typora vs TiddlyWiki
When comparing typora vs TiddlyWiki, the Slant community recommends TiddlyWiki for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” TiddlyWiki is ranked 8th while typora is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose TiddlyWiki is:
No commercial interests, no ads, no registration, no nonsense. You own your notes 100%.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Live preview
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.
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.
Pro Support for LaTeX expressions
It supports LaTeX expressions, with an easy-to-use MaxJax panel.
Pro Syntax highlight for fenced codes
It supports GFM's code fences, with syntax highlight support for C/C++, java, etc.
Pro Custom theme support
Typora has clean yet beautiful built-in themes and allows for users to create new themes using CSS.
Pro Support for tables
It supports tables for Markdown Extra. And also provides a GUI to make it easy to insert and edit them.
Pro Inline images
It won't display image like ![alt](http://image-url)
, But shows the image content inside the editor.
Pro Free during beta
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.
Pro Cross-platform
Currently works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Pro Natural typing experience
Editing in Markdown, either in WYSIWYG mode or in markdown code mode, feels natural. It never gets in the way.
Pro Make charts and diagrams with Mermaid, FlowChart and Sequence
Use fenced code-blocks to render diagrams using syntax from Mermaid and FlowChart.js.
Pro Sidebar with a list of files
You can open any folder in sidebar and see a list of other markdown files.
Pro Syncs with iCloud
Pro Free and Open Source
No commercial interests, no ads, no registration, no nonsense. You own your notes 100%.
Pro Extremely customizable
This is a major aim and point with TiddlyWiki; people can relatively easily modify it to fit their particular application needs.
Pro Single html file
It's a single file and all your notes will be "accessible even in 25 years" because they can be seen in plain html text.
Pro Self-hosted and indefinitely accessible
All content is stored within the same html file as the interface.
Pro 10+ years mature
Mature software, active community with members from all over the world.
Pro Relational links
Allows for relational links and lists between notes to keep things organized.
Pro Lots of plugins
Pro Progressive user level, from ease of use to programming your own plugins
Basic users can start with simple note-taking, progressively discover predefined features and existing plugins, then start using more fancy features (like filters, widgets, macros), in order to adapt their wiki to their needs.
Pro Multiple, user-defined usages
The list of possible usages is practically infinite in TW, and more importantly it lets the user define their own method of dealing with their content.
Pro Easy to use
Low barrier of entry for the non IT knowledgeable.
Pro Backlinking and backtagging and brain graph visualization
Follow the link back-and-forth.
Pro Lightweight and very customizable
Variety of settings, and community themes & plugins, available from built-in marketplace (CPL library). Every community plugin is open-source which means you can learn from it and develop your own. Some plugin don't require programming knowledge (written using WikiText), and is very easy to learn.
Pro Support many text format (Markdown, WikiText, HTML, WYSIWYG...)
Suit for programmer, writer, Notion style WYSIWYG editor lover, and HTML UI designer.
Pro Locally stored, not dependent on cloud
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, in any platform, and sync between without cost.
Pro Backlink and BackTagging, advanced linking and cross-references in various ways
Every card can link to other card, and other card will see the way it's linked to. Use Tag for nesting and build folder structure. Tags are tree shaped, and count of tag is limitless. Backlink can be automatically generated or selectively generated using advanced filter.
Pro Update all links when renaming notes (required the Relink plugin)
Renames titles in "Tags" and "List" fields by default. Relink plugin updates titles in all links automatically.
Pro Host your TiddlyWiki file on GitHub for free
You can use the TiddlyWiki saver to save your TiddlyWiki file directly to your github repository. If you also use GitHub pages, then you can load your file wherever you happen to be, make changes, and update.
Pro Active and helpful community typically answers questions within hours
The official support forum is at talk.tiddlywiki.org. It's frequented by a large number of knowledgeable TiddlyWiki enthusiasts. You rarely see a question go unanswered more than 2 or 3 days, and in most cases questions are answered within minutes. For harder questions, the developer himself frequently wades in to add information.
Pro The equivalent of DataView/SQL already baked into the product
You can create lists of anything inside TiddlyWiki like tags, title structure, date, custom fields and present it as links, checkboxes, tables or whatever structure you need using a few lines of wikitext (a markdown-like language with powerful widget ability built-in).
Pro Official CodeMirror Plugins for a complete editing experience
The official CodeMirror plugins allow you to close brackets, close tags, auto-complete, use VIM, Sublime or Emacs keybindings, and edit CSS, HTML, XML or Javascript text.
Pro Tags are first-class objects in TiddlyWiki
In TiddlyWiki tags aren't some kludgey text-based add-on -- they're built into the design from the first. Tags can contain spaces and non-Latin characters. Tags are available at the top of each note. Click on a tag and you instantly see all the other notes that share that tag. You can then change the order of that list simply by dragging and dropping from the tag-pill. Tags can tag other tags, allowing you to create multiple types of TOC's with the built-in tag macros. You can create new notes tagged with the current note with just one click.
Pro Encrypt your entire Wiki with SJCL without additional plugins
You don't have to worry about leaving your TW somewhere it might get exposed. You can activate the built-in encryption ability, using the Stanford Javascript Encryption Library to have your wiki encrypted with 256 bit security.
Pro Can embed images and documents for a portable, single-file solution.
TiddlyWiki gives you the choice of whether you access additional resources (images, docx, pdfs) externally from the operating system or internally as embedded objects.
Cons
Con No mobile (Android/iOS) apps
Con In beta
Typora is still in beta and may be prone to changes or bugs.
Con Unusable image management
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.
Con No portable version (Windows)
You need admin rights on a managed Windows computer to install it. There currently is no portable version available.
Con Too many backlinks can cause performance issues
With 100k+ notes, backlink and brain graph visualization can slow down the wiki.
Con Relies on browser performance, online or offline
TiddlyWiki is a single HTML file. Thus, if you directly embed e. g large images or videos in it (instead of using the features to display externally stored images and videos) it would make the file big and performance slow.
Con Without JavaScript nothing is visible
You need a browser that is not outdated to open the wiki, if you want to edit the HTML wiki file inside browser. Or you will need to download app like TiddlywikiDesktop or TidGi App to edit the wiki.
Con Unintuitive, complex official user interface
Too powerful for some new users, requires stribg ability to learn many interactions and advanced features sets. But this can be change at anytime by install community theme and plugins. Or use edition like TidGi app to get Notion style experience.