Comparison

Runestone Text Editor vs Focal

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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

About

Focal

Features
Read full description

Focal is a fast, private JSON viewer that works completely offline. Open a JSON file and Focal turns it into a clean, collapsible tree you can actually read — no pasting into a website, no uploading, nothing leaving your device. Huge exports open in an instant, search finds any key or value, and the inspector shows you the exact bytes from the file, never silently reformatted. • OFFLINE & PRIVATE — your JSON never leaves your device. No account, no upload, no tracking, no ads. • OPENS HUGE FILES — an indexed viewer opens massive JSON in an instant and scrolls smoothly. • SEARCH ANYTHING — find any key or value instantly and jump straight to each match. • EXACT SOURCE — inspect the real bytes from the file, never "prettified" behind your back. • ONE APP, EVERY DEVICE — a focused reader for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Perfect for developers, QA and anyone who works with APIs, config files or data exports and just wants to read JSON quickly and privately.

Screenshots

Runestone Text Editor4 screens
Focal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Focal at none against Runestone Text Editor's 1. Runestone Text Editor's advantage is chart position (#47 vs unranked). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Runestone Text Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Focal asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
Runestone Text Editor versus Focal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRunestone Text EditorFocal
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
Best chart rank#47 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size64 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSimon B. StøvringUMUTCAN SAHIN

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
Show 1 more
  • 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
Show 1 more
  • Improved undo/redo functionality

Focal

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Runestone Text Editor

One-time1
  • Premium$9.99
None

Focal

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Runestone Text Editor free?
Runestone Text Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Focal free?
Focal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Runestone Text Editor or Focal have ads?
Neither Runestone Text Editor nor Focal shows ads.

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