Use case · offline / privacy
Fully offline, no account, no sign-up, no server holding your documents. Markd.ly is built exactly for that. This is the honest version: what that buys you, and what you give up by choosing a tool with no cloud at all.
Mac · Windows · one license, both desktops · lifetime $19 launch / $29 retail
Markd.ly reads and writes plain .md files in folders you choose. There is no vault, no proprietary database, no sync container, and no “export to get your data out” step — your documents were always ordinary files. Open them in Markd.ly today, in any other editor tomorrow, in cat from a terminal next year. Nothing about Markd.ly's storage model can strand your work, because Markd.ly's storage model is just your filesystem.
The core job — create, edit, save markdown — requires no account and no network. There is no sign-up wall, no email gate, and no telemetry requirement to start writing. Markd.ly Free does this on Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android. A paid Pro license (one-time, desktop-only) unlocks deeper tools but is still a local activation — Pro doesn't add a cloud, it adds editor power.
Because the editor never depends on a server for the core job, it works the same on a plane, on a train with no signal, or on a machine that has never touched the internet. Live preview, Mermaid, and KaTeX render locally. On Mac, the CLI render path and read-only MCP access run locally too. None of it phones home to function.
No sync
Your files do not follow you between devices automatically. None at all. If automatic device-to-device sync is a requirement, a no-cloud editor is the wrong category and you should pick a synced one instead — that is the honest answer.
No web access
There is no browser version and no “open my docs from any computer.”
No paid mobile tier
Mobile is a free local editor only. It is not a synced companion, by design.
No backup service
Backups are your filesystem's job (Time Machine, a synced folder you control, version control — your call). Markd.ly doesn't run one.
These are not missing features we plan to add to fix this page later. They are what “no cloud” actually means, and they are the price of the privacy and permanence that brought you here.
People who want their writing on their own disk and nowhere else. Anyone working under air-gapped, regulated, or zero-telemetry constraints. Writers who have been burned by a cloud editor that lost, locked, or held their notes hostage.
If you genuinely need your documents synced across devices without manual file-moving, a cloud-synced editor is the correct tool. Markd.ly will frustrate you. That is a real fit problem, not a Markd.ly flaw to talk you out of.
Native Mac & Windows editor, fully offline, no account. Free tier is a complete editor; Pro is one-time, lifetime $19 launch / $29 retail.
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