Text Editor vs SFD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Text Editor
A fast and simple editor for plain text, notes, and Markdown. Highlight Markdown as you type and switch to a preview mode. Your files are saved locally, offering full control and ownership of your writing.
- Live Markdown highlighting
- Preview mode
- Local file saving
- Multiple themes
- Find & Replace
- Export options
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A simple, fast editor for Markdown, notes, and code. Open it and start typing. There's no account to make and nothing to set up. Your Markdown is highlighted as you write - headings, bold, links, lists, code blocks - and when you want to see how it'll look, switch to Preview. Everything saves as a normal file in the Files app and iCloud Drive, so your writing stays yours: open it anywhere, move it, or back it up however you like. It's free to use, with what you need for everyday writing: • Live Markdown highlighting and a clean Preview • Four themes: System, Light, Dark, and Sepia • Find in the editor or preview, a heading outline, and a live word count • Line and column position, selection count, undo, and redo • Meeting notes, journal, checklist, and README templates • Plain Text, Markdown, and code language modes • A Markdown cheat sheet for when the syntax slips your mind • Your choice of font, size, and line spacing • Share or export as Markdown Text Editor Pro adds more tools with a one-time purchase, no subscription: • Syntax highlighting in whole code files and fenced blocks for Swift, Python, JavaScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, and Shell • Five more themes: Paper, Solarized Light, Solarized Dark, Nord, and Dracula • Focus and Typewriter modes for heads-down writing • Split View on iPad with synchronized scrolling • Line numbers • Find & Replace with regular expressions, capture groups, and undoable Replace All • Writing stats: daily goals, streaks, and an all-time word count • Export to PDF, HTML, and .rtf files It's made for iPhone and iPad, works with a hardware keyboard, supports dark mode, and fits into iPad multitasking. There are no ads and no tracking, and the app doesn't collect anything about you. Made by one person who wanted a nicer place to write.
SFD
This app helps you overcome writer's block by forcing you to write a first draft without the ability to edit or reread. It uses timed bursts and nudges to keep you moving forward, allowing you to flag sections for later revision.
- Forward-only writing
- Timed writing bursts
- Cursor nudges for stalls
- Flagging sections for revision
- Plain text export
- Offline functionality
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Writing apps help with the easy half — outlines, fonts, folders, word-count trophies. The hard half is producing a bad first version of something, and that's all SFD does. SFD is forward-only. You write in a burst, the earlier lines dim and scroll away, and you can't go back to fix them. You can't edit a draft into existence, so SFD won't let you try until it's out. How it works: — A go is a timed burst. You write. You don't reread. — Stall for a few seconds and you get a shove — a nudge that gets blunter the longer you stare at the cursor. — Hit a line you hate? Drop a later and keep moving. Your flags become a punch-list for when you revise. — A finished part is a chunk. A stack of chunks is the Pile — your whole first draft. — When it's done, send it out as plain text, to wherever you actually revise. Drafting is free. Every go, every later, every export — no account, no trial clock, no nagging. THE BIG MONTH is free too: 50,000 words of a novel's first draft between November 1 and 30. SFD shows your words today and how many a day finishes it, lights up a November calendar on every day you write, marks 10,000, 25,000 and 50,000, and gives you a BIG MONTH 2026 stamp and finisher card you can only earn that November. One thing costs money: SFD Habit Tracking, a 99-cent one-time unlock for the habit layer — the streak map and year wall, the month goal, the quiet reminder, stamps, share cards, and the home-screen widget, which carries THE BIG MONTH in November. The scoreboard, not the game. If you bought SFD back when the app itself cost money, the habit layer is yours automatically. What SFD won't do: format, outline, sync, collaborate, or write the draft for you. You write the bad version. A chunk has to get written; inside that, anything goes. Your words stay yours. Every chunk is a plain-text file on your device. No proprietary format, no servers. SFD makes no network calls at all — it can't lose your words and it can't trap them. Get the first draft out. You can make it good later, somewhere with a real keyboard.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: SFD at every 8 days against Text Editor's every 3 months. Text Editor's advantage is monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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
Both are free to download. Text Editor sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and SFD sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Text Editor against 5.0 for SFD. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Text Editor ships an update every 3 months, SFD every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Text Editor | SFD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | John Haas | Daniel James Kinney-Spears |
Customer experience
Text Editor
SFD
In-app purchases
Text Editor
- Text Editor Pro$4.99
SFD
- SFD Habit Tracking$0.99









