Runestone Text Editor vs Text Editor
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
Text Editor
This powerful text editor allows real-time editing and previewing of various file formats across numerous cloud and server storage services. It offers advanced features like syntax highlighting for many languages, invisible character display, and file management tools. AI integration provides summarization, rephrasing, and translation capabilities.
- Supports 10 storage types (cloud, server, local)
- Previews 16 file formats with real-time updates
- Syntax highlighting for 20+ languages
- Advanced editor features (invisible chars, guides)
- Multiple tabs and split-screen view
- File manager with search and backup history
- AI-powered text summarization, rephrasing, translation
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PWEditor Next is a powerful text editor that lets you edit text files directly across a wide range of storage services. You can edit in real time while viewing a preview tailored to each file format. Based on the original PWEditor app, PWEditor Next has been redesigned for the latest iOS and iPadOS environments. ・Supports 10 storage types Supports local files, five cloud storage services (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box), and four server types (FTP, SFTP, SMB, and WebDAV). - SFTP supports username and password authentication. - WebDAV supports username and password authentication and connects over HTTP or HTTPS. ・Previews 16 file formats - Dedicated previews: PDF and images - Document formats: HTML, Markdown, and AsciiDoc - Diagram and chart formats: Mermaid, PlantUML, Graphviz, D2, and Pikchr - Tree formats: JSON, YAML, XML, and PropertyList - Table formats: CSV and TSV The 14 formats other than PDF and images also support real-time previews. For CSV and TSV, you can configure whether the file has a header row and choose the delimiter. ・Advanced editor features - Syntax highlighting - 20 languages: Arduino、Bash/Shell、C、C++、C#、Dart、GO、Java、JavaScript、Kotlin、Lua、Objective-C、PHP、Python、R、Ruby、Rust、SQL、Swift、TypeScript - 13 formats: AsciiDoc, CSS, D2, Graphviz, HTML, JSON, Markdown, Mermaid, Pikchr, PropertyList, PlantUML, XML, and YAML - Display of invisible characters (half-width spaces, full-width spaces, tabs, and line breaks) - Status information (character encoding, line endings, character count, and line count) - File path display - Line numbers - Horizontal and vertical guide lines - Auto-indentation - Symbol input, including Undo and Redo - Cursor movement - Character encoding and line ending conversion ・Multiple tabs and split-screen view Open and edit multiple files at the same time in tabs. The free plan supports up to two tabs; the Pro plan removes the tab limit. In split-screen view, you can display two files or a file and its preview side by side within a single tab. Split-screen view is available on the free plan for local files and iCloud Drive. The Pro plan is required for all other storage services. ・Three types of search - Find and replace within a file - Search for file and directory names - Search across multiple files ・File manager features - File list - Rename, copy, move, and delete files and directories - Export files - Recently opened files - Favorites ・Backup history Files are backed up before saving, before converting character encoding or line endings, and before restoring from backup history. You can use the history to restore an earlier version of a file. ・AI features Use Apple Intelligence to summarize, rephrase, and translate text. ・Other features - Switch the display language (Japanese, English, Spanish, or Chinese) - Switch between light and dark themes - Support for cloud storage sharing links - Support for files shared from other apps ・Free plan and Pro plan Basic features are available for free. The following features require the Pro plan: - More than two tabs across all storage services - Split-screen view, AI features, copy, move, and export for storage services other than local files and iCloud Drive - Search within subdirectories and search filters for some storage services ・Terms of Use (Apple’s Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Runestone Text Editor at 76% against Text Editor's 33%. Runestone Text Editor also leads on ads (none vs shown) and chart position (#48 vs unranked). Text Editor's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model 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 and Text Editor sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Runestone Text Editor ships an update every 2 weeks, Text Editor every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Runestone Text Editor | Text Editor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (2.1K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 76.2% of reviews — better | 33.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2.1K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #48 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 165 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Simon B. Støvring | Masatsugu Futamata |
Customer experience
Runestone Text Editor
Text Editor
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
Text Editor
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Runestone Text Editor
- Premium$9.99
Text Editor
- Ad-Free (Monthly)$0.991 Month
- Pro (Monthly)2 variants$1.991 Month
- Ad-Free (Yearly)$5.991 Year
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- Pro (Yearly)2 variants$11.991 Year
Questions
Is Runestone Text Editor free?
Is Text Editor free?
Do Runestone Text Editor or Text Editor have ads?
Which is updated more often, Runestone Text Editor or Text Editor?
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