Ghostwriter vs novelWriter
Ghostwriter
ghostwriter.kde.org
novelWriter
novelwriter.ioSide by side
| Figure | Ghostwriter | novelWriter |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Text App | 8.4 (#6) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Export | The project site lists Pandoc, MultiMarkdown, and commonmark for export to multiple formats. | The Manuscript Build tool can assemble selected project documents for printing or export to Open Document, Word, PDF, HTML, and Markdown. |
| Export formats | HTML,Pandoc,MultiMarkdown,commonmark | extensive |
| Founded | 2015 | 2018 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose | ghostwriter is a distraction-free text editor for Markdown. | novelWriter is a plain text editor for organizing novels and associated notes as smaller documents. |
Plans
In their own words
Ghostwriter
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.
novelWriter
novelWriter has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.