Simpletext vs Lightweight Text Editor
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Simpletext
This app offers a minimalist writing experience, focusing solely on plain text. It provides a distraction-free environment with beautiful typography and native performance across Apple devices. Ideal for those who want to concentrate on their words without unnecessary features.
- Zero clutter interface
- Beautiful typography with professional fonts
- Plain text only support
- Fully native Apple app
- Supports custom fonts
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The Simplest Writing App for Mac, iPad and iPhone There are many writing apps for you to choose from today, so why bother with yet another one? Because Simpletext is simpler. Its single-minded commitment to simplicity means you’ll get a no-frills writing app that works well and looks great, forever. Simpletext started as a passion project because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Most apps were trying to do too much and ended up bloated with features I never needed. So I built Simpletext based on a simple premise — what if there’s an app that refuses to do more, choosing instead to do just one thing, and do it well? For Simpletext, that one thing is writing. Why Simpletext? Most people would say Simpletext is lacking in features, and they’re right. In fact, Simpletext began the opposite way — by listing down everything I didn’t want in a writing app. The goal is to create a dumbed-down writing app that inspires you to do nothing else but write. In order to achieve this, I designed Simpletext around four cornerstone principles: 1. Zero Clutter Simpletext is unobtrusive. It provides a blank canvas to write with absolutely nothing to distract you from writing. There’s no visual clutter — the intent is to create a quiet space that helps you connect with your voice, get into the flow, and simply write. With zero clutter, Simpletext lets your words take centre stage. 2. Beautiful Typography Simpletext comes with three professional fonts for you to choose from, handpicked to provide the finest writing experience. They are: (1) Akkurat Mono by Lineto (Monospaced); (2) Graphik by Commercial Type (Sans Serif); and (3) Tiempos Text by Klim Type Foundry (Serif). And if you have a personal favourite font, you can use it in Simpletext too. 3. Plain Text Only Simpletext supports only plain text, which is fast, lightweight and platform-independent. It will never have formatting options, so your files will never be filled with unnecessary attributes. Plain text also ensures your files are always accessible on any device, now and in the future. 4. Fully Native Simpletext is a fully native app developed in Swift and runs natively on Apple silicon. It uses only Apple’s framework and UI components, just as they were intended to be used without any custom workarounds. This approach results in less code, less bugs and better overall performance. Here's What Others Have to Say “I just wanted to thank you for developing Simpletext. It’s perfect. I’ve enjoyed its simplicity and smoothness for quite some time, but now that I can use my favourite font in it (Sina Nova, free on Fontspring) it has truly become not just the best app to write in, but my favourite app period. Thank you for creating and maintaining it.” - Bart “This app does everything it says on the tin. It is not meant to do a lot, but what it does it does very well. It is well designed and suits well those who want to focus on writing and avoid dealing with formatting, proprietary file types and hidden saving locations. It produces and edits .txt files, which will probably be around for as long as there are computers, and saves them in plain sight. Five stars.” - Fernando “I’ve tried all sorts of writing apps but Simpletext is definitely the best of all. So grateful for your dedication and those productivity tips in the blog post are so good. Simpletext is such a joy to use.” - LWL Art Studio “A writing app that is as simple as stated, beautiful to write with and opens and closes wherever you want. Simple tweaks are easily accessible, if required, and only add to the minimalistic perfection. Good job.” - Tuntle Get Back to Basics In a world full of feature-rich, subscription-based apps, I wanted to create something that goes back to basics. Simpletext is intentionally simple, yet it has everything you need. It’s an app I use every single day. I hope you will too. Best wishes, Yeow Jin P.S. Simpletext comes with a promise — find out more at simpletext.app/promise
Lightweight Text Editor
This app allows users to work with plain text files without formatting concerns. It can open any text file, create folders for organization, and adjust encoding and line endings.
- Open any plain text file
- Create folders for organization
- Change text encoding
- Adjust line endings (CR/LF/CRLF)
- No formatting concerns
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Lightweight Text Editor is a great tool for users who work with plain text files. If you want to work with raw text without having to worry about formatting, then this app is for you. It can open any plain text file, regardless of the extension. You can create folders to organize your documents. You can also change the encoding and the line endings (CR/LF/CRLF).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Lightweight Text Editor at $2.99 against Simpletext's $14.99. Lightweight Text Editor also leads on rating (4.3 vs 4.1) and review sentiment (82% vs 73%). Simpletext's advantage is update cadence (every 3 months vs every 26 months). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Simpletext costs $14.99 and Lightweight Text Editor $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Lightweight Text Editor holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 23 and 58 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 73% of Simpletext's written reviews are positive against 82% of Lightweight Text Editor's.
Simpletext ships an update every 3 months, Lightweight Text Editor every 26 months. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Simpletext | Lightweight Text Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 | $2.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (23 ratings) | 4.3 (58 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 73.3% of reviews | 82.2% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 23 | 58 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 26 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yeow Jin Gan | Erik Wegener |
Customer experience
Simpletext
Lightweight Text Editor
In-app purchases
Simpletext
No in-app purchases
Lightweight Text Editor
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Simpletext free?
Is Lightweight Text Editor free?
Which has better reviews, Simpletext or Lightweight Text Editor?
Do Simpletext or Lightweight Text Editor have ads?
Which is updated more often, Simpletext or Lightweight Text Editor?
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