markdown notes vs MDReader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
markdown notes
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Smolpad is a smol Markdown editor with respect for your files. Every note is a plain .md file you can open with any app, on any device, forever. Your files are your own. No database. No lock-in. No bloat. Just a tiny, fast home for your notes on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. WRITE IN MARKDOWN, BEAUTIFULLY โข Syntax dims as you type, or hides away entirely with one tap โข Task lists become real checkboxes. Checkboxes that check. โข Headings, bold, italic, code, and quotes, styled as you write โข A formatting bar for common touches, plus full keyboard shortcuts โข Pictures too: drag or paste one in, resize it by its corner, and it lives as a plain file beside the note YOUR FILES, ANYWHERE โข Notes sync through your own iCloud Drive, included free โข Open your notes folder in Finder or Files any time โข Organize with folders, pins, and instant search โข Nothing ever leaves your devices except to your own cloud SMOL ON PURPOSE โข On the Mac, Smolpad lives in your menu bar, one hotkey away โข Tear off a note into its own window when you want to stay a while โข On iPhone and iPad, it opens fast and stays out of your way โข Seven hand-picked fonts and a clean, quiet interface MAKE IT YOURS WITH SMOLPAD PRO โข Unlimited notes (the free tier includes ten) โข Dropbox sync, in an app folder that belongs to you โข Twenty-nine editor themes, from Tokyo Night to Catppuccin โข Seventeen app icons and the full menu bar icon set Smolpad Pro is available as a monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time lifetime purchase. The free tier is a real notes app, not a trial. Made by a smol team that believes plain text outlives everything. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://smolpad.com/privacy
MDReader
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MDReader opens your Markdown files and folders and renders them properly. There is no library to import into, no account to create and no sync service in the middle. Your .md files stay exactly where you put them, and MDReader reads and writes them in place. FAST, EVEN ON BIG FILES A two-tier parser scans a document in a single pass and only fully parses the blocks you can actually see. A 10 MB file opens before other editors have finished showing a spinner, and scrolling stays smooth all the way down. RENDERS THE WHOLE OF MARKDOWN GitHub-flavoured Markdown with tables, task lists you can tick straight from reading mode, footnotes that jump both ways, YAML front matter shown as a card, LaTeX math inline and display, fenced code with syntax highlighting, and Mermaid diagrams rendered offline. AN EDITOR THAT STAYS OUT OF THE WAY Live syntax highlighting, lists that continue and renumber themselves, bold/italic/link shortcuts, find and replace, table and formula inserters, and paste an image to save it next to the document. Autosave goes through the system file coordinator, so editing alongside Obsidian, git or iCloud is safe. PICKS UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF Reading position is restored to the pixel, per document, across relaunches, rotation and window resizes. FOLDER WORKSPACES (PRO) Open a whole folder: a repository's docs, an Obsidian vault, a Zettelkasten. Fuzzy quick-open, full-text search across every file in the folder, [[wiki-links]] with a backlinks panel, a front-matter tag browser, and read-only git status per file. Changes made by other apps are picked up in place, without losing your position. MORE IN PRO PDF export and print, publishing to GitHub Gist and Telegraph, presentation mode for slides, a custom theme editor with imported fonts, focus and typewriter modes, word-count goals, reading statistics, text-to-speech with follow-along highlighting, local version history with diffs, snippets, Vim keybindings, and an AI pack that summarises and rewrites entirely on device. BUILT FOR APPLE PLATFORMS One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. Keyboard shortcuts throughout, multiple windows, menu bar commands, a Share extension, Shortcuts actions, widgets, a URL scheme, Spotlight indexing, VoiceOver labels and Dynamic Type. PRIVACY MDReader collects nothing. No analytics SDK, no account, no server of ours to talk to. The only network traffic is what your own documents ask for, such as remote images, plus the publishing integrations you set up yourself. FREE AND PRO The reader and the single-file editor are free forever: all rendering including math and syntax highlighting, the base themes, table of contents, in-file search, HTML, Markdown and plain-text export, and position restore. Pro unlocks folder workspaces and the power features above, as a one-time purchase or as a yearly subscription with a free trial. SUBSCRIPTION AND PURCHASE DETAILS MDReader Pro (Yearly) - auto-renewable subscription, 1 year, USD 9.99 per year, including a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. MDReader Pro (Lifetime) - one-time purchase, USD 24.99, not a subscription. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. A yearly subscription renews automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. You can manage or cancel the subscription in your Apple Account settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial is forfeited when a subscription is purchased. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ App Terms of Service: https://gelfand.dev/mdreader/terms Privacy Policy: https://gelfand.dev/mdreader/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: markdown notes at 18.0 against MDReader's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
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
Both are free to download. markdown notes sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month and MDReader sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
markdown notes ships an update every 10 days, MDReader every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 28, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | markdown notes | MDReader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days โ better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 โ better | 26.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 66 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | BaconWorks, LLC | Daniil Nuzhdin |
In-app purchases
markdown notes
- Smolpad Pro$1.491 Month
- Smolpad Pro$14.991 Year
- Smolpad Pro Lifetime$29.99
MDReader
- MDReader Pro Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- MDReader Pro$24.99
Questions
Is markdown notes free?
Is MDReader free?
Do markdown notes or MDReader have ads?
Which is updated more often, markdown notes or MDReader?
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