A vast compilation of great writing apps and word processors, for all your writing needs. From office suites to publishing tools. Now with an emphasis on privacy.
Free and open-source office suite with advanced word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, vector graphics, math formula editor, and database tools.
My favorite word processor. FOSS. The Android app is not very good, however.
Open-source suite for editing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and PDF files with co-editing modes, plugin support, AI assistant, and integration across 40+ platforms.
ONLYOFFICE is an opensource office and productivity suite that enables you to manage documents, projects, team and customer relations in one place.
Open source note-taking app with Markdown support, to-do integration, and synchronization with cloud services like Dropbox and OneDrive.
Whether it's bookmarks or passwords, files or shopping lists...Turtl organizes it all and makes it easy to find later. Sync across your devices. Leave nothing behind.
A cross-platform Markdown editor providing real-time preview, Focus & Typewriter modes, and support for multiple export formats.
Both minimalistic and feature packed.
Markdown editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux with real-time preview and distraction-free interface. Open source, free on GitHub, supports various Markdown specs.
Comprehensive writing tool for notes, citations, and drafting with privacy-first features and multi-language support, perfect for diverse writing tasks.
ghostwriter is a feature-rich text editor using Markdown syntax which makes it suitable for note-taking, document redaction, simple HTML website creation and much more.
Writemonkey is a Windows zenware writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words.
"Zenware" writing app.
Focus on your words not the interface. Quoll Writer is a writing application that helps you focus on your words. Clean and uncluttered. Feature rich. Features are where you would expect them to be.
One-man software, filled with unique features and creative ideas.
Organize chapters, scenes, characters, and locations within a structured workspace for novel planning, timeline creation, notes, analytics, export, and syncing.
Helpful for novel writing, allows for character descriptions and helpful sorting.
yWriter is a writing tool that uses "scenes" as a unit of text and allows you to associate that text with all manner of story elements (characters, locations, items) as well as place it and rearrange it within the context of chapters.
Perfect for breaking down your novels and organizing plot ideas.
Ideal for long writing projects with flexibility in structure, Scrivener integrates easy project outlines and allows seamless restructuring with drag and drop.
Aimed at novel authors, Scrivener is know for being resourceful and reliable.
Open-source writing tool with hierarchical outliner, distraction-free editor, character management, plot development, Snowflake method, and writing goal support.
Feature-packed and distraction-free outliner and novel assistant.
Boost Note is a document driven project management tool that maximizes remote DevOps team velocity
TheRightMargin is a smart writing tool.
TheRightMargin uses a goal-driven approach to help users finish what they write with smart suggestions, project goal breakdown, a visually delightful timeline and a beautiful writing space.
Focused on blogging, time tracking, writing prompts and encouragment.
CryptPad is a private-by-design alternative to popular office tools and cloud services. All the content stored on CryptPad is encrypted before being sent, which means nobody can access your data unless you give them the keys.
Etherpad is a highly customizable Open Source online editor providing collaborative editing in really real-time.
Collaborative writer.
Streamline teamwork with real-time collaboration, drag-and-drop content organization, and visual simplicity across notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.
Docs with real-time collaboration and simple formatting.
Designed for creative writers, JotterPad is a plain text editor without the fuss and distraction of a word processor. It is perfect for writing books, novels, lyrics, poems, essays, drafts and screenplays.
Best writing app on Android, hands down. Totally worth the full-version purchase.
An AI-powered proofreading tool supports over 20 languages, offering free and premium versions with extensive grammar checks across multiple apps.
Free proofreading tool, perfect partner in crime for LibreOffice!
Typely is precise. Existing tools for improving prose raise so many false alarms that their advice cannot be trusted. Instead, the writer must carefully consider whether to accept or reject each change.
Online proofreading software.
Highlights common mistakes and aims at making your writing bold and clear.
Reedsy allows authors to find and work with the best publishing professionals: from developmental editors to book cover designers, publicists and translators. Reedsy also provides a powerful and elegant editor, a beautiful production tool that takes care of the formatting and...
Gets professionals together and helps authors publish their books.
GitBook is a tool for building beautiful books using Git and Markdown. It can generate your book into multiple formats:
Write, collaborate and publish books.
Write, collaborate and publish books.
Nimble Writer is a general-purpose tool for writing stories, be it short fiction stories or even complete novels or books. It focuses on being distraction-free, simple, and fully customizable.
Interesting acquisition on Steam, and those achievements are a fine productivity boost!
Trelby is simple, fast and elegantly laid out to make screenwriting simple. It is infinitely configurable.
KIT Scenarist is a free and open source application for creating screenplays on desktops and commercial on mobiles.
Gingko Writer is a text editor that uses a tree-like structure to help you organize and visualize your thoughts, making it easier to outline, draft, and refine complex texts.
To organize your ideas. *
Simple but configurable and themeable, distraction-free text editor for writers. Open-source and available across desktop platforms.
Immersive and clean word processor, to simply get stuff done.
Comments
You should also add Standard Notes
Some comments / suggestions
WPS:
Closed source and Chinese. You have to ask why they're offering their product for "free". That makes me suspicious enough not to want to install their software on my PC. Plenty of other Freemium software from China has proved insecure / privacy-invading (e.g. Maxthon). Libre Office is preferable in all regards and Only Office covers more ground for Microsoft compatibility.
Notion:
No Android app (what are they smoking?) and the pricing is very high if you're just one person.
Typora vs Mark Text:
Typora is nice, but will be free only during beta. For a similar open source app, see Mark Text. Another one to check out is Ghostwriter.
If you rely on a service to store your data, you should know that they can read your stuff if they don't use "zero-knowledge" or "end-to-end" encryption. Without this, they can also be forced to give your data up to government surverillance programs and your information is readable to any hackers that manage to breach the servers on which your stuff is stored. Here are some suggestions for writing apps that offer encryption and therefore cannot read or give away your data.
Collaboration + Encryption?
See Cryptpad. Open source, of course.
Encrypted html-based text editor
Try Airborn. It looks like Word, but it saves your stuff in .html format. Open source, as always.
[Edited by JohnFastman, April 30]
[Edited by JohnFastman, April 30]
John, thanks for your comment. Sorry it took me so long to update my list, but it now reflects your suggestions.
Fantastic! A delightful and productive list to stumble on. Thank you so very much..
Hey, no problem! Glad it was useful to you. (:
I should actually add a few more entries to it...