Runestone Text Editor vs Notate ML
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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
Notate ML
Accelerate the creation of image datasets for machine learning projects. Easily add labels, import or capture images, and annotate objects with bounding boxes. Export your prepared data for popular object detection frameworks.
- Create and name datasets
- Add labels via typing, copy-paste, scanning, or voice
- Import images from photo library
- Capture new images with camera
- Crop images and draw bounding boxes
- Tag and label objects
- Export data for YOLO, Create ML, Auto ML
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Preparing input image datasets is a critical and challenging task in any Machine Learning project. Notate ML brings the power and usability of Apple's mobile devices to accelerate this task and deliver higher quality training data to your object detection model. FEATURES ・Create a dataset, type, scan, or speak your labels into it ・Snap new pictures, or import old ones from your photo library ・Crop images, draw bounding boxes, tag and label objects of interest ・Export images and annotations for training with YOLO, Apple Create ML, or Google Auto ML CREATING A DATASET ・Create a new data set and give it a unique name ・Add labels in one of several ways: ・One at a time, using the keyboard ・Copy and paste a comma-separated list from another document ・Scan from a physical text source ・Use the device voice feature to speak them in ・Labels can be edited or deleted by swiping left on each row ・Only unused labels can be deleted IMPORTING IMAGES ・Tap into the dataset and import photos (up to 50 at a time) from your Photo Library ・This app can only access photos that you select using Apple's photo picker feature CAPTURING IMAGES FROM THE CAMERA ・While browsing the images in a dataset, tap the "Capture" button to snap new images with the camera ・The app will require your permission to access the camera ・If you choose to decline, you can always grant access at a later date using "Settings" ANNOTATING THE IMAGE ・Select an image from the dataset image browser to annotate it ZOOMING and CROPPING ・Pinch with two fingers to zoom in or out of the image ・Drag with two fingers to move (pan) the image about ・Optionally crop the image to the visible square dimensions ・Cropping can only be done when the image has no bounding boxes. ・Double tap on the image to reset zoom and recenter the image ・Tap the "Reset" button in the bottom panel to restore image and annotations to the original state before editing ・The cropped image dimensions and visible area dimensions in pixels are displayed above the image at all times TAGGING ・Drag with one finger or stylus to draw bounding boxes around objects of interest ・Long press on a box to select an existing annotation ・Use the picker to assign a label to the selected bounding box ・Or tap the red Delete button to remove the selected box ・Tap anywhere outside the selected box to unselect it ・Tap the "Reset" button to restore image and annotations to the original state before editing ・Tap the "Done" button to complete annotating the image EXPORTING THE DATASET ・While browsing dataset images, tap the "Export" button, to select export options ・Datasets can be exported in one of three "schemas" for use with different object detector training frameworks ・The YOLO schema generates a set of files organized for use with the YOLO framework ・The Create ML schema generates files to use as input to Apple's Create ML application ・The Auto ML schema generates files to use as input to Google's Auto ML service ・ After reviewing the export options, tap the "Export" button on the Export options screen to generate data files for training ・ Choose one of the sharing options (e.g. Airdrop, Files) enabled by your device to export the data files DELETING ・Delete an image by swiping left in the dataset image browser ・Delete an entire dataset by swiping left in the dataset browser ・If a dataset contains images, you will be prompted for confirmation Some tips ・Crop the images before tagging them ・Use a stylus for more accurate bounding boxes ・Maintain different datasets for training and validation ・Limit datasets to under 1000 images each, for ease of use ・Export and delete unused datasets to conserve storage
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Runestone Text Editor at 76% against Notate ML's 0%. Runestone Text Editor also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.0) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 months). Notate ML's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Runestone Text Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Notate ML asks for nothing beyond the download.
Runestone Text Editor holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Runestone Text Editor has 2K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of Runestone Text Editor's written reviews are positive against 0% of Notate ML's.
Runestone Text Editor ships an update every 2 weeks, Notate ML every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Runestone Text Editor | Notate ML |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (2K ratings) — better | 4.0 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.2% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #39 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Simon B. Støvring | Rajaram Gurumurthi |
Customer experience
Runestone Text Editor
Notate ML
Bugs and 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
Notate ML
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Runestone Text Editor
- Premium$9.99
Notate ML
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Runestone Text Editor free?
Is Notate ML free?
Which has better reviews, Runestone Text Editor or Notate ML?
Do Runestone Text Editor or Notate ML have ads?
Which is updated more often, Runestone Text Editor or Notate ML?
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