Ghostwriter vs MDedit

Ghostwriter is a free Markdown text editor for distraction-free writing, available on Linux and Windows, with unofficial community-provided macOS support. It stores documents as local files and previews Markdown as HTML, which can be copied or exported. GitHub-flavored Markdown is supported, and export options include HTML, Pandoc, MultiMarkdown, and commonmark. Focus Mode highlights a selected area around the cursor, such as a line, sentence, paragraph, or three lines. Full-screen mode and Hemingway Mode provide other writing setups; Hemingway Mode disables backspace and delete. The editor includes light and dark themes, with options to create custom themes. Writers also get live word counts, document and session statistics, a document outline, autosave, and file backups. Linux installation instructions cover Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux. The Windows download page lists a portable 64-bit version for Windows 10. On macOS, users must compile the source because an installer is not available. Ghostwriter is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3.0.

MDedit is a free, MIT-licensed Markdown editor built with Tauri for Linux, macOS, Windows, and the web. It combines source editing, live preview, native local-file handling, and offline export. A tabbed workspace keeps synchronized Edit, Split, and Preview modes, with independent editing state for each document. Markdown support includes GitHub-flavored syntax, task lists, tables, footnotes, callouts, and syntax highlighting, plus Mermaid diagrams and KaTeX mathematics. Per-document find and replace offers match-case, whole-word, and regular-expression options; formatting shortcuts and automatic list continuation are also included. MDedit exports HTML, PNG, PDF, CSV, and SVG. The project says it uses no account, telemetry, document upload, or server-side rendering, and keeps documents local. Desktop recovery snapshots can restore tabs, content, and workspace state after an unexpected shutdown. Desktop attachments are limited to 20 MiB each. Browser sessions cannot resolve Markdown files on disk. Desktop downloads are listed for Windows x64, macOS Apple silicon, and Ubuntu/Debian x64, but builds are unsigned and may trigger an operating-system warning. The free plan costs nothing.