The best Typora alternatives for Mac

Typora is a Markdown editor with no preview pane: you type Markdown and it turns into headings, lists and tables in place. It works on .md files wherever you keep them, with a file tree, a file list and an outline beside the text, and you sync them yourself with Dropbox or iCloud if you like.

For technical writing it's hard to beat at the price. Math is MathJax with most extensions, AMSmath and mhchem for chemistry included, and equations can be numbered automatically. It draws Mermaid, flowchart and sequence diagrams, and exports to PDF with bookmarks, Word, OpenOffice, LaTeX, MediaWiki and ePub. On typora.io it's $14.99 once for up to 3 devices, on Mac, Windows and Linux, after a 15-day trial.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Every fact about another app comes from its own site or App Store page, checked October 21, 2026. We didn't run tests. And up front: on equations and export formats, Typora does more than Koi.

Typora is an editor for files, with a file tree and a file list, not a notes library. It has no phone app and no sync of its own, so people with hundreds of notes often want more organisation. It has no AI and no voice. And everything is Markdown, so a table with formulas or a chart drawn from numbers isn't something it does.

From each app's own site, checked October 21, 2026.

• Equations: Typora, with numbering and MathJax extensions. Both draw LaTeX in place.
• Export: Typora adds LaTeX, ePub and more. Both export Word and PDF; Koi on the paper size you pick.
• Tables: Koi's have spreadsheet formulas, colours and column totals. Typora's are Markdown tables.
• Charts and diagrams: Koi draws charts from a table. Typora draws diagrams from Mermaid code.
• Voice: Koi dictates offline in any app and records calls into pages. Typora has none.
• Files: Typora edits .md files in place. Koi exports them on demand.
• Price: Typora is $14.99 once for 3 devices. Koi is $192 a year, or Lifetime once.

1. Find the .md file in Finder. Typora saves straight to it, so there's nothing to export.
2. In Koi, choose File, then Import…, and pick it. Koi makes a page of its words, read on your Mac.
3. Check equations and tables on the page. Diagrams written in Mermaid aren't drawn in Koi.

Import takes one file at a time. If you live in a folder of hundreds of .md files, Obsidian is the easier move.

This is the part Typora can't do, so here's exactly how it works in Koi:

1. In a page, type /table. Tab and Return move between cells, and you can paste a spreadsheet straight in.
2. Start a cell with = for a formula, like =SUM(B2:B4), the way a spreadsheet does.
3. Type /chart for a chart. Pick its kind from the pill on it: bar, line, area, pie, donut, scatter, heatmap, radar and more.
4. Change the numbers in its Data table, which opens under the chart, and the chart follows. Labels writes the numbers on the chart.
5. Export the page to Word or PDF and the chart comes out as drawn, or save the chart alone as a PNG from its download pill.

In Markdown, a chart is kept as its data table, so the numbers stay readable in any other app.

• Your files, organised and linked, free? Obsidian.
• Focused writing with a phone app? iA Writer.
• Papers with Zotero citations, free? Zettlr.
• Markdown notes on iPhone too? Bear.
• Long writing and publishing? Ulysses.
• Rich pages with formulas and charts, plus dictation and recorded calls, on one Mac? Koi.

For math in notes, see the best notes apps with LaTeX for Mac. Koi's plans are on the pricing page.