Markdown Prism
A Non-Electron Markdown Editor for macOS
Details
- External ID
- 47015111
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Markdown Prism
- Website domain
- huconn.xyz
- Launched
- Feb. 14, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 5
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.10512129380053908
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
Hi HN,I built a macOS-native Markdown viewer/editor called Markdown Prism.Website: https://prism.huconn.xyzGitHub: https://github.com/hulryung/markdown-prismI originally built this for myself. I wanted a lightweight Markdown viewer on macOS that:wasn’t Electron-basedrendered GFM properlysupported LaTeX math and Mermaid diagramsworked fully offlineMost native apps I tried were either minimal but missing key features (math, diagrams), or full-featured but Electron apps. I wanted something in between — native feel, but with the mature JS Markdown ecosystem.How it worksIt’s a hybrid approach:SwiftUI for the native app shellWKWebView for renderingmarkdown-it, KaTeX, highlight.js, and Mermaid.js bundled locallySo you get native performance and integration (Quick Look, file watching, drag-and-drop), but still benefit from battle-tested JS rendering libraries. Everything is bundled for offline use.FeaturesSplit-pane editor with live preview (400ms debounce)GFM (tables, task lists, strikethrough)LaTeX math via KaTeXMermaid diagram supportSyntax highlighting (190+ languages)Quick Look extension (preview .md in Finder)Dark modeFile watching for external editsInstall via:brew install hulryung/tap/markdown-prismor download the DMG from the website.It’s free and open source (MIT), macOS 14+.Would love feedback — especially from people who use Markdown heavily. What’s missing? What would make this your daily Markdown tool?
Enrichment
- Theme
- markdown editors and writing tools
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- lightweight markdown editor for macos
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Yes Building a native macOS Markdown viewer with CommonMark/GFM rendering and KaTeX/LaTeX support using SwiftUI or AppKit is a classic task well within the capabilities of modern AI coding assistants.
Discussion
3 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: mdserve
Concerns raised: Homebrew cask app name/path incorrect, GFM rendering consistency with tables, task lists, LaTeX, and Mermaid
Feature requests: Sidebar listing MD files with sub-directory support, Filter out folders without MD files in sidebar
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 174 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #167 of 175 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 108 days after the earliest competitor.
- Markdown Reader · ph · 2026-09-26 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.62
- A fast, offline Markdown viewer for macOS built in Swift · hn · 2026-09-22 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.61
- I open-sourced a macOS native Markdown rendering engine · hn · 2026-07-16 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- Markdown Editor and Reader for Mac · hn · 2026-06-07 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- Ferrite · hn · 2026-01-11 · 241 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- Markly · ph · 2026-09-25 · 62 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- Tim's Markdown Reader · ph · 2026-09-22 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web · hn · 2026-09-27 · 69 upvotes · similarity 0.53
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a dev tools tool for Sales yet.