When comparing Haroopad vs iA Writer, the Slant community recommends Haroopad for most people. In the question“What are the best open source Markdown editors for UNIX-like systems?” Haroopad is ranked 3rd while iA Writer is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Haroopad is:
Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very customizable
Haroopad has multiple available themes to choose from and new ones can be easily built with CSS.
Pro Multiplatform support
Runs on Mac, Windows and Linux with 32-bit and 64-bit binary packages available.
Pro Completely free
Haroopad is a free and open source Markdown Editor.
Pro Various publishing and export options
Haroopad can publish to Wordpress, Evernote, Tumblr and MediaWiki and export to EPub, ReStructured Text, RTF and PDF.
Pro Mathematical expressions support
Haroopad supports mathematical expressions through LaTeX and MathJax.
Pro Supports MathJax
Mathematical equations can be exported to the browser by using MathJax, a JavaScript display engine with a lot of great features such as typography support and modular output.
Pro Allows embedding content from a wide variety of sources
Content from YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, Slideshare, Flickr, Instagram, Soundcloud, Wikipedia and Pastebin can be embedded in the document.
Pro The Markdown flavor can be extended
Haroopad supports GitHub Markdown flavor out of the box. But the functionality can be extended to support additional Markdown features.
Pro Vi key bindings
For people used ti vi/vim, Haroopad can be set up to be used with vi keybindings.
Pro Dual License
GPL3 license is applied to the current version and will be applied in the future to meet the internal dual licensing scheme.
Commercial use follows Apache license v2 (APLv2) for keeping the GPL license and non-commercial use under consideration.
Pro Noise Free Writing Experience removes even the program bar
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.
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.
Pro Can tell how long it would take to read through what you've written
Pro Markdown support
Pro Syncs using iCloud and Dropbox
iA Writer can sync documents using iCloud or Dropbox from within the editor for use across multiple devices.
Pro Create whole document by including separate images/markdown docs
This is new and very awesome feature in iA Writer 4.0.
Pro Can export a Word document
Pro Available for all Apple devices
iA Writer is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Cons
Con English translation is iffy
The software was initially developed in Korean for Korean users and later translated and ported to English. The translation to English has not been perfect and there may be some weird expressions and grammatical errors along the way.
Con Documentation is in Korean
The official documentation is in Korean, so it may be a bit hard for non-Korean speakers to find their way around Haroopad.
Con Windows installer does not support easy admin installation
It can't request the necessary privileges to install to C:\Program Files.
Con Undo sometimes loses control about the selection
Select some text, select a formatting in the Markdown Syntax Helper view, undo.
Con Code pane is dark in default theme
Can be hard to read and a bit hard to find where to change it.
Con No Linux support
