Runestone Text Editor vs LocalDevVPN
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
LocalDevVPN
Create and manage secure, isolated local network tunnels on iOS. Test and debug applications without sending traffic to external servers, offering precise control over your network environment.
- Local network tunneling
- Custom network configuration
- One-touch connection
- Auto-connect option
- Connection monitoring
- Comprehensive logging
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LocalDevVPN is a developer tool for creating and managing local network tunnels directly on iOS. It gives you a secure, isolated virtual interface for testing and debugging without sending traffic to external servers. Key Features: - Local network tunneling: spin up a dedicated virtual interface for development and testing - Custom network configuration: set device IP, tunnel IP, and subnet mask - One-touch connection: quick connect/disconnect with clear status - Auto-connect: optionally start the tunnel when the app launches - Connection monitoring: track connection time and live status - Comprehensive logging: review detailed connection logs for troubleshooting Ideal for developers, network engineers, and testers who need precise control over a local network environment. All traffic stays on-device with no data collection or external connections. Requires iOS 14.0 or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: LocalDevVPN at none against Runestone Text Editor's 1. LocalDevVPN also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks) and review sentiment (91% vs 76%). Runestone Text Editor's advantage is ratings volume (2K vs 87). On price, rating, ads 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
Both are free to download. Runestone Text Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. LocalDevVPN asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Runestone Text Editor against 4.7 for LocalDevVPN. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Runestone Text Editor has 2K ratings behind it against 87, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Runestone Text Editor's written reviews are positive against 91% of LocalDevVPN's.
Runestone Text Editor ships an update every 2 weeks, LocalDevVPN every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Runestone Text Editor | LocalDevVPN |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (2K ratings) | 4.7 (87 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.2% of reviews | 90.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2K — better | 87 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #40 | #4 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Simon B. Støvring | Coxson Engineering LLC |
Customer experience
Runestone Text Editor
LocalDevVPN
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
LocalDevVPN
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Runestone Text Editor
- Premium$9.99
LocalDevVPN
No in-app purchases









