When comparing iA Writer vs Turtl, the Slant community recommends Turtl for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Turtl is ranked 6th while iA Writer is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Turtl is:
Turtl has applications for all the major operating systems, as well as Android. In addition, there are extensions available for Firefox and Chrome that cooperate with the downloadable applications.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Multiple Platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, Firefox, Chrome)
Turtl has applications for all the major operating systems, as well as Android. In addition, there are extensions available for Firefox and Chrome that cooperate with the downloadable applications.
Pro Open source
The app is licensed under GPLv3 making it open source. This means that anyone can use the code and contribute. This also makes it easy to use on one's own server or for company solutions.
Pro Good security
After assigning a password to your account in Turtl, a key is created to encrypt the entire account. No data is stored on their servers meaning they have no access to unencrypted content. This is a huge leg up when comparing to other Evernote alternatives.
Cons
Con No Linux support
Con No iOS app
While many other operating systems have a client, iOS does not have one yet (though it is planned).
Con No image embedding
Instead of image embeddings, there's a sort of poor man's substitute: image + description. If you add an image, you can create a description of any size and with all the formatting features. It can be used instead of image embedding but much more limited: only one image and only at the very top.
Con Internet dependent
Requires Internet connection to initiate offline mode, loses access to notes without Internet or server.