Comparison

uFocus vs Simpletext

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

Head to head
About

uFocus

A distraction-free writing app designed for creative expression. It supports plain text files, offers advanced Markdown and Fountain syntax for various writing needs, and provides tools to enhance focus and productivity.

Highlights
  • Unobtrusive interface
  • Text statistics
  • MultiMarkdown support
  • Fountain screenplay support
  • Highlighting options
  • Typewriter scrolling
  • Customizable themes
Read full description

uFocus is a distraction-free writing environment that supports plain text files and allows you to keep them organized inside libraries. It allows everyone to express their creativity in the most simple way. • Unobtrusive interface: the navigation bar disappears while writing. • Swipe to show the sidebar. Here you can link your favorite libraries and quickly access your documents. • Show text statistics including character and word count and reading time. • MultiMarkdown: easily add headings, quotes, ordered and unordered lists, links, images, italics, bold, footnotes, citations, glossaries and acronyms. You can then export your documents to HTML or PDF. With CriticMarkup and Live Edit Mode you can easily mark removals, additions and substitutions, add highlghts and comments, and accept or reject them. • Fountain: create screenplays with the Markdown-inspired markup syntax and print or export them as PDF with industry-standard formatting. • Highlighting: you can stay even more focused by fading out all the text but the current sentence or paragraph. • Typewriter scrolling: automatically scrolls the text when you get on a new line. • Sound mode: experience the ultimate feeling of a typewriter. • No deletions mode: disable deletions and replacements if your greatest temptation is always to edit your text instead of writing. • Fullscreen: focus on your words and hide everything else. • Choose between three different editor widths, four font sizes and a light, dark, sepia or amber theme, or create your own theme. • Print single files or entire directory hierarchies. If you have any requests, suggestions or bug reports, you're welcome to visit the website through the Support link.

About

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.

Highlights
  • Zero clutter interface
  • Beautiful typography with professional fonts
  • Plain text only support
  • Fully native Apple app
  • Supports custom fonts
Features
Read full description

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

Screenshots

uFocus4 screens
Simpletext4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: uFocus at Free against Simpletext's $14.99. uFocus also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.1) and review sentiment (92% vs 73%). Simpletext's advantage is chart position (#169 vs unranked). On ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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

uFocus is free to download; Simpletext costs $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

uFocus holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 35 and 23 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 92% of uFocus's written reviews are positive against 73% of Simpletext's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

uFocus ships an update monthly, Simpletext every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
uFocus versus Simpletext: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteruFocusSimpletext
PriceFree — better$14.99
Rating4.7 (35 ratings) — better4.1 (23 ratings)
Positive reviews91.5% of reviews — better73.3% of reviews
Number of ratings35 — better23
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank—#169 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB4 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNicolas KickYeow Jin Gan

Customer experience

uFocus

All ratings35 ratings
Positive94.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative5.7%
Written reviews142 reviews
Positive91.5%
Neutral1.4%
Negative7.0%

Simpletext

All ratings23 ratings
Positive73.9%
Neutral8.7%
Negative17.4%
Written reviews30 reviews
Positive73.3%
Neutral13.3%
Negative13.3%

In-app purchases

None

uFocus

No in-app purchases

None

Simpletext

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is uFocus free?
uFocus is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Simpletext free?
Simpletext costs $14.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, uFocus or Simpletext?
uFocus is rated higher. uFocus averages 4.7 out of 5 from 35 ratings, while Simpletext averages 4.1 from 23 ratings.
Do uFocus or Simpletext have ads?
Neither uFocus nor Simpletext shows ads.
Which is updated more often, uFocus or Simpletext?
uFocus ships an update monthly, and Simpletext every 3 months. Most recently, uFocus was updated on September 21, 2026 and Simpletext on September 22, 2026.

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