MacDown vs Zettlr
MacDown
macdown.uranusjr.com
Zettlr
zettlr.comSide by side
| Figure | MacDown | Zettlr |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Markdown editors | 7.9 (#18) | 8.3 (#11) |
| Founded | 2014 | 2017 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Supported platforms | macos | Windows,macOS,Linux |
| Support | The FAQ directs users to report product issues and suggestions on the project's GitHub issue page. | Users can seek community help through the forum and Discord, consult the manual, or report errors on GitHub. |
Plans
In their own words
MacDown
MacDown has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Zettlr
Zettlr is a writing workbench for projects that can run from early notes through journal submissions and book manuscripts. It began as a Markdown editor for academic researchers and is also used by students, journalists, authors, and others writing substantial amounts. The app works offline on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and files stay on the user's computer. It supports standard Markdown and exports to formats supported by Pandoc. Citation manager support includes Zotero, JabRef, and Juris-M, with more than 9,000 citation styles. Note features include IDs, wiki-style internal links, related files, navigation, and graph view. Pandoc-powered profiles can apply templates to papers or prepare presentations for Beamer, reveal.js, or PowerPoint. Zettlr also renders LaTeX equations and Mermaid charts and supports extensive settings and custom CSS. It is free and open source, with no payment required to download. The maker says app data is not collected and update checks can be disabled. Older releases are unsupported; nightly releases may contain many bugs.