I love writing in Markdown. What I don't love is opening a 200MB+ Electron app just to jot down a note. So I built Markify - a desktop Markdown editor that weighs in at under 10MB and still ships a real feature set.
Why bother
Obsidian is great, but it's heavy, and most of what I actually need day-to-day is simpler: open a file, write, preview, export, done. Every "lightweight" alternative I tried either wasn't actually light, or was missing basics like PDF export or a proper file explorer. So I built the tool I wanted.
What's in it
-
Open & save
.md,.markdown,.mdxfiles with native dialogs - Sidebar file explorer - browse a whole folder, expand subfolders on demand, just like VS Code
- Three view modes: Read, Edit, and Hybrid (live side-by-side preview)
- PDF export with embedded images and proper Unicode font handling
- Light/dark theme that follows your system in real time
- 4 languages out of the box: English, French, German, Spanish
- Native title bar per platform (real traffic lights on macOS, custom controls on Windows/Linux)
The stack
Angular 22 (with Signals) on the frontend, Rust on the backend, glued together with Tauri 2. That combo is exactly why the app stays small - no bundled Chromium, no Node runtime shipped, just the OS's native webview. 82 unit tests (Vitest) keep the core services honest.
Everything is open source, AGPL-3.0: github.com/Martzcode/Markify
Markdown is basically AI's native language now
Here's the other reason this project felt worth building right now: every LLM defaults to Markdown. Ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot for anything structured and you get headers, bullet lists, code fences, bold text - Markdown, every time. It's become the de facto output format for AI because it's plain text, unambiguous to parse, and renders cleanly almost everywhere.
That shift changes what a Markdown editor needs to be good at:
- Copy-pasting AI output should just work - no reformatting, no broken tables, no mangled code blocks
- Code block rendering with copy buttons matters more than ever, since so much AI output is code or config snippets
- A fast, native app means you're not fighting a bloated Electron shell while pasting in a 2000-word AI-generated draft
I didn't build Markify for AI specifically, but the fact that AI assistants "think" in Markdown is part of why a fast, no-friction Markdown editor is more useful today than it was five years ago. Your notes app is increasingly also your AI-output landing zone.
Where you can get it
It's live on the Microsoft Store: apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n8tw7bf69ng - if you're on Windows, an install (or even just a rating) genuinely helps visibility.
macOS and Linux builds (.dmg, .deb, .rpm) are on the GitHub releases page. I'm currently working on getting Markify into official Linux repositories (Flathub is the top candidate) - if you've done that before and have tips, I'd love to hear them in the comments.
More of my work: martzcode.vercel.app
Feedback, issues, and stars are all welcome.
Top comments (7)
You buried the Microsoft Store listing under "Where you can get it", at the bottom. That's the part that separates this from the pile - most "I built a lighter X" posts end at a GitHub link, and you went through store certification and shipped .dmg, .deb and .rpm on top of it. The Markdown-is-AI's-native-format section is a good argument, but the distribution is the proof.
Wrote you a launch post, free, use it or bin it:
"Markify is a desktop Markdown editor under 10MB. Angular 22 and Rust on Tauri 2, so there's no bundled Chromium and no Node runtime shipped - it uses the OS webview. Read, edit, or hybrid with live side-by-side preview; PDF export with embedded images and proper Unicode fonts; a folder-tree file explorer; light and dark following the system; English, French, German and Spanish. 82 unit tests. AGPL-3.0, on the Microsoft Store now, with .dmg, .deb and .rpm on GitHub releases."
Full disclosure so it isn't strange: I build a tool that writes these. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to click - the post is yours either way.
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
I completely agree about the distribution point. Getting through Store certification and shipping .dmg, .deb and .rpm builds took quite a bit of work, and I probably didn't give that enough visibility in the original post.
I'm still pretty new to launching and promoting my own projects, so visibility is actually what I'm working on right now. Your feedback is really helpful for figuring out how to present Markify better.
And thanks for writing the launch post, I really like the positioning and will definitely keep it in mind for future posts.
Appreciate the transparency about your tool as well. The feedback is valuable either way!
Glad it was useful. Two things, and no is a completely fine answer to both.
One - can I publish that post from @loudifyai and tag you? It doesn't stop you using it for your own launch later, it's yours regardless. Straight answer on what it's worth: the account has almost no followers, so it buys you very little today. It's me building the thing I keep telling other people to build, in public, and your name is on it either way.
Two - if you do post it and anything comes of it, tell me. One line I can quote is worth more to me than the hour it took to write, because right now I have the work and none of the proof.
And on the visibility problem, since you said that's what you're working on: the distribution story is your angle, not a footnote. Most "I built a lighter X" posts stop at a GitHub link. You went through Store certification and shipped .dmg, .deb and .rpm. Open with that next time instead of closing with it.
Either way the post is yours and nothing changes.
Yeah, why not! Feel free to publish it and tag me. And absolutely, if anything comes from it, I’ll let you know.
Thanks for the advice on the visibility side too. I’ll definitely keep the distribution story more upfront next time.
Thanks - I'll post it this week. What's your handle on X so the tag actually lands? If you're not on X, say so and I'll tag your GitHub in the text instead.
Thanks! I'm not on X at the moment, so tagging my GitHub would be great for now.
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