MarkText
FreeA free, open-source Markdown editor with real-time preview and a clean interface
An MIT-licensed cross-platform Markdown editor with real-time WYSIWYG preview and source / typewriter / focus modes. Supports CommonMark, GFM and part of Pandoc Markdown, with KaTeX math, table editing, clipboard image paste, and HTML / PDF export. No account required.
Why we picked it
MarkText is the most solid pick in the free and open-source camp. MIT-licensed, 60,007 stars on GitHub, with a clean interface and smooth real-time preview that needs almost no configuration.
It was widely rumoured to be abandoned. It isn't: v0.19.1 shipped in June 2026, and commits were still landing at the end of July.
The one thing to weigh is size. It's built on Electron, so each install carries its own copy of Chromium — 106 MB on Windows, 121 MB on macOS. Editors built on Tauri are typically a tenth of that. If the footprint matters to you, look at lighter options; if it doesn't, MarkText is the kind of tool you install once and keep.