MDedit vs StackEdit

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.

StackEdit is an in-browser Markdown editor for writing, formatting and publishing documents. It highlights Markdown syntax and offers formatting controls alongside a live preview whose scrolling follows the editor. The site says it remains accessible for offline writing, and it supports local files as well as cloud sync with Google Drive, Dropbox and GitHub. Writers can share collaborative workspaces; when two collaborators edit the same file simultaneously, StackEdit merges their changes. Files also support inline comments and embedded discussions. The editor handles Markdown Extra, GitHub Flavored Markdown and CommonMark, with features configurable. It can publish blog posts to Blogger, WordPress and Zendesk, using Markdown, HTML or Handlebars-template formatting. Other supported content includes LaTeX mathematical expressions, sequence diagrams, flow charts, musical scores in ABC notation and emoji markup. Export formats are Markdown, HTML and PDF. StackEdit is listed as free and open source under an Apache License. Supported platforms include the web, a Chrome extension and self-hosting; the maker’s site displays a 2013–2019 copyright range.