Comparison

SoloMD vs md.too

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

Head to head
About

SoloMD

A distraction-free Markdown editor for iPad, focusing on writing with live preview, rich syntax, and export options. Your notes are stored locally as plain text files.

Highlights
  • Distraction-free writing environment
  • Live Markdown preview
  • KaTeX math and Mermaid diagram support
  • Multiple export formats (HTML, PDF, DOCX)
  • File tree and outline view
  • Focus and typewriter modes
  • Split-view and multitasking support
Features
Read full description

SoloMD is a lightweight, distraction-free Markdown editor for iPad. One file. One window. Just write. Built from the ground up as a focused writing tool - no account, no cloud, no telemetry, no subscription. Your notes stay in plain .md and .txt files on your iPad, readable by any editor on any platform, today and in ten years. CORE EDITING - Live preview - Markdown symbols fade out after the cursor leaves the line. - Rich syntax styling - real big headings, real bold, real monospace for code. - Light and Dark themes that follow iPad system appearance. - Multi-encoding - auto-detects UTF-8, UTF-16, GBK, Big5. - Tabs with dirty indicators. - File tree sidebar, outline view, and global search. MARKDOWN POWER - KaTeX math - inline and block math render instantly. - Mermaid diagrams - flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts. - Task lists with clickable checkboxes. - Footnotes, YAML front-matter, text highlighting. - Syntax highlighting for 13 plus languages. - Synced split-pane scroll. - Tap an image or Mermaid diagram to open a pinch-zoomable overlay. BUILT FOR IPAD - 44 pt touch targets across toolbar, outline, and file tree. - Larger default font sizes tuned for iPad screen distance. - Split-view and multitasking friendly. - Works with hardware keyboards. - Portrait and landscape, every orientation. WRITER TOOLS - Focus mode - non-current paragraphs dim for deep work. - Typewriter mode. - Session restore - auto-saves so you never lose a line. - Chinese power tools - simplified/traditional conversion, pinyin, CJK word counts. - Spell check. - Custom CSS. EXPORT - HTML (newsletter quality) - PDF with KaTeX and Mermaid baked in - Word (.docx) with tables preserved - Copy as HTML, plain text, or Markdown PRIVACY FIRST SoloMD collects no personal data. No account. No analytics. No ads. No tracking. All your notes live locally in files you own. SoloMD is open source (MIT). Source: github.com/zhitongblog/solomd

About

md.too

Features
Read full description

Application md.too is a minimalist markdown viewer for iPhone and iPad. It opens .md files, renders them, and lets you read and copy. That is the whole product. What it renders: • Headings, lists (including GitHub-style task lists with [ ] / [x]), block quotes, thematic breaks, and inline emphasis (bold, italic, strikethrough, underline). • Code blocks with syntax highlighting for about 40 languages: Swift, C/C++/C#/Objective-C, Java, Kotlin, Scala, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Rust, Go, Ruby, PHP, Dart, Lua, Perl, R, Julia, Haskell, OCaml, F#, Elixir, Clojure, Groovy, SQL, GraphQL, Dockerfile, Makefile, TOML, INI, YAML, JSON, XML, HTML, CSS, Bash, PowerShell, Markdown. • Tables, including inline images inside table cells. • Inline images loaded from any HTTPS URL, with explicit width/height attributes (GitLab-style {width=N height=N}). • A small but useful LaTeX subset in $…$ and $$…$$: Greek letters, super- and sub-scripts, common operators, simple fractions, and basic display math. • Selectable, copyable text. Code blocks and tables get a one-click copy button. • Light and dark theme — follows the system, or pick one explicitly. • Export the rendered document to a paginated PDF, with images embedded. What it deliberately does not do: • No editor, no live preview/edit split, no autosave. Read-only by design. • No HTML rendering or WKWebView. Pure native UIKit/SwiftUI. • No file tree, no tabs, no command palette. • No third-party packages. The most popular JavaScript Markdown library, marked, lists about 636 transitive dependencies and roughly 38,980 lines of code on its public dependency graph. md.too ships zero dependencies. Every package you do not pull in is a supply-chain risk you do not inherit. Privacy: The application does not collect or transmit any personal data. The only network traffic is fetching inline images you reference by URL. Source code: The project is open-source under the MIT license. See the support URL.

Screenshots

SoloMD4 screens
md.too4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: SoloMD at 15.0 against md.too's 18.6. On price, update cadence, 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SoloMD ships an update every 3 weeks, md.too every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 17, 2026 and August 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
SoloMD versus md.too: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSoloMDmd.too
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size20 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer向东 李Dmitry Kuznetsov

In-app purchases

None

SoloMD

No in-app purchases

None

md.too

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SoloMD free?
SoloMD is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is md.too free?
md.too is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do SoloMD or md.too have ads?
Neither SoloMD nor md.too shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SoloMD or md.too?
SoloMD ships an update every 3 weeks, and md.too every 2 weeks. Most recently, SoloMD was updated on September 17, 2026 and md.too on August 12, 2026.

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