Comparison

NotePlus vs emdee

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

Head to head
About

NotePlus

A native Markdown notes app for Apple devices that offers a WYSIWYG editor and organizes notes in folders. Your files are stored in your iCloud Drive, ensuring availability across devices without requiring an app account or subscription.

Highlights
  • Native WYSIWYG Markdown editing
  • iCloud sync
  • No login or subscription required
  • Secret notes
  • Project boards
  • macOS version available
Features
Read full description

NotePlus is a free, native Markdown notes app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Write in a simple What You See Is What You Get Markdown editor, organize notes in folders, and keep your files in your own iCloud Drive so they stay available across Apple devices without a NotePlus account. Key features: - Native WYSIWYG Markdown editing - Sync through your own iCloud account - No login, no app account, and no subscription - Secret notes for sensitive information - Project boards for planning and tracking work - macOS version available for the same notes on Mac Your notes stay in files you control.

About

emdee

Edit Markdown files directly in a formatted view without switching modes. This app offers a true WYSIWYG experience for creating and modifying documents, including tables, lists, and images, while ensuring your files remain plain .md.

Highlights
  • True WYSIWYG Markdown editing
  • Edit directly in formatted view
  • Supports headings, bold, italic, lists, tables
  • Image insertion and display
  • Export to PDF, HTML, plain text
  • Table of contents generation
Read full description

A .md file from an AI chat, full of # and **. A browser can show it to you. emdee lets you rewrite it — in that same clean, formatted view. You don't need to switch between a reading mode and an editing mode. You edit the document while it stays clean and properly formatted, exactly as a .md document should look. Headings stay heading-sized, tables stay tables, and you type directly into the document. Want bold? Select the text and tap the button. You never type the symbols, and you never see them. Save, and it's still a plain .md file. ■ When you'd use it You saved an AI answer as .md — now you want it in your own words, not just readable AI drafted your travel plan or checklist — now the dates and details need to be yours You want to keep notes and minutes in .md, without looking up syntax as you write ■ What you can actually edit "emdee" is not a viewer — it's a true WYSIWYG Markdown editor. All of this works right in the formatted view: Headings (six levels), bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, links Bullet lists, numbered lists, and checklists you can tick with a tap Block quotes, code blocks, horizontal rules Tables: insert with one button, and add or delete rows and columns from that same button's menu. Line breaks inside cells are supported Find and replace — Replace All comes back with a single undo It all sits in the format bar along the bottom, which rises with the keyboard so you can change formatting mid-sentence ■ Images An image in the same folder as the document you have open is drawn right there in the text. So is one in a folder below it. PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP and SVG are drawn. So are images on the web (https://) HEIC — what an iPhone camera writes — is not drawn. Export it as JPEG and it is The first time, emdee asks permission to read that folder — one button, and it never asks again Anything it cannot draw shows its path in a frame instead The image button on the format bar puts one in. An image from outside the document's folder is copied into that folder first, and a file of the same name is never overwritten. What gets written is a relative path, so hand the images over along with the document. Exported HTML and PDF have the pictures embedded, so they travel on their own. The ![...](...) in your file is not touched by any of this. ■ More features Table of contents — tap a heading to jump there. On iPad it opens as a column beside your text instead of covering it Print, and export to PDF, HTML, or plain text. Lines break on paper exactly where they break on screen, and tables never split mid-row across pages Light, dark, or follow the system Body text can follow the system text size or stay at a size you choose, and the line width is yours: fit the screen, or match A4 print ■ What you write stays a .md No proprietary format, no importing. The file you have open is the .md itself, opened in place where it lives — no copy is made. It saves back readable by GitHub, VS Code, Obsidian — anything. Even details like line breaks inside table cells are written the standard way, as an HTML br tag. Line endings (LF / CRLF / CR) and text encodings (UTF-8, UTF-16, and legacy encodings such as Shift_JIS) are preserved exactly as the file was opened. Files made on Windows keep their format intact. ■ One purchase — iPhone, iPad, and Mac The same document, on the same page layout, wherever you open it. ■ What emdee doesn't do File management belongs to the Files app, and sync belongs to iCloud Drive. There is no proprietary notes database and no cloud service. The only thing open is your .md file. Images are looked for inside the folder your document is in, and nowhere else. A reference pointing outside it (../ or an absolute path) is not drawn, and neither are HEIC, AVIF or TIFF files, or images over roughly 8 MB (24 MB per document). Anything that cannot be drawn shows its path in a frame instead. Questions and bug reports are welcome — see the support page.

Screenshots

NotePlus4 screens
emdee4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: NotePlus at Free against emdee's $7.99. NotePlus also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On rating, ratings volume, 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

NotePlus is free to download; emdee costs $7.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for NotePlus against 5.0 for emdee. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

NotePlus ships an update every 2 days, emdee every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
NotePlus versus emdee: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNotePlusemdee
PriceFree — better$7.99
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size13 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTablePlus IncKeita Eto

Customer experience

NotePlus

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

emdee

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

NotePlus

No in-app purchases

None

emdee

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is NotePlus free?
NotePlus is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is emdee free?
emdee costs $7.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, NotePlus or emdee?
NotePlus and emdee are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do NotePlus or emdee have ads?
Neither NotePlus nor emdee shows ads.
Which is updated more often, NotePlus or emdee?
NotePlus ships an update every 2 days, and emdee every 3 weeks. Most recently, NotePlus was updated on October 31, 2026 and emdee on November 7, 2026.

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