When comparing iA Writer vs Markdown Edit, the Slant community recommends Markdown Edit for most people. In the question“What are the best open source Markdown editors for UNIX-like systems?” Markdown Edit is ranked 25th while iA Writer is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Markdown Edit is:
Licensed under MIT.
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 Free and open source
Licensed under MIT.
Pro Real-time HTML preview with synchronized scrolling
Markdown Edit is split in two panes. One pane is used for writing Markdown, the other shows the rendered HTML as it's written.
Cons
Con No Linux support
Con Dead project
Con Covers taskbar when maximised
When maximised, the window covers the taskbar completely even when the taskbar is set to be on top of other windows.
Con Does not support pasting images from the clipboard (unless online)
This editor boasts that it's a desktop (i.e. offline) markdown editor where you can copy and paste images directly in the editor which is a feature that many other markdown editors struggle to implement. Unfortunately this is misleading, since the only way to paste an image in the editor is to be online. If, like many of us out there, you want to work offline, this feature will be broken as it requires an internet connection, which is weird for an editor that boasts being a desktop app!!