Comparison

smalltype 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

smalltype

Read full description

Short notes, many times a day, saved as plain .md files in real folders. Open the same folder on your Mac in VS Code, Vim, or any editor. Calm, minimal, and ready for iPhone Duo. smalltype is for your notes. The small ones, the quick ones, the big ones, the unpolished ones. It's a fast, quiet place to type. ## Start No tutorial, no setup screen. Tap New Note and start typing. Leave one empty and it quietly disappears, so you never end up with a pile of blank untitled notes. That's the whole app. ## Yours Every note is a real .md file, sitting right there in the Files app. You can open it, copy it, or back it up yourself, anytime. Delete one and it still goes to Recently Deleted, same as any other file: nothing's gone for good. ## Sync or Don't Keep notes in iCloud Drive to have them on every device. Or keep them On My iPhone, fully local, never leaving your device. Either way, you can switch anytime. ## Visible Markdown Markdown markers stay gently visible as you type. What you see is exactly what's in the file. A bar above the keyboard types the markers for you, with undo and redo a tap away. ## Organize Folders, search, and quick note-making, all from one screen. Nothing to set up first. Put "daily" in a folder's name and new notes inside it get today's date as their name. ## No Catch No ads. No subscription. No tracking. No account, ever. Markdown notes. Yours to keep.

About

MD Viewer

Features
Read full description

MD Viewer shows Markdown files as clean, readable documents. READ FIRST Every file opens in reading mode. Headings, lists, quotes, tables, code blocks, links and images are rendered natively with the system fonts, your text size and your accent colour. Text is selectable, links open in your browser, and the layout adapts from a phone to a full Mac window. EDIT WHEN YOU WANT Tap Edit to change the source. In Formatted mode the Markdown is styled as you type, with headings large, emphasis rendered, code monospaced and the syntax dimmed, plus a formatting bar for headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, code, links, images, lists, quotes, code blocks, tables and rules. Prefer the raw source? Text mode is a plain editor. Either way the file stays plain Markdown, saved automatically, with undo. YOUR FILES, WHEREVER THEY ARE Files app, iCloud Drive, Finder, Dropbox and other providers, Share, Open With, drag and drop. Multiple windows on iPad and Mac. Keyboard shortcuts including โ‡งโŒ˜E to toggle editing. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No servers, no analytics, no ads, no tracking. Your documents never leave your device; the only network use is loading images your own document links to. Supports CommonMark plus tables and strikethrough. Requires iOS 17, iPadOS 17 or macOS 14 or later.

Screenshots

smalltype4 screens
MD Viewer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: MD Viewer at 3 against smalltype's 1. MD Viewer also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 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

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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

smalltype ships an update every 5 days, MD Viewer weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
smalltype versus MD Viewer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametersmalltypeMD Viewer
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 5 days โ€” betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac โ€” better
Requires iOS26.017.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size8 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHerman HaidinEnke Solutions LLC

In-app purchases

None

smalltype

No in-app purchases

None

MD Viewer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is smalltype free?
smalltype 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 smalltype or MD Viewer have ads?
Neither smalltype nor MD Viewer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, smalltype or MD Viewer?
smalltype ships an update every 5 days, and MD Viewer weekly. Most recently, smalltype was updated on October 8, 2026 and MD Viewer on September 23, 2026.

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