Markdown Editors for Prose

Typora, Mark Text, Obsidian, Logseq, ZettlR, Joplin, Ghostwriter — write in plain text.

Markdown is the most-portable format for long-lived writing: your files outlive any app, they diff cleanly in git for prose, and they convert to anything via Pandoc. For markdown-as-data (in apps and docs sites) see the markdown / MDX page. For team wikis and personal notes see self-hosted notes & wikis.

Live-preview (WYSIWYG-ish) markdown

★ ★ Typora — paid; $15 one-time; cross-platform; the most-popular paid markdown editor. Inline rendering, math, diagrams, export to docx / PDF / ePub via Pandoc.
★ Mark Text — MIT; free OSS; explicitly Typora-shaped; less polished but free and open. Good if Typora's price annoys you.
- https://github.com/marktext/marktext
★ Obsidian — closed source; free for personal; markdown files in a folder + plugins; the most-popular tool in this category overall. Live-preview mode in v1.0+. Sync via Syncthing or paid Obsidian Sync.
Logseq — AGPL; free OSS; outliner-shaped; markdown files. See self-hosted notes & wikis.
MacDown — MIT; free OSS; Mac-only; the original Mou alternative; still great for side-by-side preview.

Academic / long-form-flavoured

★ ZettlR — GPL; free OSS; Zettelkasten + academic flavoured. Citations via Zotero / BetterBibTeX (see edu-research-citations-zotero), Pandoc export, footnotes, sidebar.
- https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr
Joplin — AGPL; free OSS; markdown-first notes + sync; great for journaling + research.
- https://github.com/laurent22/joplin

Linux / GNOME-flavoured

Ghostwriter — GPL; free OSS; KDE-flavoured; Hemingway + focus modes. Win / Linux.
- https://github.com/KDE/ghostwriter
Apostrophe — GPL; free OSS; GNOME-flavoured; minimal.
Marker — GPL; free OSS; GNOME; live preview + export.

Mac-only previewers / side-channels

Marked 2 — paid; $15 one-time; Mac; only a previewer — point it at any markdown file in any editor and get a fast, beautiful preview + export. The "I write in Vim and need to send a PDF" tool.

Markdown editors with structure (Notion-shape)

AFFiNE — see self-hosted notes & wikis; block-based, markdown-compatible.
AppFlowy — same page; Notion-shape, AGPL.
SilverBullet — markdown-first, programmable; same page.

Pandoc — the universal converter

★ Pandoc — GPL; free OSS; the "convert anything to anything" CLI. Markdown ↔ docx, ePub, PDF, LaTeX, HTML. Every long-term markdown writer eventually pairs Pandoc with their editor.
- https://github.com/jgm/pandoc

Pick this if…

Default paid markdown editor: Typora.
Free Typora alternative: Mark Text.
Knowledge-graph + markdown: Obsidian.
Academic markdown writing: ZettlR.
Linux GTK-style: Apostrophe; KDE: Ghostwriter.
You write in Vim / VS Code and just need to preview: Marked 2 (Mac).
Convert anything: Pandoc.