Marko vs PreviewMD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Marko
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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.
PreviewMD
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PreviewMD is a fast, native editor and viewer for Markdown on iPad and iPhone โ the same rendering as the Mac app, free on both. Open any .md file from Files or iCloud Drive, or start a new document right in the built-in browser. FOUR WAYS TO WORK โข Preview โ a clean reading view โข Split โ live preview beside the Markdown source, side by side on iPad and stacked on iPhone โข Source โ the Markdown alone, full width โข Diff โ see exactly what you've changed since you opened the file, word by word BEAUTIFUL RENDERING โข GitHub-flavored Markdown: tables, task lists, footnotes and strikethrough โข Syntax highlighting for almost two hundred languages โข Math typesetting with KaTeX โ $inline$ and $$display$$ โข Diagrams with Mermaid โ flowcharts, sequence, class, state, pie and gantt โข GitHub-style alert callouts (> [!NOTE], [!WARNING], โฆ) and emoji โข Automatic light and dark mode WRITING ON A TOUCHSCREEN A formatting bar sits above the keyboard for bold, italic, inline code, headings, quotes, lists and links. With a hardware keyboard the same actions have shortcuts. YOUR DOCUMENTS, YOUR IMAGES Works with the Files app and iCloud Drive โ documents open in place and save as you type, with no Save button to remember. Local images referenced by your document display right in the preview. EXPORT, SHARE & PRINT Export self-contained HTML or clean light-mode PDF straight to the share sheet, or print with proper pagination. QUICK LOOK Markdown files preview with PreviewMD's renderer in the Files app too. ONE APP EVERYWHERE Free on Mac as well โ including Quick Look previews and thumbnails in Finder. Requires iOS/iPadOS 17 or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
Marko and PreviewMD are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters โ price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Marko | PreviewMD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days | โ |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yash Banka | Michal Fanta |
In-app purchases
Marko
No in-app purchases
PreviewMD
No in-app purchases








