Comparison

Beaver Notes vs md Viewer

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

Head to head
About

Beaver Notes

Features
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Beaver Notes is a fast, native client for the open-source Beaver Notes server โ€” a self-hosted note wall you run on your own infrastructure. Write markdown notes. Drop in photos, videos and files. Everything lands on your server, nowhere else. No accounts to sign up for, no third-party services, no analytics, no telemetry. FEATURES โ€ข Multi-server โ€” connect to as many self-hosted Beaver Notes servers as you need and switch between them from the sidebar. โ€ข Local-first sync โ€” an outbox queue keeps everything working offline and catches up the moment the server comes back. โ€ข Markdown editor โ€” bold, italic, code, lists, links, headings, with live preview. โ€ข Attachments โ€” photos, videos, and arbitrary files. Images appear in an adaptive grid with a fullscreen viewer. Inline video playback. โ€ข Upload progress โ€” per-file and per-message progress overlays, including retry on failure. โ€ข Image editor โ€” crop, draw, filters, and optional optimization before upload. โ€ข Video trim & optimize โ€” HEIC and H.265 encoding to keep uploads small. โ€ข Quick input โ€” a compact composer at the bottom of the wall for fast capture. โ€ข Search โ€” local full-text search with type, tag, pinned and date filters. โ€ข Spotlight โ€” your notes are findable from the system search. โ€ข Privacy โ€” biometric lock with Face ID / Touch ID, auto-lock timeout, and the option to hide previews in the App Switcher. โ€ข Storage controls โ€” per-server cache size limit and one-tap erase. โ€ข Multi-platform โ€” adapted layouts for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with native sidebar, context menus, swipe actions, and keyboard shortcuts. PRIVACY The app talks only to the self-hosted server you configure. No analytics SDKs. No third-party services. No developer-side backend. Read the full privacy policy at https://eduard256.github.io/beaver-notes-apple/PRIVACY.md REQUIREMENTS You need a running Beaver Notes server. The server is open source โ€” see https://github.com/eduard256/beaver-notes

About

md Viewer

Features
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md Viewer opens Markdown files, shows them cleanly formatted right away, and lets you edit that same text in place, create new documents, and save them back to the file. No file browser. No account. No cloud. No tracking. Open a .md or .txt file from the Files app or the share menu. md Viewer renders headings, lists, tables, bold/italic, code blocks with syntax highlighting, and quotes. No raw text, no characters to decode. CREATE, EDIT, SAVE Start without a file: tap Paste on the start screen to take text from the clipboard, or choose Blank Document. The draft opens straight in the editor. The red checkmark saves it as a new .md file; you pick the folder and name in the Files dialog. After that, the checkmark writes to that same file as usual. Existing files: tap Edit in the top right. The preview turns into a text editor. Save with the red checkmark; after a short confirmation the original file is overwritten. The X discards your changes (after a confirmation), and the arrow steps back through individual changes. No autosave, no export, no second copy. .txt files open in the app and in the share extension too. When you edit a .txt, the app also offers Save as Markdown. If you only want to read, none of this gets in the way. Every file opens in the formatted preview first. WHY SO MINIMAL? Most Markdown apps today are full editors with file management, cloud sync, and menus. Handy, but too much when you just want to read a file quickly, jot down a quick note, or fix a typo now and then. md Viewer deliberately does only that: tap a file, read, change or create if needed, done. FEATURES - Open via Open With in the Files app or straight from the share menu (mail attachments, AirDrop). The share extension shows the document formatted right away, without switching apps - Create a new document from pasted or typed text and save it as a .md file - Opens .md and .txt - Keep several documents open at once: as tabs on iPad, via the Open Documents list on iPhone. Open files come back after a restart - Find in the document with the magnifying glass or โŒ˜F, plus Find and Replace while editing - Clean Markdown rendering: headings, lists, task lists, tables (scroll horizontally), code blocks with syntax highlighting, quotes, links, images - Edit and save in place in the open file, with a confirmation before overwriting and before closing with unsaved changes - Full Unicode support: emoji, Arabic and Hebrew (right-to-left), Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters - Supports Dynamic Type and VoiceOver - Automatic Dark Mode / Light Mode - Runs entirely offline: md Viewer loads nothing from the internet, not even images PRIVACY md Viewer collects no data at all. No analytics, no tracking, no account, no cloud sync. Files you open, edit, and create are processed only locally on your device. Only your open documents and folders allowed for images are remembered, locally, and you can remove either at any time. The clipboard is read only when you explicitly tap Paste. Who is it for? Anyone who regularly receives or manages .md or .txt files (notes, READMEs, technical docs, meeting notes) and wants to read them quickly and cleanly, edit them now and then, or jot down a new one, without opening a full editor.

Screenshots

Beaver Notes4 screens
md Viewer4 screens

Verdict

The call

Beaver Notes and md Viewer are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters โ€” price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them โ€” neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

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

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Beaver Notes versus md Viewer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBeaver Notesmd Viewer
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyโ€”Every 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size2 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperArtur JeremiczEric Pierre Bertrand

In-app purchases

None

Beaver Notes

No in-app purchases

None

md Viewer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Beaver Notes free?
Beaver Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is md Viewer free?
md Viewer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Beaver Notes or md Viewer have ads?
Neither Beaver Notes nor md Viewer shows ads.

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