Marked vs ZenNotes

Marked is a Markdown reader and editor designed first as a reading app — think Apple Books for your .md files. Open any Markdown document from Files or iCloud Drive and read it with the calm of a book: classic typography, generous margins, justified text with automatic hyphenation, and Light, Sepia and Dark themes. A READING-FIRST EXPERIENCE • Three reading themes: Light, Sepia and Dark. • Nine curated typefaces: system serif, New York, Georgia, Palatino, Times New Roman, Helvetica Neue, Avenir Next, Iowan Old Style and Charter. • Adjustable font size, line spacing and horizontal margins. • Justified text with automatic hyphenation for a book-like rhythm. • Native rendering of headings, lists, quotes, code blocks, links and tables. • Styled blockquotes with accent bar, soft background tint and a decorative quote glyph. • Wrap-first tables that fit cell text to the screen and only scroll horizontally when wrapping is not enough. SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING • Fenced code blocks are highlighted with automatic language detection (highlight.js via HighlighterSwift). • The editor colours Markdown markup live — headings, emphasis, code spans, links and lists — without getting in the way of plain-text editing. QUICK EDITING • Built-in plain-text editor with in-place save to the original file. • New documents open straight into the editor. • Jump to any line directly from the table of contents or search results. • Debounced highlighting keeps large files responsive while typing. NAVIGATION • Auto-generated table of contents from the document's headings. • In-document search: per section in reader mode and per line in editor mode. • Recent files list with per-document reading position and progress, Apple Notes–style file count under the title. FAST AND SMOOTH • Documents open asynchronously so the UI never blocks on large files. • Theme and font changes reuse the parsed document and existing section views instead of rebuilding from scratch. • Smart subview reuse keeps scrolling fluid in long documents. WORKS WITH YOUR FILES • Opens .md, .markdown, .mdown and .mkd files from Files, iCloud Drive and "Open with…". • Create new Markdown documents from inside the app. • Security-scoped bookmarks remember where each file lives, so recents keep working after relaunch. PRIVACY BY DESIGN • Everything runs on your device. Marked has no servers. • No accounts, no telemetry, no advertising, no tracking. • Your files stay exactly where you keep them — the app only opens them. Ideal for reading notes, technical documentation, project READMEs, long-form articles or books written in Markdown — and for making quick edits without leaving the reading flow.

ZenNotes is a local-first markdown notes app for writing, organizing, and connecting ideas without giving up ownership of your files. YOUR NOTES, YOUR FILES Every note is a plain .md file in a vault you control. Start with storage on your iPhone or iPad, use iCloud Drive, or open a folder through the system document picker. Local and iCloud vaults work without an account. ZENNOTES CLOUD Connect an optional ZenNotes Cloud plan to: • Sync a vault across ZenNotes desktop and mobile • Sync notes and attachments • Create manual and automatic daily backups • Restore a full vault or a single note from a backup • Publish notes to the web and manage their public links Cloud never replaces the free local-first workflow. Use it only when you want hosted sync, backup, or publishing. WRITE IN MARKDOWN Use a focused editor with headings, lists, tasks, tables, code, links, wikilinks, tags, callouts, footnotes, and frontmatter. A mobile formatting bar keeps common actions close to the keyboard, and a pinch resizes the text to your eyes. RICH, OFFLINE PREVIEW Render KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, JSXGraph, function plots, tables, callouts, and more directly on your device. ORGANIZE YOUR WAY Pin your go-to notes and folders to the top, swipe rows to act on them, create and rename nested folders, browse tags, search the full vault, manage tasks, create periodic notes, and work with table databases stored as CSV. CAPTURE QUICKLY Create a quick note from the app or send text and links to ZenNotes from the iOS share sheet. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Start a note, open a recent one, or check today's tasks without opening the app. New Note also lives on the Lock Screen, and the widgets wear your theme. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT ZenNotes has no advertising or tracking. Local and iCloud notes stay in the storage you choose. When you enable ZenNotes Cloud, the account identity, connected-device information, and vault content needed for the Cloud features you use are sent to the ZenNotes service. Payment details are handled by Stripe. ZenNotes is open source. Your vault remains useful outside the app because it is made of ordinary files.