BlockNote vs Pell

BlockNote is an open-source rich-text editor for developers adding document editing to web applications. It is suited to knowledge bases, note-taking apps, document editors, and internal tools, with a ready-made animated interface and block-based documents to start from. Developers can add custom block types, change menus, or build a UI from scratch. The editor is built on ProseMirror and TipTap; real-time collaboration uses Yjs, with providers including Liveblocks, PartyKit, Y-Sweet, Hocuspocus, y-websocket, and y-webrtc. Documentation lists y-indexeddb for offline storage. BlockNote imports and exports its JSON format and HTML, while conversions to standard HTML and Markdown are marked lossy. XL packages add AI integration, multi-column layouts, and exports to PDF, DOCX, ODT, and email. They are free for open-source projects under GPL-3.0; closed-source use requires a commercial license. The Community plan is free, and Business is $195 a month, billed yearly. It runs self-hosted or on the web.

Pell is a free, self-hosted WYSIWYG text editor for web pages. It is written in pure JavaScript using ES6 and has no dependencies. The package is listed at 1.38 kB minified and gzipped, or 3.54 kB minified. Built-in actions cover bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, headings, paragraphs, quotes, lists, code, horizontal rules, links, and images. You can add custom actions and decide which controls appear and in what order. Styling can be changed through Pell’s Sass file or by overriding CSS. The onChange callback provides the editor’s HTML output, and the project demonstrates converting that HTML to Markdown with Turndown. Installation is documented through npm or by including a browser script and stylesheet. React and Vue examples are available. Listed browser support includes IE 9+, Chrome 5+, Firefox 4+, Safari 5+, and Opera 11.6+. Pell uses the MIT license.