When comparing iA Writer vs Boostnote, the Slant community recommends Boostnote for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Boostnote is ranked 10th while iA Writer is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Boostnote is:
Supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
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 Cross platform support
Supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
Pro Markdown support
Pro Free
Pro Open source
See here.
Pro Great for developers
Boostnote is great for developers looking to take programming notes with code snippets and such.
Pro Supports code snippets and syntax highlighting
Boostnote has the ability to store code snippets and comes with syntax highlighting out of the box, supporting many languages.
Pro Works offline
Boostnote doesn't require an internet connection to work. You can write notes offline and sync later.
Pro Global search, tag feature
Pro Comes with many themes
Boostnote comes with many themes out of the box, most of which are popular themes and color schemes for code editors: e.g. 3024, base16, solarized, tomorrow.
Pro vim/emacs key bindings available
Boostnote supports vim/emacs key bindings. If you're a developer familiar with either of them, navigation should be easy to pick up.
Cons
Con No Linux support
Con Some of the features are not consistent
Con Must use third-party service for sync-ing (Dropbox, etc.)
Boostnote does not have sync-ing capabilities and relies on third-party services to fulfil notes storage. There are additional steps involved to set this up.
Con Can't work in "real" offline mode
Con Very poor syncing
Data loss may occur on syncing.
