LivingWriter vs MarkText

LivingWriter is writing software for drafting and organizing manuscripts, with an editor that supports chapters and subchapters. Its Free plan costs nothing and allows one manuscript of up to 25,000 words. The plan includes PDF export and three AI requests per month. LivingWriter runs on web, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, and mobile apps are available. Publishing tools, real-time collaboration, and version history are listed features, but there is no offline mode. The Pro plan offers unlimited manuscripts and word count, Word import, DOCX and print export, goals, Stash, and Research Board tools, as well as Canva and Google Drive integration, sharing, collaboration, and 25 AI requests per month. Pro + AI includes Pro features and unlimited AI requests across its features, plus AI tools for outlines, element generation, rewriting, analysis, summaries, screenplay conversion, chat, and image creation. The maker, LivingWriter, is headquartered in Albany, New York, United States.

MarkText is a free, open-source desktop Markdown editor that displays formatted text as you write. It offers WYSIWYG preview and source-code editing, plus focus and typewriter modes. Writing features include tables, KaTeX math, diagrams, footnotes, code highlighting, and YAML, TOML, and JSON front matter. Listed diagram tools include Mermaid, Vega, and Vega-Lite. The editor has 33 light and dark themes, with CSS customization available. Documents can be exported as PDF or self-contained HTML, and local files are supported. MarkText runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Installation notes require macOS 11 or later and Windows 10 or 11, and provide arm64 and x64 installers for those systems. Homebrew, Chocolatey, and Winget are also listed as installation options. The homepage says MarkText needs no account and has no tracking. It is released under the MIT License, has no subscription, and is described as a volunteer-built project.