a knowledge backbone that links notions, entities, languages, properties, and relationships at a colossal scale. When you start looking at what it really represents, you immediately understand that we are not talking about a small working file or an ordinary database. We’re talking about something that—if you compare it by intellectual volume—amounts to the equivalent of tens of thousands of books (about 150,000 books of 500 pages in 2026). The compressed file alone already reaches an impressive size. And once it is decompressed, imported, structured, manipulated, and made usable, you enter a different dimension. That’s also what makes the project fascinating: it’s not only a database—it’s a deposit of global knowledge.An import that takes fifteen days: the technical reality behind the ambition
This kind of project doesn’t happen in a few minutes. Right now, a full Wikidata import on my web space is a computing process that takes about fifteen days. It’s not a gadget. It’s not a magic click. It’s a real technical job. You have to download the data, prepare it, import it, structure it, monitor the processing, manage storage, anticipate performance constraints, and think from the beginning about what comes next: how do you update the database without rebuilding everything every time? That’s actually one of the project’s big questions. Importing once is one thing. Keeping the database up to date—without relaunching a fifteen-day process over and over—is another. Behind that there is an entire logic of updates, increments, synchronization, and architecture to design. But even before that step, what motivates me is the future use.Why rebuild Wikidata on my server?
The central question is not only: can it be done? The real question is: what can we do with it intelligently? In my case, the answer is twofold. First, I want to enrich this multilingual blog. Second, I want to build ultra-fast web applications, based on a massive dataset, but capable of returning precise, usable results. I already have this multilingual blog that I built over several months. It has required time, energy, reflection, and a lot of work. This blog relies on a logic of reworked articles—structured, enriched, and designed to be useful, interesting, sometimes even captivating. So the idea is not to add information just to add information. The idea is to use Wikidata as a high-value raw material to better structure, contextualize, complement, and deepen my content. In other words, I don’t want to drown the reader in data. I want to increase the quality of this blog.Enriching a multilingual blog with Wikidata and artificial intelligence
This blog is multilingual. That’s a very important point. It’s not aimed only at a local or monolingual logic. It fits into a broader approach, oriented toward multiple languages and cultural spaces. That’s also a major reason why Wikidata interests me so much: the database itself is multilingual. This opens up very strong possibilities. You can imagine:- enriching articles with coherent data from one language to another;
- connecting notions across several language markets;
- improving the semantic quality of existing content;
- designing richer, more structured pages that are better linked to each other;
- building bridges between knowledge, uses, sectors, and audiences.
- the initial humanist idea;
- the reformulation and structuring made possible by AI;
- and the informational depth provided by a database like Wikidata.
Building ultra-fast web applications from a gigantic database
The other goal—just as important—is to develop extremely fast web applications, even when they rely on a massive database. Many people assume that a very large database necessarily slows everything down. In reality, it all depends on architecture, indexing, targeted use cases, and the product approach. It is entirely possible to build tools capable of producing fast, precise results on an immense database. That’s actually what makes this project so promising: Wikidata can serve as a foundation for original web products, whether free or with paid advanced plans. I’m already thinking about several models. For example:- offering a very useful free access to attract users;
- then monetizing advanced features;
- or designing specialized services for professional use cases;
- or building sector-specific, multilingual, fast, modern tools accessible on phone, computer, and the internet.
A model inspired by the modern web: free first, premium later
I find the approach of offering a strong free base first, then developing paid options for more advanced uses, very interesting. It’s a model that has proven itself. Many major digital services have built their growth this way. You enter through the free version, you see the value, you create a use—and then advanced offers are proposed to those who truly need them, thanks to these applications. This is probably one of the most realistic approaches for web applications built on Wikidata. A free offer can already be very powerful. Then, depending on the case, you can imagine:- advanced plans;
- professional use cases;
- more advanced processing;
- exports;
- analysis tools;
- enriched search engines;
- or specialized interfaces.
Artificial intelligence makes this kind of project much more accessible
Let’s be honest: without artificial intelligence, this project would be much harder to launch alone. I come from software development, but like many people, I haven’t spent my whole life shining academically within every traditional framework. That said, today AI is profoundly changing the way we work. It helps us move faster, unblock technical problems, structure approaches, find methods, produce code, improve it, explain it, and save time. Thanks to AI, I’ve been able to identify avenues, find sources, understand certain steps, speed up operations, and move forward on this project with an efficiency that would have been much harder to reach a few years ago. That’s also why I find the phenomenon of vibe coding very interesting.Vibe coding: coding with text prompts rather than a traditional approach
The term may make you smile, but it refers to a very current reality: using well-formulated text prompts to have AI produce software code and applications. In other words, you no longer code only line by line in a classic programmer’s logic. You design, you describe, you structure, you chain prompts, you refine, you correct, you steer. What becomes central then is:- vocabulary;
- clarity;
- logic;
- the ability to formulate precise requests;
- and the coherent sequencing of instructions.
With a reasonable budget, you can now launch projects that used to be reserved for companies
This may be one of the most important points of everything I’m explaining: this kind of project becomes possible with a very reasonable budget, provided you have some skills, a good approach, perseverance, and the right tools. A few years ago, downloading, storing, manipulating, and exploiting a database of Wikidata’s caliber was mostly a matter for large organizations. Today, the drop in storage costs, the democratization of powerful machines, access to hosting, free tools, and AI are profoundly changing the landscape. For example, Wikidata’s compressed file is about 150 GB. At the scale of today’s hardware, that’s no longer as unreachable as before. A modern computer with several terabytes of storage can easily hold that kind of data—at least in compressed form. Of course, real exploitation requires more than just downloading. But the psychological and technical barrier is no longer the same. That is precisely what I find encouraging: what we thought was reserved for large organizations is becoming accessible to organized independents.My objective: structuring information, not producing without a vision
There is a constant temptation today: produce fast, everywhere, on every topic, with AI—until the web is saturated with low-value content.
That’s not my goal. On the contrary, I want to use resources like Wikidata in a reasonable, structured way. The idea is not to do anything at all with a huge database. The idea is to create:- better organized content;
- relevant tools;
- useful links between information, technology, and real-world use;
- and products that are genuinely helpful.
A project tied to a business vision through 2030
This project isn’t isolated. It’s part of a long-term trajectory. I see it as a strategic foundation for the development of my business through 2030. It’s not a passing whim. It’s not a one-off test. It’s a foundation. With a budget of about 500 euros—earned through time, effort, organization, saving, and a progressive increase in skills—I’m opening a real possibility of building something durable. This budget may seem small at the scale of digital innovation. And yet it’s enough to trigger very serious prospects. Not everyone has 500 euros available immediately. That’s a reality worth remembering. We often talk about wealth, but wealth does not necessarily mean liquidity. You can own an asset, a house, or a share of immobilized value, without having 500 or 1,000 euros of immediate room to invest in a project. That’s why I always nuance simplistic narratives about wealth. What matters to launch a project isn’t only what you “own” in theory. It’s also what you can actually mobilize. In my case, this budget didn’t fall from the sky. It is the result of a path, efforts, skills, and a vision.Why I also think about an Encarta comeback
In this reflection, there’s also a more personal, almost nostalgic part: I’d really love to see an encyclopedia like Encarta come back. I remember that era when a digital encyclopedia fit on several CDs. You would move from one disc to another to browse the content. It was a different era of computing, but the idea was already beautiful: putting knowledge within reach. Today, in the age of the internet, cloud, and artificial intelligence, we can wonder what a new version of Encarta could become. Perhaps an online encyclopedia, continuously updated, enriched by AI, better structured, more editorial, more pedagogical—possibly offered as a subscription. Why would that make sense when Wikipedia already exists? Because Wikipedia’s great strength is also, for some, its great weakness: total openness. That openness is noble, useful, precious. I myself donate to Wikipedia because I deeply respect the idea of sharing knowledge for free. But we can also imagine a complementary product, with another promise: more editorial, more guided, more curated, more pedagogical. It would be another form of digital encyclopedia.Between Wikipedia, Google, AI, and web apps: a new era of access to knowledge
What strikes me today is that free knowledge has never been so accessible. Between Wikipedia, search engines, AI tools, and content platforms, a motivated person can already learn a lot without spending fortunes. Even free versions of major tools are often enough to reach a very interesting level of culture, understanding, and assistance for everyday life. Then, of course, if you want to go very far—write a book, develop at scale, automate, produce at high volume, or launch more powerful tools—a budget becomes useful. But the entry point is nothing like what it was twenty years ago. That’s exactly where my project sits: take a free, massive, international resource, deploy it in my environment, then turn it into something structured, useful, modern, and potentially monetizable.What I want to build from Wikidata
I don’t claim to have finalized all the end products yet. And that’s normal. A project of this scale is built in stages. But I already see several possible directions:- strongly enrich this multilingual blog;
- build web applications for exploration and search;
- imagine thematic or sector-specific tools;
- offer very useful free bases;
- then develop paid advanced uses;
- create original products—little-known, maybe not yet even imagined;
- build modern services accessible from phone, internet, and computer.
Conclusion: rebuilding Wikidata on your own web space—a encouraging perspective to enrich a blog and build modern tools
Rebuilding Wikipedia’s database via Wikidata on your own web space may seem excessive. Yet today, it’s a realistic project for anyone with a reasonable budget, real motivation, a minimum of skills, and good use of artificial intelligence. In my case, this project has two very clear objectives:- enrich this multilingual blog with a global knowledge base;
- build modern, fast, and potentially monetizable web applications.