UnmarkedOur pick
Pick Unmarked when the Markdown is something you read, present or send, such as a spec, release notes or the plan an agent just wrote. Read and in-place Write are its main surface, and PDF, Word and HTML export are built in, where VS Code has none. Keep VS Code for the repository around the file: Git, diffs, agent review and extensions.
| Question | Unmarked | Visual Studio Code |
|---|---|---|
| Made for | Markdown you read, edit, present and send | Code, and the Markdown that lives beside it in a repository |
| Main view | Read shows the rendered page. Write styles the text in place and shows Markdown marks at the cursor. ⌘E switches | Source editor with a preview beside it or in its place. An experimental Markdown Editor edits the rendered page, with a read-only Locked mode |
| Tables | Edited as a grid: select a range of cells, insert, reorder or align rows and columns, copy as rich text | Pipe syntax in the text editor, drawn in the preview |
| Slides | Present is built in and makes a slide of each H1 or H2 section | Through extensions such as Marp, which turns on with marp: true front matter |
| Export | PDF, Word and self-contained HTML, with typeset math and colored code | None built in. Extensions add it |
| Writing help | Spelling and grammar checking, on by default | Spell checking needs an extension |
| Around the file | A heading outline and a live word count in the status bar | Git, diffs, built-in agents and the extension marketplace |
A preview beside the source, or the page itself
VS Code opens Markdown as source, with a preview beside it or in its place, scrolling in step. The preview draws math with KaTeX and renders Mermaid diagrams without an extension. There is also an experimental Markdown Editor (1.131 and later) that edits the rendered page and has a Locked mode for reading.
Unmarked shows one view at a time and lets it fill the window. Read is the document with no syntax: links open, task boxes check off and save, images zoom. Write keeps the styling while you type, and a Markdown mark shows up only when the cursor reaches it. A fenced block tagged python or swift is colored in both, and spelling and grammar checking is on from the start.
While an agent writes the file
VS Code runs agent sessions with Copilot, Claude and Codex that edit files in your folder. Their changes save straight to disk, and you review them as diffs in the chat, the Agents window or Source Control. When the agent works inside VS Code, that's the place to review it.
Both apps reload a file that changes on disk, whichever program wrote it. In Unmarked the file stays open as a document: leave it in Read and each new version appears a moment after the write.
Tables, slides and exports, built in
In VS Code's text editor a table is pipe text, and the preview shows how it renders. Unmarked edits the table as a grid. Select a rectangle of cells, clear or replace it, cut and paste whole blocks, or add a column from the hover bar. Tables with hundreds of rows open and scroll quickly, and every edit saves back as an ordinary Markdown table that diffs cleanly in Git.
Present puts the file on full screen as slides, one per H1 or H2 section. Export writes a paginated PDF, a Word file with Word heading styles, editable tables and equations, or one self-contained HTML file, and math and colored code come through in each. In VS Code, slides and export come from extensions, such as Marp for slides.
Keep VS Code for the repository
Git, diffs (rendered Markdown diffs included), agent review and the extension marketplace make VS Code the right window when the next step is a commit or a code review. It runs on Windows and Linux as well as the Mac, and like Unmarked it's free.
You can use both on one file. Unmarked opens it from Finder and saves to the same file, so you can read and present a README in Unmarked and commit it from VS Code.
Which one fits your work?
Choose Unmarked if
- You spend more time reading Markdown than committing it.
- You'd rather edit a table as a grid, selecting and pasting whole blocks of cells.
- The file has to become slides, a PDF, a Word document or an HTML page.
- You want spelling and grammar checking as you write, with nothing to install.
Choose Visual Studio Code only if
- The Markdown lives in a repository and the next step is a diff, a commit or a review.
- Your agents run inside VS Code and you review their edits there.