Strayfiles vs PureWrite
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Strayfiles
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Strayfiles brings all your Markdown files together in one place without moving them. Point to any folder on your device and Strayfiles indexes your notes, docs, and files instantly. ORGANIZE WITHOUT MIGRATING Your files stay exactly where they are. No vault, no restructuring. Strayfiles reads from any folder you choose and builds a unified note tree across all your directories. WRITE IN MARKDOWN Full Markdown editor with syntax highlighting and keyboard shortcuts. Switch to a rendered preview to see your formatting, tables, code blocks, and more come to life. SEARCH EVERYTHING Full-text search across all your Markdown files by title, content, or tags. Find any note instantly no matter where it lives on your filesystem. SMART WORKSPACES Create virtual folders that group notes by project or topic without touching your filesystem. Filter by workspace to focus on what matters. TAG AND FILTER Add color-coded tags to organize notes your way. Filter by tag to find exactly what you need in seconds. SYNC ACROSS DEVICES Keep your notes in sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with Stray Cloud. End-to-end encrypted so your data stays private. BUILT FOR DEVELOPERS Mirror files like CLAUDE.md across multiple projects. Get pinged when AI coding agents finish tasks. Give AI assistants direct access to your notes via MCP. TEAMS (PRO) Collaborate on shared workspaces with your team in real time. Everyone sees the same notes, always up to date. KEY FEATURES - Aggregate notes from any folder - Raw Markdown and WYSIWYG editing - Full-text search across all files - Smart workspaces and color-coded tags - Cross-device sync with end-to-end encryption - File mirrors for developer workflows - AI agent notifications (Pings) - Team collaboration (Pro) Terms of Use: https://strayfiles.com/terms
PureWrite
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PureWrite is a writing app that gets out of the way. Open a folder of Markdown files you already keep, open a document, and start typing. The file sidebar and the table of contents fade out completely โ not dimmed, gone โ until only the page is left. Move the pointer back and they return. Nothing else is on screen. No tabs, no split panes, no graph, no badges, no notifications, no sync spinner. One document at a time, by design. That is the whole idea. Everything else is there to serve it. โข A folder you already have. No import step, no vault format, no database. The same folder can stay an Obsidian vault or a git repository โ keep using them. PureWrite is simply the window you open when the task is to write. โข Formatted text, plain files. You edit the document as it looks, and the file on disk stays ordinary Markdown โ tables and links included. โข Search the whole folder for the moment you do need to leave the page, with the context around every match. โข A toolbar you can pare down to nothing. Keep as many of the 18 buttons as you want, or none. โข Hebrew and English in one document, each paragraph facing the direction its own words ask for, with nothing written into your file to make it work. โข Autosave a second after you stop typing. There is no save button to remember. Nothing leaves the device: no network, no account, no telemetry. macOS, iPhone and iPad. Free, with no in-app purchases.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: PureWrite at 4 against Strayfiles's โ. PureWrite also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Strayfiles | PureWrite |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Ads | โ | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | โ | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac โ better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Roberto Febus | Yechiel Ben David |
In-app purchases
Strayfiles
No in-app purchases
PureWrite
No in-app purchases









