HN Explorer

Show HN: I spent 10 months building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web (markdown.beauty)

1 points by thiagoperes ↗ HN
I've spent the last 10 months building Beauty: a local, powerful greco-roman Markdown editor where the page looks finished while you type. It runs on the Mac, iPhone and in the browser, and the browser version opens without an account: https://app.markdown.beauty

I was frustrated with writing apps, and like most I used Apple Notes. After 2+ years immersed in Cursor, Codex and CC, I wished some interactions existed in a text editor.

The Markdown renders in place as you write it, including tables (which you can drag and resize without lining up pipes), KaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams. A lot of thought went into typography and the writing experience.

Your notes on the Mac are plain .md files in a folder with images next to them, so they open in anything else too. Each note keeps 200 versions. If you share a note with a link it syncs peer to peer over WebRTC while someone has it open, and the server that connects you only ever sees a random room id.

Most of the ~1,000 commits went into the editor itself. It's a contenteditable, and I don't let the browser restructure the document at all, which was a lot more work than I expected. Building this to be performant and cross-platform required some novel approaches, which I'll later open source. The editor is free with no account or ads, and there's an optional subscription for sync through your own iCloud.

https://www.markdown.beauty

50 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 48.9 ms ] thread
KlyX
Hey, I quickly tried your editor and even when the writing experience is the most important thing, I have to admit it looks really lovely! I love the design and how it interacts. That is cool. Maybe you could add some more color options (not everyone likes the newish beige-toned interfaces). Cool that even flowcharts are supported. The only thing I miss in the block options would be a callout and the option to set a color for that callout. So far my first impressions :)
intrr
Amazing project and execution. Makes my IDE's quickly-bolted-on (3 hours) .md support look ridiculous in comparison. Installed as PWA. Thank you!
bernieo
Just tried it!

Hell yeah, someone finally got notes right. I don’t say this lightly, but notes are supposed to be simple, fast and easily retrieved.

Apple Notes doesn’t give us nearly enough. Notion gives way too much. Obsidian is a mess. Craft, AnyType, etc are janky, gimmicky or slow.

You managed to make something simple, local, that gives us exactly the features we need for writing and finding notes and also MCP so I can point my agent to it?! I’d give you a fcking nobel prize for this lol

estetlinus
Yeah, how can Notes be so horrible? Makes me sad when I think about it.
NarcisMirandes
It looks really nice. I definitely will use it.

Many questions come to mind: - What is the revenue model? - What is your personal story? Why you do not explain it in the site?

thiagoperes
There's no revenue model, no clear goal. This app is a creative outlet and a sandbox to try ideas. I added an in-app purchase as a test to see if anyone cares, it would motivate me to keep working on it.

Without the constraints of a usual project, I feel I'll actually work on it for a much longer time.

I didn't add any story or personal background because I didn't think anyone would care, but good idea! In the meantime, you can follow along on x: @thiago_peres

NarcisMirandes
For me the founder is always the most important in any project. It helps to understand all the rest.
nmekala35
the UI looks clean and slick. Nice work!
smokel
This question is somewhat more general than this specific application, but how can an app guarantee that files will remain local, also in future updates of the app?

To put it simply, an automatic update of the app might start uploading the notes to a server. I don't think there is any security boundary in iOS, Android, or any other platform preventing this, right?

Other than that, congratulations on what seems to be a nice app!

hyperhello
What if any other app starts uploading the files too, though?
kccqzy
You have the choice of not doing any automatic updates in iOS. I do it, partly because I want to read the release notes of every app I use, partly because if I like using an app I don’t have the designers to redesign my UI.
bionhoward
Looks epic, id like to connect a Dropbox folder
Jaxan
Can’t you just open a folder inside your Dropbox folders? Then it should just sync, right?

(That’s how I use zettlr, but with nextcloud instead of Dropbox.)

mrwetsnow
What does the "Open Folder" option do? For me it opens a system open dialog, but there is no button to select something. Can I point this at my Obsidian folder and call it a day? If not, is there an easy way to import it?
iAMkenough
Website appears to be vibe coded, with some content overflowing off the screen on mobile with no ability scroll horizontally.
rckt
> I was frustrated with writing apps

Oh my hod… This absolutely AI generated intro.

Jaxan
Indeed, and also:

> and like most I used Apple Notes.

Most people i know that write more then just some notes use obsidian, zettlr, … or one of many other markdown editors.

A comparison with existing apps would be nice.

trollbridge
I must be some kind of dinosaur, but I just write Markdown files with vi (or neovim these days) - or any other suitable text editor.

Wasn't that the whole point of Markdown?

D13Fd
There are a few different types of Markdown apps. Many of them work like Notational Velocity/nvAlt/Obsidian where it's a folder of plain text files, you type in Markdown primarily, and the editor just applies some formatting after the fact, akin to syntax highlighting. IMO its much nicer than looking at just the Markdown, but it also has the advantage of remaining 100% portable text.
cannonpalms
If there is a nice neovim plugin for rendering markdown as you type it, I would love to hear about it.
trollbridge
I have no idea where it came from but my current setup does it nicely.
thiagoperes
Funnily enough, this is the only sentence written by myself. Other parts of the post were written with the help of AI.

Maybe I spent so much time using AI that I started to write like them?

arendtio
The landing page feels very generic. I have seen this exact style on other vibe-coded pages, so you might want to spice it up a little.

However, regarding the editor, I really like it at first glance. I wonder if it is possible to register a PWA as the default app for .md files with KDE...

demibabs
Yeah it looks like a really cool project.

But the landing page is not only obviously ai-generated but also hilariously long. (Like 3 times as long as VS Code’s.)

Maybe I’m wrong on this but does a fancy landing page even have any value in this day and age? Not like it signifies effort anymore…

alxhslm
100% way too long. Such a shame as it looks like a nice product but detracts from credibility.
jamesboehmer
Awesome job, this looks fantastic, and has all of the UX gaps I wish existed in Bear and Obsidian. However, my 2 biggest pain points with those could use addressing, and I would happily pay a high one-time price and upgrade fees over the years if they could be solved: 1. My corporate laptop is locked down, so no apple app store installations. Could this be made into a brew-installable app and licensed another way? 2. Related - every corporate laptop I've had for the last 10 years prohibits app store and icloud storage. So Bear notes (which I subscribed to) can't sync. Obsidian has a sync service, but I don't trust it (would prefer apple or dropbox), but unfortunately the plugin ecosystem is messy and difficult. There is no reliable community-supported plugin for syncing with dropbox on mobile. If you could make syncing with dropbox possible on desktop and mobile, that would be the ultimate gift to the community.
thiagoperes
Beauty is available on web at https://app.markdown.beauty. It has all the features, excluding things that rely on Apple APIs: search using embeddings and icloud sync. The library is stored using IndexDB and you can download the library at any time.

Not ideal, I know, but maybe it gives you a great typing UX at least

well_ackshually
>Secure. Simple. Stoic.

You're writing a markdown editor, stop jerking yourself off, you're not Marc Aurelius.

trollbridge
I, too, am wondering what a "Greco-Roman" editor means, and likewise why the choice of typeface and colour scheme that is the same thing I have to endure when I go to the Trump Accounts website.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
avilay
I am a heavy Typora user and I really like it except when it starts to glitch with longer documents (> 5000 words). How is this different from Typora? To be clear, I think it is ok if it isn't, the world is big enough for multiple markdown editors :-)

Also, what does the term "greco-roman" have anything to do with Markdown editors?

mrwetsnow
"Your notes are a folder Plain Markdown on your own disk — open it anywhere, back it up, walk away with it."

Maybe I misunderstand, but the Notes folder isn't really usable from another app as is. There are no folders and all the md files have machine generated names. It appears you can export the data to get the actual structure, but that, of course, requires the app.

Something like Obsidian (or Typora mentioned below) can just be pointed at a folder and use it as is. Makes using multiple editors simple. Here, for example, there doesn't seem to be a way to use this data on linux.

Do I understand all of this correctly?

Thank you!

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
dewey
That landing page looks like it's straight out of Claude Code (The Serif font is almost a giveaway these days). The interface will not look native on any platform.

There's so many Markdown editors for all platforms, what made you join this crowded niche?

thiagoperes
I wanted to make an app that the world doesn't need another of, because that's my usual day-to-day.

This is another game, my focus is to sweat the details and try new approaches/new tech. I also think most editors don't really do a good job so wanted to build something for myself.

Lastly I wanted to build something silly, there isn't a lot of software that looks like Winamp, this is my small ode to those days.

ananmays
AI slop landing page == not downloading or caring. I would much rather a much simpler and more minimal landing page designed by you with some intention, even if it looks less "professional"
garyrob
I don't immediately see a way to put an outline based on heading levels in the sidebar. For me, that's an absolute requirement, so I'll be sticking with Typora, at least for now...
HaloZero
The ability to change font styles from the keyboarding using / is a nice touch, I wish Apple notes feature had that versus having to memorize a ton of keyboard shortcuts to change different styles.
librasteve
hmmm … I so want to use this … but the webpage buries this

  Is it really free?
  Yes. The editor and local files stay free, with no account   
  required. Beauty Maximus is an optional subscription for 
  keeping a library current across Apple devices and for meeting
  notes that transcribe and summarize on device.
so not free as in open source, nor free as in beer either
thiagoperes
It's free as in: no logins, no servers, everything is local and using open formats, export anytime. Syncing is paid, but if it's a huge detractor I can get you a promo code for a year's worth, just email hi at peres dot pro
librasteve
ok … I’ll play ball. I really like your idea and the demo is very convincing. I already use Apple Notes as my daily driver over Obsidian, Bear and the others because I do not want to pay $$ per month just to sync notes between iPhone and Mac. However, I would much prefer a native md option over whatever proprietary rtf stuff that Notes does. So I am your perfect target user.

Show me a well designed md centric notes taker that uses my own drive, syncs between Apple devices, has no subscription and I am listening.

So I scrolled (and scrolled) through your website to find the pricing section, and finally unearthed your very cryptic note about paying for the power option that allows me to sync. This raises three red flags to me:

  1. it is hidden and is similar to typical trick clauses that many software products vendors play … you reserve the right to hold back a key feature and make it payable

  2. it is cryptic - as you say your product is free on my devices and on web and it is shareable … maybe I can use dropbox to sync, but maybe not … now I have to invest effort to test the limits

  3. nothing prevents you from drawing the line quite high for now, but then playing more and more stuff behind your paywall over time, forgive me but (1) has already lowered my trust in you
Now - thank you for offering me a free subscription for one year … but I don’t want to strand a years’ worth of my notes behind a proprietary paywall. This tells me that (i) your intent is to take my money and (ii) you don’t understand my objection. So no thanks for the free puppy.

So here now, I am out. To get me in, you need to win back my trust. Not easy. But your product is very cool. So I make you a counter offer:

  1. make your product free for ever including synching across the Apple ecosystem to all personal users

  2. look at a product like BBEdit and adopt their freemium model where business users must pay a fair fee and it is enforced via a self declaration or maybe where folk want to collaborate with 3+ colleagues or something (I want you to make money, but I will not pay a subscription for device synching a text editor)

  3. open source your code so I can fork and build myself if you go under a bus

  4. make your policy clear and upfront (a pricing section with free vs paid comparison would be good)
shadowfacts
What on Earth is a “greco-roman Markdown editor” and if I’m not someone who writes RETVRN posts on X, the everything app, why is that a desirable attribute?
0gs
i was very confused by this too. my guess is that it was half-formed stylistic sugar in the original prompt which resulted in a) the statue head graphic b) the word Maximus in the subscription product name. that said, i almost like this move of putting a non sequitur in the opening paragraph and never paying it off.
schainks
So… this is… a word processor?