Indent vs PureOpen
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Indent
Read full descriptionHide full description
Write Markdown on one side. See the page on the other. Indent is a Markdown editor. You write the way Markdown is written, a hash for a heading, stars for bold, a dash for a list, and the preview beside you turns those marks into the finished page: headings, tables, code, the checklist you will actually tick off. Indent does not format for you. It shows you what your Markdown means, as you type it. Your notes are ordinary Markdown files. Indent opens them where they already live: in Files, in iCloud Drive, in a folder on your Mac, or in the folder another notes app keeps them in, such as an Obsidian vault. It saves them back as the same text. Nothing is imported and nothing is locked in. If you stop using Indent tomorrow, every word is still yours, readable in any editor. It is the same app on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Write on the phone in the queue, open the split view on the iPad at the kitchen table, finish on the Mac with the outline open beside you. An Indent folder in iCloud Drive keeps the file in step. When the piece is done, share it as a PDF or HTML, or print it from the Mac, on A4 or Letter depending on where you are. Choose a look that suits the writing. Seven themes, each with a light and a dark face, from warm paper to plain black on white. There is no account to create and nothing to sign in to. No ads, no analytics, no tracking. A note never leaves your device unless you share it. Indent is free, and if it earns a place in your day there is a tip jar inside. What you get ⢠Markdown highlighting as you type, a formatting bar above the keyboard, a Styles panel, keyboard shortcuts ⢠A live preview with real tables, checklists, nested lists, quotes, images and coloured code in more than forty languages ⢠Split view on iPad and Mac, with the preview following as you scroll ⢠An outline of your headings, and Find in both the editor and the page ⢠Files from Obsidian, Jekyll and Hugo open cleanly, front matter included ⢠Saves as UTF-8, opens most older text encodings ⢠Standard CommonMark with tables, strikethrough and task lists
PureOpen
Read full descriptionHide full description
PureOpen is a Markdown editor for Mac and iPhone built for right-to-left writing. Most editors treat RTL as a switch: turn it on and the whole document flips, which breaks the moment you write Hebrew or Arabic with English words in it. PureOpen decides direction per block instead. Every paragraph, heading and list item takes its direction from the first strong character in it ā so a mixed document displays correctly with no setting, and with no direction marks written into your file. Files open in tabs, the way a browser opens pages, and your changes are on disk 600ms after you stop typing. RIGHT-TO-LEFT, PER BLOCK ⢠RTL and LTR live side by side in one file. A Hebrew paragraph aligns right, the English paragraph under it aligns left, and each stays that way as you edit. ⢠A Hebrew or Arabic sentence with English terms, code spans and links inside it reads correctly ā the block stays RTL and the Latin runs sit where they belong. ⢠A block with no strong character inherits the direction of the block above it, so blank lines and numbers don't break the flow. ⢠Nothing is added to your Markdown to make this work: no RTL marks, no wrapper tags. The file stays portable. OPEN IT FROM THE FILE, NOT FROM THE APP ⢠Right-click a Markdown file in Finder ā or long-press it in Files on iPhone and iPad ā and PureOpen sits at the top of "Open With". One click and the document is open in a tab in the window you already have. ⢠No launching the app first, no file picker, no importing into a library. Double-click works the same way, and so does dragging a file onto the window. ⢠Registered as the owner and editor of .md, .markdown, .mdown and .mkd. TABS ⢠Every file opens in its own tab. ā1āā9 jump by position, Ctrl+Tab cycles, middle-click closes, and āW closes the tab rather than the window. ⢠The tabs you had open come back the next time you launch. SAVING ⢠Autosave writes 600ms after you stop typing, and again on tab switch, tab close and window blur. A grey dot marks a tab with unsaved content. ⢠If the file changes on disk ā another editor, a sync client ā it is reloaded quietly and your scroll position is kept. If it is deleted, editing locks so stale content is not written back over it. ⢠Opening a file doesn't reformat it: an edit that didn't actually change the content doesn't trigger a write. EDITING ⢠17 formatting buttons: headings 1ā4, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, bullet, numbered and task lists, subscript, superscript, quote, inline code, code block and horizontal rule. ⢠Each button reflects the block and the marks under the cursor, and updates as the cursor moves. ⢠Underline, subscript and superscript are kept as HTML rather than dropped when the file is saved. PRINTING AND PDF ⢠Print what you see. The page is the document as the editor renders it ā headings, tables, task lists, code blocks, Hebrew and English side by side ā without the tabs and the toolbar around them. ⢠Export the same page straight to a PDF file, without going through the print dialog to find "Save as PDF". ⢠Nothing is rendered a second time for paper, so what prints is what you were looking at. Pages break between lines, and the page is always light even when the app is in dark mode. ALSO ⢠On iPhone and iPad, files opened from Files are edited in place ā not copied into the app. ⢠Dark mode follows the system setting. ⢠Files past roughly 4 million characters open read-only as raw text, so the interface doesn't stall. ⢠No network, no account, no telemetry. Your files stay on your device. PureOpen is free, with no in-app purchases.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: PureOpen at none against Indent's 3. PureOpen also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Indent sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. PureOpen asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Indent | PureOpen |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | ā | Every 9 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No ā better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac ā better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.0 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Merano Studio Limited | Yechiel Ben David |
In-app purchases
Indent
- Espresso$0.99
- Latte$2.99
- Whole bag$4.99
PureOpen
No in-app purchases









