My Lisp vs Runestone Text Editor
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
My Lisp
A comprehensive Lisp programming environment for iOS and macOS devices. It offers a local interpreter, editor, and extensive libraries for learning and developing Lisp programs, including advanced mathematical functions and symbolic derivation.
- Local Lisp interpreter
- Integrated editor
- Core and mathematical operators
- Advanced mathematics functions
- Symbolic derivation module
- Library and example files
- User and reference manuals
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My Lisp is a complete and universal Lisp environment running directly on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This interpreter is true to the original John McCarthy Lisp implementation with the fundamental 7 operators quote, atom, eq, car, cdr, cons, cond, along with lambda and label. My Lisp also contains core and mathematical operators borrowed from other Lisp dialects (Le Lisp, Lisp 1.5, MacLisp, Common Lisp and Scheme to name a few) to make it easy to learn, program, and most importantly, enjoy Lisp. It also features built-in functions for advanced mathematics, including complex numbers and numerical analysis (roots and zeros finder, integral approximation). The complete description of the fundamental, core, and built-in functions is available using a set of library functions completely written in My Lisp. My Lisp offers an interpreter and an editor, all working on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and most importantly, without requiring any server connection, that is, the interpreter is executing locally on the iPhone, iPad or Mac My Lisp is installed on. Library and example files contain the source code of classical functions and problems solved by My Lisp and may be used as reference to learn Lisp and develop other programs. They include classical puzzles (hanoi and n-queens), basic mathematical functions (gcd, lcm, factorial, fibonacci, prime?), and the historical apply, mapcar and maplist functions. The Lambda Calculus example file contains various functions related to Lambda Calculus and Combinators, with alpha-conversion, beta-reduction, de Bruijn notations, etc. As a special note, the example file Symbolic Derivation contains a complete yet extensible symbolic derivation module allowing to compute the formal derivation of virtually any symbolic function expressed as a Lisp expression. A user manual and a reference manual are available from within the application but also on My Lisp web site (https://lisp.lsrodier.net) and in Apple Books. The complete source code of the library and example files is part of My Lisp. Last but not least, this overview couldn’t end without a sample definition of the notorious REPL function: (define (REPL eval_me) (REPL (println (eval (read)))))
Runestone Text Editor
A powerful plain text and code editor for iPhone and iPad. Offers syntax highlighting, line numbers, find and replace, and extensive customization options for developers and writers.
- Syntax highlighting for many languages
- Customizable themes and fonts
- Advanced find and replace
- Line numbers and cursor location
- Code formatting with Prettier.js
- Multiple windows on iPad
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A plain text editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, search and replace, page guide, and much more. It's like TextEdit but more powerful and optimised for iPhone and iPad. Runestone is made by a single person with a love for text editors and a vision of building the most lightweight text editor for iPhone and iPad that still has the core features for editing code. Features: - Syntax highlighting of many languages including HTML, JavaScript, JSON, Markdown, Swift, Python, PHP, YAML, and many more. - Select one of the twelve standard themes including popular themes like Tomorrow, Dracula, Solarized, and One Dark Pro. - Innovative find and replace for searching and modifying text while still viewing your file. - Choose font and font size, including support for custom fonts imported using another third-party app. - Show the line and column the cursor is located on. - Uses the standard document browser for an experience similar to the Files app. - Quickly navigate to a specific line. - Automatically close opening brackets and quotes. - Multiple windows on the iPad. - Format code using Prettier.js. Supported languages include CSS,HTML, JavaScript, JSON, PHP and more. - Choose text encoding between popular encodings like UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO Latin 1, and many more. - Enable or disable autocorrection, autocapitalization, and smart punctuation. - Set default file extension of new files. - Open files in Runestone from the Share Sheet. - Print documents. Premium features: - Choose between eight app icons. - Show line numbers. - Highlight the selected line. - Increase line height and letter spacing. - Disable line wrapping to allow horizontal scrolling. - Show tabs, spaces, and line breaks using a selected symbol. - Enable page guide at a specific column to easily tell when lines are getting too long. - Add vertical and horizontal overscroll. - Remember the selected language per file. - Save file extensions and filenames that should always be treated as plain text files. - Enable soft tabs and choose the width of the tab character. - Specify whether pressing the tab key should insert a tab or indent the line. - Adjust the scaling of Markdown headings and disable highlighting of code blocks in Markdown. Runestone was built on the open-source framework with the same name. Find more information on the Runestone framework at github.com/simonbs/runestone
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Runestone Text Editor at Free against My Lisp's $3.99. Runestone Text Editor also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.1) and ratings volume (2K vs 17). My Lisp's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On review sentiment, ads, chart position and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Runestone Text Editor is free to download; My Lisp costs $3.99 up front. Runestone Text Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. My Lisp asks for nothing beyond the download.
Runestone Text Editor holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Runestone Text Editor has 2K ratings behind it against 17, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 69% of My Lisp's written reviews are positive against 76% of Runestone Text Editor's.
My Lisp ships an update every 6 weeks, Runestone Text Editor every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | My Lisp | Runestone Text Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (17 ratings) | 4.7 (2K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.8% of reviews | 76.2% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 17 | 2K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #25 — better | #40 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 64 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Laurent Rodier | Simon B. Støvring |
Customer experience
My Lisp
Runestone Text Editor
Bugs and requests
My Lisp
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Runestone Text Editor
Reported bugs
6 issues- Disappearing files
- Difficulty pasting text
- Scroll position not saved
- Hangs on startup
- Trouble opening large files
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- Issues after iOS updates
Requested features
6 requests- Markdown preview
- Code folding
- Syntax highlighting for more languages
- Ability to run/execute code
- Multiple file/window support
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- Improved undo/redo functionality
In-app purchases
My Lisp
No in-app purchases
Runestone Text Editor
- Premium$9.99









