The easiest way by far is downloading an existing dump from kiwix
Per example wikipedia_en_all_nopic_2024-06.zim is only 54GB since it only contains text. Then via docker you could use this compose file where you have your .zim files in the wikis volume:
services:
kiwix:
image: ghcr.io/kiwix/kiwix-serve
container_name: kiwix_app
command: '*'
ports:
- '8080:8080'
volumes:
- "/wikis:/data"
restart: always
Theorically you can actually one of the wikipedia database dumps with mediawiki but I don’t known of any easy plug and play guide
Doubled my monthly donation hopefully more people will do the same.
I’ve been hosting my own instance for two years now without hiccups.