Comparison

Marko 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

Marko

Features
Read full description

Marko is a fast, native Markdown reader for iPhone and iPad. Open any .md file and read it the way it was meant to look, with real typography, syntax-highlighted code, GFM tables and task lists, Mermaid diagrams, and KaTeX math. Everything renders on your device with no network access, so your documents never leave it. Marko is a reader, not an editor. It never changes your files. Open Markdown straight from the Files app, or share it in from Mail, Safari, or any other app, and read it full-screen with an outline, find in page, and adjustable text size. It is built for the Markdown you didn't write by hand, too: the .md that AI assistants and coding agents produce, generated READMEs, and agent output. LISTEN TO ANY DOCUMENT Read Aloud speaks the rendered document and highlights each sentence as it goes, so you can follow along or put the phone down. Start anywhere with Read from Here, adjust the speaking rate, and control it from the Lock Screen. Ask Siri to read a document and it starts hands-free. DOCUMENT INTELLIGENCE, ON DEVICE Summarize a long document, ask questions about it, or explain a selected passage. Marko can explain a Mermaid diagram too, reading the diagram itself. All processed on your device with Apple Intelligence. Nothing is sent to a server. (Requires iOS 26 or later on a device with Apple Intelligence. Explaining diagrams requires iOS 27.) TRANSLATE WITHOUT LEAVING THE PAGE Translate a document into another language in place, then switch back to the original. On device, offline, once the language is downloaded. (Requires iOS 26.4 or later.) PICK UP WHERE YOU STOPPED Marko remembers where you were in every document. For documents in iCloud Drive, that position follows you to your other devices, and Handoff moves the document itself between iPhone, iPad, and Mac. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN A Continue Reading widget shows the page you left off on and takes you straight back to it. A Recent Documents widget lists what you have been reading. Spotlight and Shortcuts can find your documents by name. HIGHLIGHTS - Native Swift and SwiftUI app for iPhone and iPad. Not a web app. - Renders fully offline. Your documents never leave your device. - Opens Markdown in place from Files, and via the share sheet from other apps. - Read Aloud with follow-along highlighting and a speaking-rate control. - On-device summarize, ask, and explain, including diagrams. - Outline, find in page, and text zoom. - Light, Dark, and System themes. - The same app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Marko collects no data. It has no analytics, no accounts, and makes no network requests of its own. Free. Requires iOS or iPadOS 18 or later.

About

md Viewer

Features
Read full description

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

Marko4 screens
md Viewer4 screens

Verdict

The call

Marko and md Viewer are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters โ€” price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Marko ships an update every 6 days, md Viewer every 4 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Marko versus md Viewer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMarkomd Viewer
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 6 daysEvery 4 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS18.017.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size19 MB9 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperYash BankaEric Pierre Bertrand

In-app purchases

None

Marko

No in-app purchases

None

md Viewer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Marko free?
Marko 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 Marko or md Viewer have ads?
Neither Marko nor md Viewer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Marko or md Viewer?
Marko ships an update every 6 days, and md Viewer every 4 days. Most recently, Marko was updated on October 31, 2026 and md Viewer on October 31, 2026.

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