Both apps believe in focus. But iA Writer focuses through reduction — stripping everything away until only the text remains. Lettera focuses through sensation — adding texture, weight, and the rhythm of a carriage return.
iA Writer is one of the most respected writing apps ever made. It pioneered the idea that less interface means better writing, and it's still the benchmark for clean, Markdown-native composition. If you're looking at Lettera and iA Writer side by side, you already have good taste. Here's where they diverge.
iA Writer is a Markdown editor that believes the best writing environment is an invisible one. Its design language is Swiss — precise, restrained, typographically perfect. The custom Mono and Duo fonts are some of the best writing fonts ever designed. Focus Mode dims everything but the current sentence. Style Check flags filler words. It's a tool that teaches you to write better by quietly enforcing discipline.
Lettera is a typewriter simulator that believes the best writing environment is one you can feel. The page has a paper texture. The cursor follows a carriage that moves left as you type and snaps back when you press Enter. There's a mode where backspace doesn't delete — it strikes through, leaving your mistakes visible on the page. Lettera doesn't teach discipline. It offers resistance, and some writers find that the resistance itself is the point.
| Lettera | iA Writer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 (14-day free trial) | $29.99 per platform |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Typewriter carriage | ✓ | — |
| No-delete mode | ✓ (Purist Mode) | — |
| Paper textures | ✓ | — |
| Focus mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Markdown support | — | ✓ (native) |
| Style check / writing analysis | — | ✓ |
| Chapter management | ✓ | — |
| Per-chapter notes | ✓ (the Drawer) | — |
| Daily writing goals | ✓ (Paper Trail) | — |
| AI content detection | — | ✓ (Authorship) |
| Export formats | PDF, Word, Markdown, TXT | PDF, Word, HTML, Markdown, and more |
| Local files only | ✓ | ✓ |
| Account required | No | No |
| Mobile app | — | ✓ |
| AI writing features | No. The words are yours. | No — but tracks AI-written text (Authorship) |
If Markdown is central to your workflow — if you publish to a CMS, write documentation, or want your formatting to live in the text itself — iA Writer is one of the best tools for the job. Its Markdown rendering is flawless, and Content Blocks let you embed files and images directly in your writing flow.
iA Writer also has mobile apps for iOS and Android, which Lettera does not. If writing on your phone or tablet matters, iA Writer covers every platform. And the Authorship feature, which visually marks AI-generated or pasted content in a different color, is genuinely novel — useful for any writer navigating the current landscape.
The Style Check is worth mentioning too. It quietly highlights filler words, clichés, and redundancies as you type. For writers who want a tool that gently tightens their prose, it's a real feature, not a gimmick.
iA Writer gives you a blank page with beautiful typography and gets out of the way. That's its entire thesis, and it executes on it better than almost anything. But some writers don't want the tool to disappear. They want it to push back.
Lettera's carriage movement means the page is always in motion as you type. It's subtle, but it changes how writing feels on a screen — it gives the act of typing a physicality that a static cursor never will. Purist Mode goes further: the backspace key becomes a strikethrough key, undo is disabled, and you write forward. These aren't productivity features. They're constraints that some writers find freeing.
Lettera also has chapter management, per-chapter notes in the Drawer, and Paper Trail — a daily writing heatmap that tracks your consistency over time. iA Writer doesn't track your writing habits or organize long projects into chapters. For novelists or anyone working on something with structure, that difference matters.
And Lettera costs $29 after the 14-day free trial — a one-time purchase. iA Writer costs $29.99 per platform — so $59.98 if you want it on both Mac and Windows. Still, Lettera is less expensive on both counts and never costs more.
The best writing environment is invisible. Remove every distraction, perfect the typography, and trust that a clean page leads to clearer thinking.
The best writing environment is one you can feel. The page should have grain. The keys should have consequence. Sometimes the most productive thing a writing tool can do is slow you down.
iA Writer is a window you look through. Lettera is a desk you sit at. Both are good places to write — but they're different kinds of places.
Absolutely. They don't overlap much. You might draft in Lettera when you want the resistance and rhythm of Purist Mode, then move to iA Writer for editing, where the Style Check and Markdown tools help you clean and format the text. Or you might use iA Writer for short-form work — blog posts, articles, documentation — and Lettera for the long sit-down sessions where a novel chapter needs to come out of you in one go. Different moods, different tools.
iA Writer is a masterclass in reduction. It's the writing app for people who want nothing between them and the text. Lettera is for writers who want something between them and the text — texture, motion, resistance — because that something makes the writing feel more real. If you've used iA Writer and loved it, you might not need Lettera. But if you've used iA Writer and felt like something was missing — something you couldn't quite name — that might be what Lettera was built for.
Free 14-day trial for macOS and Windows. No account required.
Lettera — a quiet place to write.