Software Alternatives & Reviews

FocusWriter VS Zettlr

Compare FocusWriter VS Zettlr and see what are their differences

FocusWriter logo FocusWriter

FocusWriter is a fullscreen, distraction-free word processor designed to immerse you as much as...

Zettlr logo Zettlr

Write Markdown documents with a comprehensive GUI and many workflow/time management tools.
  • FocusWriter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18
  • Zettlr Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30

FocusWriter videos

Focuswriter Review

More videos:

  • Review - FocusWriter - App Reviews
  • Review - Writing Software - FocusWriter

Zettlr videos

Meet Zettlr, your all-in-one companion for writing #Markdown

More videos:

  • Review - Zettlr Introduction: Getting Started
  • Review - Citing with Zettlr

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to FocusWriter and Zettlr)
Markdown Editor
65 65%
35% 35
Note Taking
0 0%
100% 100
Text Editors
64 64%
36% 36
Writing Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare FocusWriter and Zettlr

FocusWriter Reviews

11 Best Scrivener Alternatives
Scrivener may be more complicated than FocusWriter, but if you want simplicity or minimalism, FocusWriter is worth considering. There are no elaborate formatting options or research notes to tinker around with so all you do is write.

Zettlr Reviews

Best Next-Level Note Apps for 2021
Zettlr is simply an open-source Markdown editor. The system authorizes various citation formats, includes theme customization and writing statistics, as well as supporting the Zettelkasten method. File and tag management permits user-friendly note organization. Noteworthy of Mem is that the app is available in 14 languages and notes can be exported in 40 different formats.
Source: zenkit.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, FocusWriter should be more popular than Zettlr. It has been mentiond 25 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

FocusWriter mentions (25)

  • Ensō: write now, edit later
    Reminds me of the (dead) RoughDraft mac app by 43 Folders(?). There is also FocusWriter - opensource and multi-platform. https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • A collection of useful Mac Apps
    FocusWriter - Price: Free Distraction-free writing app for Mac that allows you to focus on your writing. Source: 10 months ago
  • What do you people write on?
    You can get it here: https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/. Source: 10 months ago
  • Is there an app to keep track of all the details when writing a story?
    Also, if you're kinda of an indie author, try Bibisco or Focuswriter. Source: 11 months ago
  • is there a computer that can only run word a processor
    If you have a spare laptop, I recommend just disabling the Internet altogether. But before then, install a program called FocusWriter - it goes full screen. Or instead of the spare computer idea, maybe create a new user account on your computer maybe called Writing, install FocusWriter and have it launch on startup, and disable that account's Internet. Source: 12 months ago
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Zettlr mentions (10)

  • Zettlr in the fediverse and on matrix?
    Oh! That's nice. :D Is this mentioned on zettlr.com? Seems as if I've missed it... Source: about 1 year ago
  • Suggestion for open source note taking app
    I'd strongly recommend trying out Zettlr (https://zettlr.com), which in many ways is close to Obsidian (except Zettlr is open source). A new Zettlr release is close to arriving and implements lots of improvements. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Scrivener alternatives for academic writing and research?
    You might give Zettlr a spin. It's another Markdown-based tool like Obsidian, but it is really focussed on Zettelkasten, and of interest to you, with a stronger focus on long-form academic writing. It supports citations, footnotes and uses Pandoc for document production—so there are lots of ways to get your work out. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Any open source markdown editor having live preview like Typora?
    Is https://zettlr.com an option for you? Source: about 2 years ago
  • Typora alternative? (or any desktop Markdown editor with export to PDF?)
    Zettlr is open source and has export-to-PDF. Source: about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing FocusWriter and Zettlr, you can also consider the following products

Scrivener - Scrivener is a content-generation tool for composing and structuring documents.

Obsidian.md - A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.

iA Writer - Minimal Design, Maximum Focus

Joplin - Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.

Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.

Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.