All Markdown vs Dillinger
Dillinger is a long-running open-source Markdown editor that runs in the browser, with a split editor and preview and optional linking to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and GitHub.
| All Markdown | Dillinger | |
|---|---|---|
| Where documents are processed | In the browser tab, always | In the browser, with some operations and integrations going through servers |
| Account required | None, ever | None to write; an account with the storage provider to sync |
| Cloud storage links | None by design | Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, GitHub |
| Export formats | PDF, Word .docx, standalone HTML, Markdown, rich text | Markdown, HTML, PDF, styled HTML |
| Import and convert | .docx, .html, PDF and pasted rich text convert to Markdown | Markdown files and linked cloud documents |
| Multiple documents | Tabs, autosaved locally | One document at a time, plus documents in linked storage |
| Works offline | Yes, and installable as an app | Needs the site loaded; integrations need the network |
| Open source | No | Yes, self-hostable |
What these two are for
Both are Markdown editors you open in a browser tab. Both give you the source on one side and a rendered preview on the other. The difference is not the editing — it is what happens to the document.
Dillinger is built around linking your writing to storage you already have: Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, GitHub. That is genuinely useful, and it means the document travels through services.
All Markdown is built around the opposite promise: the document never leaves the tab. There are no accounts to connect, so there is nothing to connect it to. The trade is real, and which side of it you want depends entirely on the document.
Where Dillinger is the better choice
- You keep your Markdown in cloud storage and want to edit it in place
- You want to run the editor on your own server
- You have used it for years and the muscle memory is worth more than anything on this page
Where this one is
- The document is confidential, and "processed in the browser" needs to be literally true
- You are converting Word or PDF files rather than writing from scratch
- You want several documents open at once, restored when you come back
- You are on a plane, a train, or a network you do not trust
What Dillinger does better
- Dillinger connects to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and GitHub, so a document can be pulled from and pushed back to a cloud account you already use. All Markdown has no accounts of any kind, which is the whole point of it and also a real limitation.
- Dillinger is open source and self-hostable. If you want to run a Markdown editor on your own infrastructure and audit every line of it, that option exists there and does not here.
- Dillinger's interface has been essentially unchanged for years, which matters more than it sounds — people who have used it since 2014 know exactly where everything is.
What All Markdown does better
- Nothing is uploaded. Dillinger renders through its own server for some operations and links to third-party storage for others; here the document is parsed, rendered and exported by JavaScript in the tab, and the network is never touched.
- Conversion in both directions. Word, PDF, HTML and rich text come out, and .docx, .html and pasted rich text go in — all of it locally, none of it needing a service.
- Multiple documents at once, in tabs, autosaved to this browser and restored when you come back.
- It works with no network at all once loaded, and can be installed as an app that opens .md files from the desktop.
Which to choose
Pick Dillinger if you want your Markdown sitting in Dropbox or a GitHub repo and you are happy for a service to broker that. Pick All Markdown if the document is the sensitive part — a contract, a draft, an internal memo, a document you simply do not want in someone else's storage — or if you need to turn Word files into Markdown and back without uploading them. They are answers to two genuinely different questions, and the answer to "which is faster to open and start typing in" is neither: both are one page load.
Common questions
- Is All Markdown a drop-in replacement for Dillinger?
- For writing, previewing and exporting, yes — both give you a split editor with a live preview and export to the usual formats. It is not a replacement if you rely on Dillinger's Dropbox, Drive, OneDrive or GitHub links, because All Markdown deliberately has no cloud connections at all.
- Does All Markdown send my document anywhere?
- No. There is no upload, no account and no server-side rendering. Everything — parsing, preview, PDF, Word, HTML — happens in JavaScript in the tab you have open, which is why it keeps working with the network switched off.
- Can I import a document I already have in Dillinger?
- Yes. Copy the Markdown out of Dillinger and paste it in, or export it as a .md file from Dillinger and drop that file anywhere on the page. Nothing is transmitted when you do either.
- Which one handles Word documents better?
- All Markdown converts both directions — drop a .docx in and get Markdown, or export Markdown as a real .docx that opens in Word, Pages, LibreOffice and Google Docs. Dillinger is focused on Markdown itself rather than Office formats.
- Is Dillinger still maintained?
- Dillinger is an established open-source project and its source is public, so its activity is visible on its repository. Its long-standing interface is one of the reasons people stay with it. Check the project directly rather than trusting any comparison page — including this one — on how current it is.
Written from public information about Dillinger and from using it. Features change; if something here is out of date, the other project's own documentation is the authority, not this page.