SoloMD vs MarkText: Two Free Markdown Editors Compared
Both are free and open source. SoloMD is newer, smaller (15 MB vs 90 MB), and adds multi-tab, split view, CJK encoding auto-detect, and a built-in AI / MCP / AutoGit stack. MarkText — after a long dormant stretch — returned to active maintenance in May 2026 (the original author came back and merged the community fork upstream).
At a glance
| SoloMD v4.5 | MarkText | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Installer size | ~15 MB | ~90 MB |
| Built on | Tauri 2 + Vue 3 + CodeMirror 6 | Electron + Vue 2 + Muya |
| Active development | ✅ frequent releases (2026) | ✅ revived May 2026 (orig. author back; fork merged upstream) — dormant 2022–2025 |
| Inline Agent Panel (chat-with-vault) | ✅ v4.0 | ❌ |
| Scheduled agent recipes + AutoGit branch sandbox | ✅ v4.0 | ❌ |
| Replayable agent trace | ✅ v4.0 | ❌ |
| Multi-workspace MCP federation | ✅ v4.0 | ❌ |
| Ollama first-class | ✅ v4.0 | ❌ |
| Local semantic search | ✅ v2.3 · ⌘⇧F · on-device | ❌ |
| WYSIWYG live edit mode | ✅ v2.3 | ✅ (the core feature) |
| AutoGit version history | ✅ v2.2 | ❌ |
| MCP server bundled | ✅ v2.2 | ❌ |
| 14 AI providers, BYOK | ✅ | ❌ |
| Multi-tab | ✅ | ✅ |
| Split view | ✅ any pane | ❌ |
| Live preview | ✅ | ✅ (the core feature) |
| Source mode | ✅ | ✅ |
| File tree sidebar | ✅ | ✅ |
| Outline panel | ✅ with cursor-sync highlight | ✅ |
| Multi-encoding | ✅ UTF-8 / GBK / Big5 / etc auto-detect | ⚠️ UTF-8 |
| Export | HTML · PDF · DOCX · PNG · EPUB · ODT · LaTeX (Pandoc) | HTML · PDF |
| Vim mode | ✅ | ❌ |
| Slideshow / presentation mode | ✅ ⌘⌥P | ❌ |
| CLI tool | ✅ solomd | ❌ |
| Format Markdown (Prettier) | ✅ ⌘⌥L | ❌ |
| Welcome tour | ✅ on first launch | ❌ |
| Command palette | ✅ Ctrl+Shift+K | ❌ |
| iPad / iOS / Android | ✅ App Store (iPad/iOS) + Android | ❌ |
| Clean-AI button | ✅ strips citations / curly quotes / zero-width | ❌ |
When SoloMD wins
- You want the smallest possible install (~15 MB vs 90 MB).
- You want split view — code on one side, preview on the other, synced scroll.
- You want Vim keybindings.
- You work with CJK encodings (SoloMD auto-detects GBK / Big5; MarkText needs manual conversion).
- You want to edit on an iPad.
- You want DOCX export and rich copy-as-image.
When MarkText might win
- You strongly prefer MarkText's specific block-based live preview rendering.
- You already use it and don't want to migrate settings / themes.
Note: MarkText was dormant from late 2022 through 2025, but returned to active maintenance in May 2026 (original author back, community fork merged upstream). Both projects are maintained again as of mid-2026 — pick on features, not liveness.
Why SoloMD is smaller
MarkText is built on Electron — the installer bundles Chromium (~60 MB by itself). SoloMD uses Tauri 2, which embeds the OS's native webview (WKWebView / WebView2 / WebKitGTK). There's no Chromium to ship. The binary is the Rust core + a compact Vue 3 + CodeMirror 6 bundle, totaling around 15 MB installed.
Compatibility
Both read and write the same Markdown flavor — CommonMark + GitHub-Flavored (GFM) + KaTeX math + Mermaid diagrams + front-matter. Your files move between them with no conversion.