ghostwriter vs MarkText
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
ghostwriter
Free, open-source Markdown editor from KDE for focused writing
Free
Where they differ
- ghostwriter is free. MarkText is free.
- Only MarkText lists a macOS app.
In commonFree planWindowsLinuxOpen sourceMarkdown
At a glance
| ghostwriter | MarkText | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Starts at | Free | Free |
| Free plan | The whole application is free and open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0. The site invites optional donations to KDE. | The whole application is free and open source under the MIT License, with no account and no subscription. The project asks for optional sponsorship through GitHub Sponsors. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | KDE | Jocs and contributors |
| Price read from | ghostwriter.kde.org | marktext.me |
| Checked | Oct 9, 2026 | Oct 9, 2026 |
Who each one suits
ghostwriter
- Linux and Windows users who want a free Markdown editor
- Writers who draft first and format later
- Bloggers who need clean HTML from Markdown
MarkText
- Writers who want Markdown rendered as they type, without a split preview
- People who want one free editor on macOS, Windows and Linux
- Technical notes with math, code blocks and diagrams
Worth knowing
ghostwriter
- macOS support is unofficial and community-provided: there is no installer, so the app has to be compiled from source.
- The Windows download is offered only as a portable 64-bit build for Windows 10.
- No mobile or web version is listed.
- Export to other formats relies on processors such as Pandoc or MultiMarkdown.
MarkText
- Desktop only: no web, iOS or Android version is offered.
- macOS builds need macOS 11 or later and come as separate Apple Silicon and Intel installers; no universal build is published.
- Windows builds require Windows 10 or 11.
- Export covers PDF and HTML files only.
Key features
ghostwriter
- Live preview
- Shows the Markdown document as HTML beside the editor, tuned to stay responsive on large documents. The HTML can be copied into a blog.
- Focus Mode
- Highlights the text around the cursor and fades the rest. It can be set to highlight the current line, sentence, paragraph or three lines.
- Hemingway Mode
- Disables the backspace and delete keys so that drafting cannot be interrupted by editing, in the manner of a typewriter.
- Outline navigation
- A sidebar outline jumps to any section of the document, in the editor and in the live preview, by mouse or with Ctrl+J and the arrow keys.
- Document and session statistics
- A live word count sits at the bottom of the window, and sidebar tabs show further statistics for the document and the current session.
- Export through Markdown processors
- Exports to other formats using Pandoc, MultiMarkdown or commonmark, and uses Pandoc to render equations with MathJax.
MarkText
- Real-time preview
- Markdown is rendered in place as it is typed, in a single pane with no split view. A source code mode shows the raw Markdown when full control is needed.
- Extended Markdown
- Supports the CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown specs, plus tables, footnotes, KaTeX math, syntax-highlighted code blocks and YAML, TOML or JSON front matter.
- Diagrams
- Flowcharts and charts written in Mermaid, Vega or Vega-Lite are drawn inside the document.
- Themes
- Ships with 33 built-in light and dark themes. Each theme is plain CSS, so one can be copied and adjusted or replaced with a custom stylesheet.
- Focus and typewriter modes
- Focus mode dims everything except the line being written, and typewriter mode keeps that line centered in the window.
- PDF and HTML export
- Exports a document to PDF or to a self-contained HTML file with the chosen theme applied.
Plans
ghostwriter
Free$0
The complete editor at no cost: a portable 64-bit build for Windows 10 and packages for Linux distributions, with source code for other platforms.
MarkText
Free$0
The complete editor for macOS, Windows and Linux, with every feature and theme included and no account required.
