What is the best alternative to&#x20;Caret?

Typora immediately renders what's typed on the screen in Markdown format. This helps users to have a better understanding of how their document is being formatted. See More

93 15

score 484 · Answer 2

typora

Top Pro

Live preview

Top Con

No mobile (Android/iOS) apps

Top Pro

Hybrid interface

The editor and preview dual-pane setup typical of desktop Markdown editors are gone; instead, a singular interface makes for a WYSIWYG experience. This streamlines the workflow and encourages direct manipulation. See More

Top Con

In beta

Typora is still in beta and may be prone to changes or bugs. See More

Top Pro

Support for LaTeX expressions

It supports LaTeX expressions, with an easy-to-use MaxJax panel. See More

Top Con

Unusable image management

Top Pro

Syntax highlight for fenced codes

It supports GFM's code fences, with syntax highlight support for C/C++, java, etc. See More

Top Con

The immediate rendering of Markdown is hard on the eyes

Having Markdown immediately render causes text to jump into formatted text, which is distracting and hard on the eyes. See More

Top Pro

Custom theme support

Typora has clean yet beautiful built-in themes and allows for users to create new themes using CSS. See More

Top Con

No portable version (Windows)

You need admin rights on a managed Windows computer to install it. There currently is no portable version available. See More

Top Pro

Support for tables

It supports tables for Markdown Extra. And also provides a GUI to make it easy to insert and edit them. See More

Top Pro

Inline images

It won't display image like ![alt](http://image-url), But shows the image content inside the editor. See More

Top Pro

Free during beta

Top Pro

Shows table of contents for the document

It supports an outline for the document, by showing a table of contents on the left side of the screen. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Currently works on Windows, Mac and Linux. See More

Top Pro

Natural typing experience

Editing in Markdown, either in WYSIWYG mode or in markdown code mode, feels natural. It never gets in the way. See More

Top Pro

Make charts and diagrams with Mermaid, FlowChart and Sequence

Use fenced code-blocks to render diagrams using syntax from Mermaid and FlowChart.js. See More

Top Pro

Sidebar with a list of files

You can open any folder in sidebar and see a list of other markdown files. See More

Top Pro

Syncs with iCloud

Specs

Platforms:Mac OSX; Windows; Linux

Export:HTML; HTML (pure); PDF; Word; OpenOffice; RTF; Epub; LaTeX; Media Wiki; ReStructuredText; Textile; OPML

Price:$14.99

When compared to modern graphical editors like Atom and Brackets (which have underlying HTML5 engines, browsers, Node, etc.), Vim uses a sliver of the system's memory and it loads instantly, all the while delivering the same features. Vim is also faster than Emacs. See More

484 59

score 2402 · Answer 3

Vim

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

Top Con

High effort to customize

A lot of time and effort is put in to make it specific to your needs. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source software

Vim is open-source, GPL-compatible charityware. See More

Top Con

Difficult learning curve

You'll spend a lot of time learning all the commands and modes supported in Vim. You'll then spend more time tuning settings to your needs. Although once it's tuned to your needs, you can take your .vimrc to any machine you need and have the same experience across all your computers. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal over SSH

Unlike other editors such as Sublime Text, Vim is a command line editor and hence can be used in remote development environments like Chromebooks via SSH. See More

Top Con

Difficult to copy, paste, and delete

Top Pro

Extremely portable

Vi/vim exists on almost all Unix-like platforms. It's the de-facto Unix editor and is easily installed on Windows. All you need to make it work is a text-based connection, so it works well for remote machines with slow connections, or when you're too lazy to set up a VNC/Remote Desktop connection. See More

Top Con

Poor support for external tooling

Many plugins depend on optional Python and Lua features, which may or may not be included in whatever binaries are available for your system. And without platform-specific hacks, it is difficult for plugins to operate in the background or use external tooling. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard-based, mouse-free interface, and trackpad support

There's no need to reach for the mouse or the Ctrl/Alt buttons again. Everything is a mere key press or two away with almost 200 functions specifically for text editing. Vim does support the mouse, but it's designed so you don't have to use it for greater efficiency. Versions of Vim, like gVim or MacVim, still allow you to use the mouse and familiar platform shortcuts. That can help ease the learning curve and you'll probably find you won't want to (or need to) use the mouse after a while. See More

Top Con

Poor feature discoverability

Though basic features like syntax checking, autocompletion, and file management are all available out of the box or with minimal configuration, this is not obvious to new users, who might get intimidated or assume they need to install complex plugins just so they can have this functionality. Other features new users might expect to find embedded in Vim, such as debugging, instead follow a UNIX-style model where they are called as external programs, the output of which might then be parsed by Vim so it can display results. Users not familiar with this paradigm will likely fault Vim for lacking those features as well. See More

Top Pro

Great productivity

Vim's keyset is mainly restricted to the alphanumeric keys and the escape key. This is an enduring relic of its teletype heritage, but has the effect of making my ost of Vim's functionality accessible without frequent awkward finger reaches. See More

Top Con

No smooth scrolling

Even with the GUI version, the lines jiggle line-by-line. If you are used to smooth scrolling, this is very annoying, especially when working with larger files. See More

Top Pro

Macros increase productivity

Many text editors have programmable macros, but since Vim is keyboard-based, your programmed macros are usually far more predictable and easier to understand. See More

Top Con

Doesn't play nice with the system cut/paste mechanisms

This can be worked around somewhat if you disable mouse for insert mode. You can then right-click your terminal and use paste like you would anywhere else in a terminal. But it still doesn't feel right when the rest of your system uses Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V, and you have a system clipboard manager, and so forth. See More

Top Pro

Excellent performance

As it loads the whole file into RAM, replacing all string occurrences in 100 MB+ files is quick and easy. Every other editor has sort of died during that. It is extremely fast even for cold start. Vim is light-weight and very compact. In terminal, it only uses a small amount of memory and anytime you invoke Vim, it's extremely fast. It's immediate, so much so you can't even notice any time lag. See More

Top Con

Outdated UI

Top Pro

Tons of plugins/add-ons

This makes Vim the definitive resource for every environment (Ruby/Rails, Python, C, etc.), or simply just provides more information in your view. See More

Top Con

Requires Brain Mode Switching

When editing in vim, you have you use the vim keys; when editing in every other window on your PC, or in Word or Excel or other application, you need to use the standard system key combinations. Learning the vim combinations can actually make you SLOWER at everything else. See More

Top Pro

Everything is mnemonic

No need to memorize different key combinations for things like deleting the text inside of a block or deleting the text inside of a pair of quotes. It's just a series of actions, or nouns and verbs, or however you prefer to think about it. If you want to delete, you select "d"; if you want it to happen inside something, you select "i"; and if you want the surrounding double-quotes, just select ". But if you were changing the text, or copying it, or anything else, you'd still use the same "i" and ". This makes it very easy to remember a large number of different extremely useful commands, without the effort it takes to remember all of the Emacs "magic incantations", for example. See More

Top Con

Slow when opening files with very long lines

A lot of very long lines can make Vim take up to a minute to open files, where a few other editors take only seconds to load the same file. See More

Top Pro

Vimtutor

Vimtutor is an excellent interactive tutorial for people with no prior experience of Vim. It takes about 30 minutes to complete. See More

Top Con

Consume brain energy for editing that should be used for logic

Text editing in vim is awesome, but it requires thinking about combination of commands. In other editors, you don't have to think about how to delete this part of code. You just think about how to implement a feature, what is a good design for this code. Even after you get used to using vim, it still requires your brain for editing. See More

Top Pro

Amazing extensibility

Vimscript provides a rich scripting functionality to build upon the core of Vim. When combined with things like Tim Pope's Pathogen plugin management system, it becomes easy to add support for syntax, debugging, build systems, git, and more. See More

Top Con

Foreign keyboards have a hard time on Vim out of the box

A lot of frequently-used keybinds are way harder to access on foreign keyboards because they use different layouts. For example, Germans use the QWERTZ layout, while French use the AZERTY. See More

Top Pro

Usable from a Terminal or with a GUI (GVim, MacVim)

If you happen to be logged into SSH, you can use Vim in a terminal. It can also run with a GUI too. See More

Top Con

Unintuitive mode switching

Top Pro

Has been supported for a long time

And will be supported for many years to come. See More

Top Con

Extensibility isn't that great

While it has gotten better and some projects are slowly starting to build proper extension support, it still can't and by design never will achieve the extensibility of another editor like emacs. See More

Top Pro

Once learned, it's very hard to forget

Vim's somewhat steep learning curve is more than made up for once you've mastered a few basic concepts and learned the tricks that allow you to program faster with fewer cut/paste mistakes. See More

Top Con

Works poorly out of the box with right-to-left

Top Pro

Can never outgrow it

The fact that very few, if any, people claim to be a "Vim Master" is a testament to the breadth and depth of Vim. There is always something new to learn - a new, perhaps more efficient, way to use it. This prevents Vim from ever feeling stale. It's always fresh. See More

Top Pro

Flexible feature-set

Vim allows users to include many features found in IDEs and competing editors, but does not force them all on the user. This not only helps keep it lighter in weight than a lot of other options, but it also helps ensure that some unused features will not get in the way. See More

Top Pro

Has multiple distinct editing modes

Interaction with Vim is centered around several "modes", where purpose and keybindings differ in each. Insert mode is for entering text. This mode most resembles traditional text entry in most editors. Normal mode (the default) is entered by hitting ESC and converts all keybindings to center around movement within the file, search, pane selection, etc. Command mode is entered by hitting ":" in Normal mode and allows you to execute Vim commands and scripts similar in fashion to a shell. Visual mode is for selecting lines, blocks, and characters of code. Those are the major modes, and several more exist depending on what one defines as a "mode" in Vim. See More

Top Pro

By default in Linux

All Linux distributions out there will have Vim built into them, which is highly convenient! See More

Top Pro

Vim encourages discipline

If you use Vim long enough, it will rewire your brain to be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Useful undo features

Vim does not only offer unlimited undo levels, later releases support an undo tree. It eventually gives the editor VCS-like features. You can undo the current file to any point in the past, even if a change was already undone again. Another neat feature is persistent undo, which enables to undo changes after the file was closed and reopened again. See More

Top Pro

Donations and support to Vim.org helps children in Uganda through ICCF Holland

Top Pro

Built-in package management

Starting with Vim 8, a package manager has been built into Vim. The package manager helps keep track of installed plugins, their versions and also only loads the needed plugins on startup depending on the file type. See More

Top Pro

If you can use Vim you can also use vi

Top Pro

Works on Android

Top Pro

Productivity enhancing modal paradigm

As with all vi-like editors, Vim provides a modal paradigm for text editing and processing that provides a rich syntax and semantic model for composing succinct, powerful commands. While this requires some initial investment in learning how it works in order to take full advantage of its capabilities, it rewards the user well in the long run. This modal interface paradigm also lends itself surprisingly well to many other types of applications that can be controlled by vi-like keybindings, such as browsers, image viewers, media players, network clients (for email and other communication media), and window managers. Even shells (including zsh, tcsh, mksh, and bash, among others) come with vi-like keybinding features that can greatly enhance user comfort and efficiency when the user is familiar with the vi modal editing paradigm. See More

Top Pro

Asynchronous I/O support

Since Vim 8, Vim can exchange characters with background processes asynchronously. This avoids the problem of the text editor getting stuck when a plugin that had to communicate with a server was running. Now plugins can send and receive data from external scripts without forcing Vim to freeze. See More

Top Pro

Can set up keymapping

Top Pro

Multiple clipboards

It is called "registers". See More

Top Pro

Status Booster

Using vim not just increase your productivity, but helps you flex. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:Vim License

Price:0

Extension language:Vim

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

2402 445

score 4160 · Answer 4

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Top Con

Embedded Git isn't powerful enough

You can do nothing but to track changes, stage them and commit. No history, visualization, rebasing or cherry-picking – these things are left to git console or external git client. See More

Top Pro

TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript. See More

Top Con

The autocomplete and code check is not as powerful as the one on WebStorm

Sometimes it doesn't tell you if you made a typo in a method name or if a method is not used and several other important features. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript. See More

Top Con

File search is extremely slow

It's absolutely not possible to use this tool with big projects given how long it takes to search for files. See More

Top Pro

Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered. See More

Top Con

Project search limits results

Because file search is so slow your results are limited in order to simulate a faster search. See More

Top Pro

Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. Shift+~ is a handy hotkey to toggle the integrated terminal. See More

Top Con

Very bad auto import

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. See More

Top Con

Generalized

VS Code is a general code/scripting IDE built to be lightweight and for people familiar with their language of choice, not directly comparable to Visual Studio in power or scope. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Con

Memory hog

Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM. (While of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory) See More

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created. See More

Top Con

Poor error fix suggestions

Error detection and suggestions/fixes are poor compared to IntelliJ platforms See More

Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code. See More

Top Con

A "me too" offering from MS, far behind other well established editors that it attempts to clone

Other IDEs specific to a language often offer better tools for deep programming. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows. See More

Top Con

Slow launch time

Slower than it's competitors, e.g. Sublime Text. See More

Top Pro

Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily. See More

Top Con

Emmet plugin often fails on even simple p tags

Top Pro

ESLint integration

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style. See More

Top Con

Have no good default js style analyzer

In WebStorm there is analyzer that checks for warnings and highlight this in yellow, here you cannot find or add it even with plugins. It is possible to have it as errors with linter but while you are actively changing file that's not very nice. See More

Top Pro

Extensions (aka plugins) are written in JavaScript

Extensions are written in either Typescript or JavaScript. See More

Top Con

.sass linting is terrible

Top Pro

Active development

It's really nice to see how the code editor evolves. Every month there is a new version with great communication of new features and changes. See More

Top Con

Is not an IDE, is a text editor

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Pro

It has gotten really good

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need. See More

Top Pro

Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Pro

JS typechecking

It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option. See More

Top Pro

Python support

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension. See More

Top Pro

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Top Pro

High fidelity C# plugin

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support. See More

Top Pro

Support RTL languages

It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it. See More

Top Pro

Inline definition picking and usages finding

These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT, Proprietary (official builds)

Multi Language Support:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

On Windows 10 the installed size was 259 Mb, no surprise as this is an Electron based app. See More

4160 832

score 52 · Answer 5

Mark Text

Top Pro

Open Source

Top Con

Not lightweight

Top Pro

WYSIWYG or TEXT visualisation

Top Con

Not a WYSIWYG editor, no formated preview

There is only plain text editing. See More

Top Pro

Has RTL language support

Can be used with languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. See More

Top Con

Limited block selections

Top Pro

Very light : 103 Mb only

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:MIT

Everything is stored in your device. You can back them up, encrypt and process however you want to. Works completely offline. Read your notes anytime, anywhere. See More

52 8

score 899 · Answer 6

Obsidian md

Top Pro

Locally stored, not dependent on cloud

Top Con

Closed Source

See related thread at Obsidian forum. See More

Top Pro

Markdown makes for flatter learning curve

Top Con

Needs to be better at block level references, searches, tagging

For example, if you want a tag a block of text, for obsidian, its the whole page that will get tagged. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight and very customizable

Variety of settings, and community themes & plugins, available from built-in marketplace. Every community plugin is open-source which means you can learn from it and develop your own. See More

Top Con

Proprietary software lock-in

Creates dependence on the application with the promise that the content is yours but that cannot be entirely true without the application being free and open source software. You will end up altering the way you create the content to take advantage of Obsidian features and your processes will evolve for its workflows. This replicates the lock-in pain that people experience moving their highly personal information from one proprietary platform to the next when that initial platform stops serving them well, goes out of business, or becomes a bad actor. See More

Top Pro

Backlinking

This allows you to link notes back and forth really easily. See More

Top Con

Does not export to MS Word

Can export only as a PDF file. See More

Top Pro

Fast growing

It's becoming more powerful everyday, it seems like they add many functions within several days. See More

Top Con

Requires .md files

Can't read .txt or other plaintext file formats. Can't read asciidoc files. (Available with a plugin.) See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform: works on Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS

Top Con

No ability to add dates that link to a daily note, when that day/note may not yet exist

You can create a backlink which doesn't yet exist; it just doesn't auto-fill for you. (Available as a plugin) See More

Top Pro

Very easy to use and link notes, preserves the standard form of markdown

Linking notes is a game changing feature. Very easy to use and link notes. Their implementation of markdown doesn't deviate from the standard form of markdown and so the same files can be used by other markdown programs without any consequence. While renaming note link still works. See More

Top Con

Too many plugins

Top Pro

Multiple Vaults

A Vault in Obsidian is like a database. Internal links and files are not shared across Vaults. Each Vault is opened with a separate instance of Obsidian. Each Vault can have its unique app settings and plug-ins. Useful if you have distinct/unrelated projects or "data spaces" requiring different workflows and data relations. See More

Top Con

iOS version works only with icloud

Does not work with other cloud folders. See More

Top Pro

In-line tagging

Ability to tag-as-you-write and find each occurrence of a tag in the entire vault makes it very easy to organize and retrieve notes. Supports nested tags. See More

Top Con

Needs to be polished

They still need time to fix some bugs. See More

Top Pro

Infinite panes, split panes, lock panes

In Obsidian, pane = window = note = page Obsidian allows you to open as many notes as you can fit concurrently in your screen. You can split a pane horizontally/vertically. You can lock/link panes so they scroll in sync, useful for and edit & preview modes. See More

Top Con

V1.0 release is terrible

Don't download unless you can't find pre 1.0 version. See More

Top Pro

Functionality extensions with a growing number of plugins

Also open for anyone to develop their own extensions/plugins. See More

Top Pro

Daily Notes with template

Daily Notes plug-in, when clicked, generates a new note with the current date. Great for journaling and reduces friction in your writing habit. You can create a custom template for your Daily Note. See More

Top Pro

Helps visualize personal knowledge in ways nothing else allows

The Graph view is more than an aesthetic gizmo. It allows you to grasp and recognise clusters of information, follow branches and easily filter out what you don't want to see. The "animate" option shows how your notes and links have grown organically. With a bit of tweaking to the visuals and the proper theme, your graph might even start to look like a disturbingly "alive", eerie thing. See More

Top Pro

Random note

A plugin that, when clicked, surfaces a random note from your vault. See More

Top Pro

Support for tags

Top Pro

Readable as it hides the [[ ]] around links when in Preview mode

This is a big difference, as having to read through long-form texts laden with [[links]] gives friction. See More

Top Pro

Slides for giving presentations from within Obsidian

Easily turn your notes into simple yet sleek powerpoint-style presentations by enabling the Slides plugin and adding the --- separator. See More

Top Pro

Markdown rather than outline/blocks

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts, Vim key bindings

Hotkeys can be customized in settings. Can switch on or off Vim key bindings in the editor settings. See More

Top Pro

Great onboarding experience

The onboarding consists of well-written help documentation (saved as a vault) served in small chunks and organized systematically so that you become familiar with all its features as well as get hands-on experience in real time. See More

Top Pro

Community of developers building themes and plug-ins

Due to the tool being very developer-friendly, there are tons of cool developments being made to it by 3rd party devs. See More

Top Pro

Page previews on hover

When you hover on an internal [[link]], you get to preview the note without opening it on a new pane. Page preview plugin must be enabled. See More

Top Pro

Intuitive and easy to use with an excellent help system built-in

The app doesn't frustrate the user - the built-in help is excellent. See More

Top Pro

Embedding attachments, such as PDF

Variety of file formats are directly embedded in the markdown preview, e.g. markdown, image, audio, video and PDF files. See More

Top Pro

Exporting as PDF

Allows exporting your markdown files as PDFs rendered with all of your plugins. See More

Top Pro

Calendar

Daily and Weekly notes with Calendar Plugin. See More

Top Pro

Graph view

A pretty, alternative way to represent links between your notes. See More

Top Pro

Multiple cursors

A feature unseen in other tools. From the help doc, "This can be useful when modifying a lot of lines in the same way, for example putting - at the beginning of multiple lines to turn them into a list, or appending [[ to a series of links you’ve copied from elsewhere." See More

Top Pro

Can copy search results and paste as lists and/or links in a new or existing note

Top Pro

Advanced search

Supports extended searching by default. Community plugin called "Vantage" allows to make more advanced queries. See More

Top Pro

Git integration

Version Control for your vault with Obsidian Git plugin. See More

Top Pro

Aliases

Allows to refer to a note with multiple names. See More

Top Pro

Big and helpful community

There's a Discord server and a forum. Join the community! See More

Top Pro

Not locked to a provider

No lock-in to a certain company - just markdown files on disk. See More

Top Pro

Mindmaps

Available as a plugin. See More

Top Pro

Math

Uses MathJax. See More

Top Pro

Templates

Allows to create templates with built-in plugin. There's also powerful community plugin called "Templater". See More

Top Pro

Diagrams

Uses Mermaid. See More

Top Pro

Linking to blocks

You can link to a block - e.g.: paragraph, blockquote, heading. See More

Top Pro

Metadata

Add a custom metadata to a note with YAML front matter. See More

Top Pro

Sketching

With Excalidraw. See More

Top Pro

Academic citations

Supports Citations and provides inserting from Zotero. See More

Top Pro

SQL-like queries

Advanced queries for the data-obsessed with Dataview Plugin. See More

Top Pro

Workspaces

Saving and loading workspaces. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Audio Recorder

Top Pro

Folders and file level storage which is open to manage, does not lock navigation

With other options like notion, we can not see how the data is actually stored. See More

Top Pro

HTML Support

Use HTML in a note. See More

Top Pro

Incredible tool for PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) which allows anyone who has a computer and an internet connection to think better and create new insights

Top Pro

Helps with planning and organization.

Variety of planning and organization plugins, such as Kanban boards or Day Planner. See More

Top Pro

Supports importing from other tools

Supports importing from tools such as Notion, Evernote, OneNote, Apple Notes, Bear, Zkn3, TiddlyWiki 5, and Roam Research. Refer to Obsidian Help for more info. See More

Top Pro

Supports several languages

Translations are made by the community at GitHub repository. See More

Top Pro

Discord rich presence

Update your Discord status to show your friends what are you working on with Discord Rich Presence plugin. See More

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting for code blocks

Top Pro

Snapshots, file recovery, trash folder

Top Pro

Copy and paste images easily

When taking notes, you can just grab a print screen from your clipboard and paste into the notes without having to do any file management See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android

API:Beta

Collaborative:Upcoming

Search:Advanced

While many Markdown editors don't offer specific support for a certain type of workflow, or offer features for scientific workflows only, Zettlr offers features that help the writing process of journalists or researchers in the arts and humanities. It's a lot more text-focused than most editors. See More

899 70

score 102 · Answer 7

Zettlr

Top Pro

Focuses on writers

Top Con

Obtrusive, like someone WITH CAPS LOCK ON

Too loud, too much going on, and definitely an in-your-face sort of feeling. See More

Top Pro

Citation support

While it supports a diverse range of syntax (chart, easy image insert, etc.) found in other editors, the great citation support made it possible to write real articles. Citation from Zotero and Mendeley can be inserted easily which is a huge plus. See More

Top Con

Large, slow, can't open just a single .md file

Top Pro

Almost perfect

This is the best option, still not perfect, there are some bugs like creating / editing tables and resizing images, but the PROS destroy the CONS, easy quotes, WYSIWYM , attachments tab (supports attaching and opening links to any file), table of contents, TAGs, easy hyperlink between files (same as citations), export to many formats (like Word, HTML5, PDF)... See More

Top Pro

Renders math in-place through KaTex

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

License:GPL v3

Technology:Electron, TypeScript

StackEdit works within your browser. You need internet access to connect to the website, but once it's loaded, the site does not require an internet connection - you will be able to edit and save files locally. Additionally, you can use Fluid to turn it into a native desktop application. See More

102 17

score 120 · Answer 8

StackEdit

Top Pro

Works online and offline

Top Con

Saves files in browser's local storage

Local storage is limited and if the browser crashes the text can be lost. See More

Top Pro

Supports various Markdown flavors

Supports standard Markdown and Markdown Extra. See More

Top Con

Cannot be accessed while being offline

Even though the editor itself works offline, you need internet access to open the website and the editor. See More

Top Pro

Simple workflow

It is very easy to toggle between the preview and the editing windows. The black makes it a very focused writing environment. Of course it's possible to change that if needed. See More

Top Con

Lacks a good integrated spell checker

Uses the built-in browser spell checker which may not be as good as spell checkers other editors have. Depending on the browser, of course. See More

Top Pro

Great when in full-screen

Top Con

Publishing to GitHub requires giving write access to repos

In order to publish documents to GitHub, StackEdit requires writing access to your repos, something which many people may not be comfortable with. See More

Top Pro

No need to install additional software

StackEdit works directly from the browser, there's no need to install additional software as long as you have a web browser installed on your computer. See More

Top Pro

Real-time preview

The preview shows in a collapsible pane on the right hand side. See More

Top Pro

Instant publishing

StackEdit allows pushing a document directly to a list of publishing or file storage platforms or any SSH server. See More

Top Pro

Multiple export options

Can export to .txt, .html and .pdf. See More

Top Pro

Syncs via Dropbox and Drive

Files can be synchronized through Dropbox and Drive. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Linux, Windows

Export:Text, HTML, PDF

120 24

score 18 · Answer 9

Texts

Top Pro

Supports multiple Markdown dialects

Unfortunately, this is a global setting for save (it can open any dialect) See More

Top Con

Overwrites standard Markdown

Editing a preexisting Markdown document overwrites standard markup in it (for example, interpreting headings marked with leading "#"s and rewriting them with a trailing underscore line), adds extra blank lines between all paragraphs, and adds extra spaces at the head of unordered-list items. See More

Top Pro

Immediate Markdown rendering and preview

Texts immediately renders the formatted Markdown as you are typing it inside the text box. It's quite similar to a WYSIWYG editor. See More

Top Con

Spell checking is not activated by default

There's a built-in spell checker which is not activated by default and is quite hidden. See More

Top Pro

Imports and exports many formats

HTML, Word, TeX, PDF, ePUB, OPML. See More

Top Con

Limited choice of built-in themes

You can download the CSS for these themes and create your own, but would be nice to have more flavors (e.g. GitHub) See More

Top Pro

Works on Mac OS X and Windows

Top Con

No word count in older versions

Word count is present in Texts 0.21, at least. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, Windows

Export:HTML, Word, TeX, PDF, ePUB, OPML

Preview:WYSIWYG

The note-card format is incredibly versatile, and great when you have lots of information. See More

18 6

score 28 · Answer 10

Supernotes

Top Pro

Short-form note-cards

Top Con

Only web apps for now

The developers haven't released native apps yet. See More

Top Pro

Responsive platform

Works on all devices, from mobiles to laptops. See More

Top Pro

Full Markdown (with LaTeX equation) support

Great to be able to use all the features of Markdown, rather than a select few. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android

28 0

score 679 · Answer 11

Joplin

Top Pro

Offline access

Top Con

Sync issues with Android

If update on Linux then sync on Android, sometimes the Android sync will duplicate or remove some journal notes. Seems to be a bug in the Android app. The Linux app alone without sync with Android seems to work well using Dropbox. But don't expect changes you make on Android to sync properly back to Linux. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app. See More

Top Con

Sync issue under Linux

The Linux client has a bug that requires the user to click the mouse frequently in order for sync to proceed. This bug has been open for a while. See More

Top Pro

Encryption

Top Con

Gargantuan memory footprint

1GB+ of memory for taking notes. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. See More

Top Con

Old school interface

Top Pro

Supports file attachments

Top Con

Bloated

This project is suffering from feature creep and uses a lot of memory for a note-taking app. See More

Top Pro

Supports markdown

Top Con

App Image launches very slowly

On Linux, you can only install via App Image, which take 5+ seconds to launch. I can launch LibreOffice in under two seconds. See More

Top Pro

Supports tags for notes

Top Con

Sync issues on Windows

No way to change account settings and sync easily corrupted. See More

Top Pro

Web Clipper

Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes. See More

Top Con

Weak tag searching

Joplin can currently only search for a single tag at a time. None of the boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are available for use in searches. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of tags in Joplin. See More

Top Pro

Optional CLI interface

Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers. See More

Top Con

Can't create tags from the mobile app

Top Pro

Supports multiple languages

English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others. See More

Top Pro

Active user forum with support from app creators

Support, troubleshooting, and new feature requests are easy to make at the user forum and you can contact the app creator directly. See More

Top Pro

Dropbox support

Can sync using Dropbox. See More

Top Pro

Nextcloud support

Top Pro

Timed alarm reminder for to-do lists

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

License:MIT

Export:Yes

Sync:File System, OneDrive, Next Cloud, WebDav, DropBox, JoplinCloud, s3 (Beta)

The Noise Free Writing Experience is one of the first approaches to create a first class distraction-free environment. The feature hides the Mac program bar when you start writing. See More

679 130

score 89 · Answer 12

iA Writer

Top Con

No Linux support

Top Pro

Noise Free Writing Experience removes even the program bar

Top Pro

A mode that brings focus to the sentence you're working on

Enabling Focus Mode will dim the whole text except the sentence you are currently writing on. See More

Top Pro

Can tell how long it would take to read through what you've written

Top Pro

Markdown support

Top Pro

Syncs using iCloud and Dropbox

iA Writer can sync documents using iCloud or Dropbox from within the editor for use across multiple devices. See More

Top Pro

Create whole document by including separate images/markdown docs

This is new and very awesome feature in iA Writer 4.0. See More

Top Pro

Can export a Word document

Top Pro

Available for all Apple devices

iA Writer is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS, iOS, Android, Windows

89 26

score 846 · Answer 13

Emacs

Top Pro

Keyboard-focused, mouse-free editing

Emacs can be controlled entirely with the keyboard. While true, I often find the mouse and menus handy for those lesser-used commands. An aide-memoir. See More

Top Con

Learning curve is long

While it's better than it used to be, with most functions being possible through the menu, Emacs is still quite a bit different from your standard editor. You'll need to learn new keyboard shortcuts. See More

Top Pro

Total customizability

Customizations can be made to a wide range of Emacs' functions through a Lisp dialect (Emacs Lisp). A robust list of existing Lisp extensions include the practical (git integration, syntax highlighting, etc) to the utilitarian (calculators, calendars) to the sublime (chess, Eliza). See More

Top Con

Sometimes the extensibility can distract you from your actual work

If I ever want to lose half a day, I'll start by tweaking my .spacemacs config file. See More

Top Pro

It's also an IDE

You can debug, compile, manage files, integrate with version control systems, etc. All through the various plugins that can be installed. See More

Top Con

Keyboard combinations can be confusing for new users

For example, for navigation it uses the b, n, p, l keys. Which for some people may seem strange in the begging. However they can be changed easily. See More

Top Pro

Works in terminal or as a GUI application

You can use Emacs' command line interface or graphical user interface. See More

Top Con

Documentation is not beginner-friendly

Although lots of good built-in documentation _exists_, I have after four years of Emacs as my primary editor not figured out how to actually make use of it, and rely completely on Google / StackOverflow for help. See More

Top Pro

Self documenting

Emacs has extensive help support built-in as well as a tutorial accessed with C-h t. See More

Top Con

User interface is terrible

I was using Emacs in the early 1980's, before there were GUIs. In fairness to Emacs, its original design was conceived in that context and is rather good at some things, like flexible ability to bind commands to keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately, it didn't keep up with the times and fails to take advantage of the entire world of GUI design that's revolutionized computer science since then. So Emacs does 5% or what an editor should do quite will, and is surprisingly under-powered and old fashioned at the other 95%. To this day, it lacks or struggles with very basic things, like interactive dialogs, toolbars, tabbed interface, file system navigation, etc., etc. The things I just mentioned, are all present in some limited and inept form, but falls far short of current standard of good user interface design. For this reason, I would not recommend Emacs to anyone who is under 50 year old, or who needs power user capabilities. For casual, unsophisticated applications by someone who grew up with green screen character based computers, it's probably OK. See More

Top Pro

Free

Licensed under GNU GPL. See More

Top Con

Emacs lisp is very poorly designed

The language that's used for user customization, extensions, and for much of the basic editor functionality, is Emacs lisp, or elisp for short. I actually like lisp in general, especially Scheme, but unfortunately, elisp is one of the worst versions of lisp ever created, barely meriting being called lisp. It's very slow, impoverished in features, inconsistent, and rather inelegant in design. Elisp needed to be overhauled 20 or 30 years ago, but the Emacs developers were not willing to do the work. I believe this is one of the major reasons Emacs is so buggy, lacking in features, development is so slow, and consequently almost nobody uses it (or should use it) anymore. See More

Top Pro

Great documentation

With 30+ years of use the Emacs documentation is very thorough. There are also a lot of tutorials and guides written by third parties. See More

Top Con

Very poorly maintained

It's not clear to what extent Emacs is still supported. There's still some development taking place, but so slow that it's almost an abandoned project. There are numerous bugs in Emacs, many these days associated with start up and package management. When you search the Internet for solutions, you often find many posts, sometimes going back months or even years, with no clear fix. See More

Top Pro

Vi keybindings through Evil mode

Evil mode emulates vim behaviors within Emacs. It enables Vi users to move inside the Emacs universe. See More

Top Con

Hard customization

For customization, you need to learn Lisp. See More

Top Pro

Provides org-mode

Advanced planning and publication which can start as a simple list. See More

Top Con

A lot of jokes in this serious software

Top Pro

Enormous range of functionalities (way beyond simple "text editing")

Through its programmability, a very broad range of functionalities can be integrated in emacs, turning it even into a "single point of contact" with the underlying operating system. See More

Top Con

Using Emacs on a new machine without your .emacs file

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BSD, and others. See More

Top Pro

Integrates planning in your development process

You can jump straight from your org-mode files to programming tasks - and back - and build a seamless workflow. See More

Top Pro

Versatile

Emacs is great for everything. See More

Top Pro

Mini buffer

You can pass complicated arguments in the mini buffer. See More

Top Pro

Ubiquity

Fully compliant GNU-emacs is available on many platforms, and they all understand .emacs configuration files. See More

Top Pro

Rectangular cut and paste

Emacs can select rectangularly. See More

Top Pro

Lisp customizations

With lisp customization, any behavior of Emacs can be changed. Update with pre-release patch can be also applied without recompiling the whole Emacs. See More

Top Pro

Visual selection and text objects with Evil

Evil is an extensible vi layer for Emacs. It provides Vim features like Visual selection and text objects. See More

Top Pro

dabbrev-expand (Alt-/)

Dynamic word completion. See More

Top Pro

Support multi-line editing, multiple frame, powerful paren, crazy jumping style

Review the "Emacs Rocks" video. See More

Top Pro

Has been widely used for a long time

The first verion of Emacs was written in 1974 and GNU Emacs in 1984. See More

Top Pro

Helm plugin adds even more power to Emacs

Powerful commands, search, and more with the Helm plugin. See More

Top Pro

GTK+ widgets support

Since version 25 you can run GTK widgets inside Emacs buffers. One of these is the WebKitGTK+, which allows the user to run a full-featured web browser inside Emacs with JavaScript and CSS support among other things. See More

Top Pro

Excelent tutorial to get you started

The tutorial you are presented with at startup shows you exactly what you need to get started and teaches you how to use the built-in help yourself later. See More

Top Pro

Interactive Shells

Emacs has a number of shell variants: ansi-term, shell, and eshell. See More

Top Pro

Emacs provides magit, the best and most complete GIT interface

Complex git history editing become a breeze with very few keystrokes. And simple ones are quickly stashed in muscle memory. Git becomes an direct extension of your brain thanks to Magit. Cherrypicking, blaming, resetting, interactive rebasing, line level commit, spinoff branches... you name it, magit already has it and has typically all those 5 to 10 git CLI commands of higher-level patterns also tide to one simple shortcut (want to amend a commit three commits away ? forgot to branch out and you've got already N commits on master ? ... etc... ). See More

Top Pro

Gnus

Managing several large mailing lists has never been easier using Gnus. The threading commands and the various ways of scoring articles means that I never miss important messages/authors, etc. A joy to use. See More

Top Pro

Eshell is cross platform

You can use the underlying operating system shell as a terminal emulation in an Emacs buffer. Don't like the default shell for your configuration? You can change it to your liking. See More

Top Pro

Excellent Lisp editing support

Built-in packages make editing Lisp source code feel natural. See More

Top Pro

Use-package and org-mode

Missing some neural package that predicts actions, maybe in the next release ... See More

Specs

Platforms:Unix-like, macOS, Windows, Cygwin

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Multi Language Support:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Sublime Text is very lightweight by default. Customization occurs on the fly thanks to Package Control. See More

846 176

score 1514 · Answer 14

Sublime Text

Top Pro

Lightweight

Top Con

Paid

Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still have to pay for it is definitely a Con. See More

Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Sublime Text protects and copyrights its code and is thus not the freedom-ware some would like it to be. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and editing

Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line. See More

Top Con

Interruption while work

"Purchasing" messages box interrupts while saving file. See More

Top Pro

Functionality can be easily extended

Sublime Text uses TextMate's syntax declaration files to support new languages, it has all its menus and keybindings generated from JSON files, and it can be scripted to add new features using Python. If Sublime Text doesn't support a desired language or feature, it's usually not long before someone implements it themselves - examples include the plugin package manager and the 'open in browser' command. See More

Top Con

No printing of files

Sublime Texts offers no way of printing the files it edits. See More

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

When you start using Sublime Text, it doesn't drown you in keyboard shortcuts or non-intuitive use-concepts. However, high-level functionality can still be easily accessed when the need for it arises. See More

Top Con

Not a full IDE

It does not necessarily function on a project level. See More

Top Pro

Consistent cross-platform

Sublime Text looks consistently the same across Windows, OS X, and Linux. See More

Top Con

Annoying whitespace management

All too often it does the wrong thing with indentation on otherwise blank lines. See More

Top Pro

Fully customizable

Sublime Text allows for all sorts of customization to help users change almost everything in the editor: Key Bindings, Menus, Snippets, Macros, Completions, and many more. Essentially, just about everything in Sublime Text is customizable with simple JSON files. This system gives the user flexibility as settings can be specified on a per-file type and per-project basis. See More

Top Con

Loading big files on Windows is slow

Here's a rough comparison: a 70 MB file takes about 2 seconds to load in Notepad++, whereas the same file in ST3 takes over 10 seconds to load. See More

Top Pro

Very fast

Sublime is quick to start and never slows down. The UI is always responsive and you know what is happening in the background. See More

Top Con

No toolbar

Sublime Text is more focused on keyboard users, meaning it doesn't come with a tool bar. Even plugins can't toggle bookmarks using the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Has tons of plugins available

Top Con

Slow development

While development has yet to stop on Sublime Text, it is significantly slower than its competitors Atom, VSCode, and others. See More

Top Pro

Installable package manager

The package manager is a plugin and can be swapped with something else custom. See More

Top Con

Inadequate language support

Sublime Text offers poor support for Far-East languages in Linux. See More

Top Pro

IDE features without the cruft

Sublime Text, while being lighter-weight than an IDE, still supports many IDE features. Text from the current file is used to provide autocomplete. Project Support (folder browsing, scoped history, build-system declarations). Refactoring support is emulated through multi-select, project-wide find and replace, and regular expression search. Syntax-aware selection and GoTo for quickly jumping to locations in the project. Snippets and Macros. A Python console for everything else. See More

Top Con

No RTL Support

Although it is a "text" editor, Sublime Text does not support rendering text written in Arabic or other right to left languages. The developers seems unwilling to fix this issue any time soon. See More

Top Pro

Offers Command Palette

Command Palette allows for fuzzy searching all available settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top Con

Often crashes due to poor quality plugins

Some plugins are quite buggy, meaning that installing many can become quite a problem regarding stability. See More

Top Pro

Easy to get started

All you need to do when starting up is to install a package manager and modify user configuration. See More

Top Pro

Regex commands

Regex commands help describe a certain amount of text. See More

Top Pro

Customizable keymapping

From menus to commands, assign key maps to almost anything. See More

Top Pro

Portable settings

Settings are modular and can be shared. See More

Top Pro

Distraction free editing mode

Distraction free editing takes over your screen and removes every UI element so you can focus on code. See More

Top Pro

Dynamic Build System

Choose from many build systems or craft your own. See More

Top Pro

Freemium

A Sublime license can be bought but it can still be used for free. However, a pop-up appears when you save multiple times. See More

Top Pro

Permits instant file switching

Open Goto Anything by pressing Ctrl or Command + P and by using fuzzy search you can look for a file in your project. The file will load even without pressing enter, so you can make sure you've found the correct file without committing. See More

Top Pro

Multiple languages are supported

Top Pro

Haxe and OpenFL integration via plugin

Both of these programming interfaces are cross-platform, open source, and easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Direct server upload

Provides command line shortcut for server upload. See More

Top Pro

Projects support multiple folders and git repos

Top Pro

Allows for Vim-style editing

Vintage mode is Vim-style editing that's already built into the text editor. See More

Top Pro

Support for TextMate themes and window decoration themes

Sublime Text compatibility with Textmate bundles is good, but excludes commands, which are incompatible. In general, Sublime Text syntax definitions are compatible with Textmate language files (.tmLanguage extension). See More

Top Pro

Highly Theme-able

Create your own theme with online editor. See More

Top Pro

Functionalities

With lot of functionalities, where other editor even not think to provide. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Multi Language Support:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Markdown note-taking app. See More

1514 325

score 11 · Answer 15

VNote

Top Pro

Able to attach files to a note

Top Pro

Markdown

Top Pro

Free, open source

Source code is available via https://github.com/tamlok/vnote/ See More

Top Pro

Fast, uses C++ and QT Frameworks

Top Pro

Supports MathJax, Mermaid Diagrams, Flowchart.js

Top Pro

Vim Mode

Top Pro

Can be synced using third-party synchonization services

All files on your local disk. Utilize third-party synchronization services to work from anywhere seamlessly. (taken from https://tamlok.github.io/vnote/) See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Simple tagging support is easy to use, and allows quick searching through multiple documents. See More

11 0

score 7 · Answer 16

Notable

Top Pro

Organize projects with tags

Top Pro

Simple, clean interface

With a clean UI that lacks clutter, you can get right to work without a bunch of distractions. See More

Top Pro

Supports markdown

Uses GIt-flavored Markdown, which is a popular and easy to use WYSIWYM format. See More

7 0

score 7 · Answer 17

Frost

Top Pro

Downloading option

This writing platform has the ability to download the written content in the form a .txt file with a single click. See More

Top Pro

Completely free to use

All the themes and features of this platform are free of cost. So it's basically a no-brainer for anyone who prefers to write in a minimalistic space with high quality music! See More

Top Pro

Ad-free Music

The music which is played here is completely ad-free. So one isn't bothered with ads every other minute! See More

Top Pro

Multiple Themes

There are multiple themes which allow the user to write in whatever atmosphere he wants to write in. See More

Top Pro

Ambient Music and Individual Fonts

There are various themes, each having a different font and ambient music mix. See More

7 0

score 6 · Answer 18

Letterspace

Top Pro

Full featured iOS app

This was a iOS first app and that is clear. Great swipe bar interface on iOS. See More

Top Con

No in-app Markdown preview

You can export to PDF or HTML with formatting, but no preview in the Mac app. See More

Top Pro

Simple, yet powerful interface

Keyboard shortcuts for basic text formatting. A few theme options. Full screen mode and swipe gestures. See More

Top Pro

@mentions and #tags for easy organization

Top Pro

Advanced Markdown support

Features Markdown support that many other text editors don't; such as Todo's ( -[x] ) and Strikethrough. See More

6 0

score 4 · Answer 19

Lenote

Top Pro

Great for note-taking

All entries are organized in notes and notebooks, accessed from the sidebar or via search. See More

Top Con

Incomplete Markdown support

Only a select subset of Markdown commands are supported. See More

Top Pro

Minimalist design

The app has a very clean, light-grey interface that consists of an optional sidebar and the main text area. See More

Specs

Platforms:MacOS