Runestone Text Editor App Reviews

Easy to use text editor. Great editor for programming and markdown.

Perfect for me!. I rarely write review, but this app deserves it. Like others, I’ve tried several other editors, Coda, Koder, Textastic, etc. none of them really worked for me. Then I stumbled over Runestone. It took less than 5 minutes before I purchased the premium version. It does everything I need, is fast, has a super clean interface, is easy to use, and actually works. It’s the perfect editor for me.

ssh sftp. If add ssh for edit server file, I will pay

Exactly what I needed. I wanted to be able to edit notes I store in iCloud from my phone without having to download a whole thing or wrestle with a custom file format that I can’t edit anywhere else. This app does exactly that and it does it well. Haven’t encountered any major bugs while using it and I love how straightforward it is.

so bad. After updating to the new version, it's really hard to use. Devices with iOS 18 are lagging a lot and getting really hot, especially with this new feature. It's just not practical. Could you let users choose whether to display the quick create interface when reopening? This feature feels pretty unnecessary in many situations.

Excellent Native Coding Experience!. Without the lag from network latency to development containers… well done, please protect the DX on iPadOS.

Outstanding Editor. If you are a VoiceOver user like I am and on iOS 17.4.1, there is one small problem when punctuation is set to anything but all under VoiceOver, verbosity. When walking through a text file line by line, VoiceOver fails to include the last character of every line whether or not the last character is punctuation. Setting verbosity for punctuation to all correctly identifies every character on the line. This editor is quick! A few of the others I've tested that are supposed to work with VoiceOver are so slow they are completely useless. I'm using this editor to write LaTeX documents and it works very well.

Just get it already. If you’re looking, you know what it is and I’ll tell you it is worth it. Even without premium it’s a great text/markdown editor. If you use it even a couple times a week the premium update is worth it and reasonable for what you get (my opinion of course).

No way to open folders?. I did not see a way to open folders from iCloud Drive?

Irritating. Selecting text especially select all is impossible

Simon. Have questions plz contact me direct thanks

My new text editor. I have used pretext as my simple text editor for years. But it has a few limitations and is no longer being updated. I have tried quite a few alternatives but they were either poorly implemented or overkill for my desired use I continued searching and recently discovered Runestone. I find it to be very well constructed and the design intuitive. So far, I have not encountered any deficiencies or problems while using it. The basic free version is very functional and has no pop up adverts pushing for upgrade. The premium version has a few features that are worthwhile for me .. so I upgraded. This is now my preferred simple text editor

A great, modern lightweight text editor. Runestone definitely exceeds the expectations of being a lightweight text editor for iPad and iPhone. With its modern design an architecture, the app feels right at home with tons of other iPadOS apps while packing a rich feature set that’s come in handy in the few times I’ve used the app. The Premium package is definitely worth the price and extends Runestone further to how I like my editing tools. It’s a strong contender against the editor I’ve used for years on iPad, Textastic, and I’d love to see something similar come to the Mac.

Amazing text editor. I use it for opening all sorts of files on iOS. It feels native, lightweight and just perfect. Bonus points if we could support protobuf files or even bigger bonus points if we can install our our highlighting for custom file types

I’ve been looking for something like this. This app just fell into my lap like a gift. Exactly what I needed

Just what I was looking for. This is a great app. Smooth design, fast performance, a lot of awesome features. And all for a low one-time price. Nice work!

Best app for editing files. Amazing UI and great customization options

Lost hours of work. Could not save file. I wish I didn’t have to say this but I cannot recommend this app. I kept trying to save my work and the app would not allow me to save the file.

Nice, lightweight editor. Runestone is a nice, lightweight editor that works well in the iPadOS ecosystem. It doesn't have the affordances of heavy-duty desktop tools, but it's a great companion to Working Copy.

Solid editor. Really great editor. And one of the few that will actually let you set the file extension.

Amazing app. Lightning fast, flexible and fully featured. I’d love to see support for Typescript syntax highlighting too. Highly recommended.

Please add an option to hide the symbol bar. Runestone is absolutely amazing for what it does. I just wish the symbol bar could be toggled with a setting on demand.

Good solution for missing app.. I was very surprised that Apple released the Vision Pro without a text editor. All other Apple devices come with one. This app is a simple solution. While I did not need any of the premium features, I purchased the full app to support the developer. Since this will also work on my other devices, I will add it to all of them. I appreciate the developer not making this a subscription like everybody else does. I dislike subscriptions and avoid them like the plague. The developer was kind, I can’t say enough good things about this app. I strongly recommend it.

Worth it for the Drone game alone. Great app! Cheers for the added entertainment value.

So so good. I'm not a developer but this is a very good app! My wishes: 1. fullscreen mode with no top bars or anything just immersive writing. 2. Org mode support

I wrote this review in Runestone. A good text editor is like a freshly sharpened chef’s knife. It just FEELS good to use, and it makes you happy. You know what a dull knife feels like and you can appreciate the perfect slicing motion you get from using the right tool for the job. Runestone is the right tool for text editing. It’s gorgeous, powerful enough to tackle editing huge files, and simple enough to jot down some quick notes or whip up a blog post for your static site. Combine this app with a git client, an SSH client, and you can manage your home software stack on the go. Finally, there’s not enough space here to say nice things about the developer, so I’ll leave it at - he’s incredibly thoughtful and responsive. If you have feedback on the app, hit him up on Twitter. Thanks Simon, for dedicating so much time to making this amazing app!!

Awesome text editor!. Runestone is a great text editor.

Nice App. I paid for the premium, just want a nice editor to edit on my iPad here and there. Very happy with it.

I’m a fan !. Simple interface, powerful functionality, streamlined, makes it easy to capture, edit, update and browse all kinds of text files. I’ve tried a lot of text editors - over a 10 year history with my iPhone - some are awful, some are good, this one is my favorite. Well worth the one time $10 gratuity !

100% Worth Premium. This app is beautiful, clean, and responsive.

The app is terrific so far, but _does_ have one problem. I’m editing files straight out of Working Copy, where I keep a local copy of my “dotfiles” project. Lots of files in there live inside directories that start with a dot, such as .config etc. Or the files themselves start with a dot, like .inputrc, .bashrc. I can’t figure out how to get to these files in Runestone. I wanted to report this as a bug but could not find the appropriate place to do so; so I’m doing it here. The app is great and clearly worth five stars so I’m not going to dock stars for this bug, but please, please, take this under consideration.

Pleasure To Use. It is so nice to open and use an application produced by someone who truly thought about its use and function. Runestone is a well-planned, well-designed app. It's a pleasure to use because it was designed that way. Great purchase.

Would be much useful if capable of opening multiple windows. Would be much useful if capable of opening multiple windows - will revisit in the future

Super clean and lean. Really nicely implemented. Cursor control actually works as opposed to many other early vision apps.

Can’t get a refund!!. I just downloaded and purchased the Premium version of Runestone. I opened it and started to play around with it, only to discover that there is no way to actually preview what I am coding. When I went to request a refund of the $9.99 I just paid, I got a message stating “failed requesting refund, unable to request refund.” So now I’m stuck with an app that doesn’t have what I need and I can’t get my money back!! If I could give this app 0 stars, I would!! Buyer beware!!

iOS 17 loss of function.. With iOS 17 update Runestone lost the scrolling function.

Yup.. This is the one you want for fast, lightweight text editing, whether or not you’re a coder. And I concur with others’ comments that the $10 premium price is a bargain. There’s just nothing else out there that combines a lack of unnecessary complication while supplying a toolbox of everything you need. Bring the subtlety and flexibility of a desktop app such as SubEthaEdit or BBedit to your iOS device by installing this fine little gem today.

Awesome app!. I like this app, it’s easy to use and it feels like I’m working on the Atom text editor. I can take this little convenience ANYWHERE! Great work.

Great language edition. Really simple and smooth. It is easy to get the hang of it! Great app!

Best Text Editor. I’ve tried so many text editors from Coda for iOS to Koder to Textastic. They’ve all been “ok”, but the problem I kept coming down to was the syntax highlighting. I’m a web developer and I use Atom on Mac every single day. I discovered this app and the syntax highlighting looked pretty good, but then I found where you can create your own theme and I immediately bought Premium and got to work replicating Atoms theme I use. I got it 90% of the way there and I’m in love. I’ve wanted this for years. THANK YOU. If I could ask for anything it would be tabs for multiple files open at once and maybe a tree view on the left to browse files and folder structure, but other than that I LOVE IT.

Bad buggy update. I’ve loved this text editor app til a recent update added the big new file button at the top which seemingly has caused the app to run very poorly. It lags/stutters like crazy now and heats up the phone during use. I looked for a way to disable it and there’s no option to do so. I think this is caused from the 1.5 version update

Spatially handy. Great to have this on Apple Vision Pro. Thank you!

As A Beginner. For a free text editor I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ll review it again, once I have used it for a while.

Doesn’t work at all. Installed on iPad Pro with iPadOS 15.5. No files will even open. Great reviews apparently, but I can’t even get to its core functionality without being able to open a file. Complete waste of money.

The best text editor I have tried. Let me start by saying the UI is very well designed. The navigation is easily navigable. The extra paid features are well worth the asking price. Thank you for not making this a subscription based app. The help section and Simon’s websites, including his twitter page are helpful. Thank you for making this for everyone to enjoy.

😑 latest update nuked my custom theme (premium user). I spent many, many hours getting my custom theme just right – gone now after the latest update. 😣 Please provide us with some way of exporting our custom themes, so users like myself can protect our time & effort from being lost to app amnesia.

After last update unable to open any file. Doesn't allow to browse iCloud files (first two tabs are empty, last tab shows only empty favorites section and tags. Reinstall doesn't help. Latest ios 17.4.1

Predatory. The only reason it ask you to unlock it for the pro version is so that you can actually use it for the languages that they claim that you can already use it for and so it’s basically worthless for python because you’re not able to see the number of spaces and so you can’t deal with non-terminals, which is a critical part of the language. They obfuscate this by making it free to download and then paying for premium and then they ask you for more than the top tier app because they know they’re not going to get it unless they put you in a bind. This feels like a bait and switch to me and it’s very clear that it was intentional so that makes it hurt all the more. It’s stuff like this that makes me want to release a free app that replaces this, so they actually have to work for the money.

Great app, but needs some fixing. There are issues opening most files (regardless of their type) that are accessed through a cloud repository (in my case I used OneDrive). Please fix if possible. Thank you!

Nearly perfect. A beautiful, thoughtful and useful text editor. I wish all apps were like this.

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Excellent Code/Text Editor. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this app but seeing it covered by Macstories and made by Simon Støvring made me download it almost immediately. Despite creating Scriptable scripts being a little above my pay grade, I have a few installed that I use every day. I used to not understand apps that opened by default into a Files view, but I have come to realise that it’s the most logical choice. Runestone, PDFPen & Pixelmator Photo all do this, but it’s so you can get to the file you want to edit as quickly as possible. Runestone supports syntax highlighting for heaps of languages, and multitudes of customisation options. It’s an extremely distilled text/code editor that can be tweaked to your needs.

Great Text App. One of the best options I’ve found for editing on iOS. The premium is worth the money for the extra features. Only bug is my collapse header isn’t working though, I have it turned off but it still collapses. Would love to see an ‘undo’ option one day :)

Bro. You can’t activate your script

Okay. This app is great. My only problem is that I can’t get JavaScript to work. That’s why I’m giving it a 3 star review.

Crashes after cutting and pasting code - doesn’t save before crashing. Useless and deleted. Crashes after cutting and pasting code - doesn’t save before crashing. Useless and deleted

Thanks for a great App. Its free too. Title sums it up

Stop working after iOS update. This was my favourite iPhone text editor, but I think after updating my iOS now, I cannot open any file from my local SMB shared file anymore, I can see the folder I can select and duplicate the file, but when I try to click on the file, nothing happens.

Excellent Editor. This editor does what I need in a simple and pleasant way.

Powerful & versatile. Extremely useful even without purchasing premium! I hate most apple apps in general, they either cost money or have restrictions making them useless unless you pay.. so this was nice surprise. I now use most of the apps of this developer (doesn’t have many, but they’re great)

super clean and modern, but one omission. it would be so nice to have potential function names that can be TAB to autocomplete. (aka more like an IDE lol) other than that, its the best looking text editor on the App Store

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Please fix. Unable to save changes after iOS 18 update

App is good !!!. App works good fully purchase version !!!. I need developer to fix one issue where are impossible automatically scroll inside file when selected text with mouse and it reach top canvas, but not line 1 or end of file.

Best code editor for iOS. Look no further, this is the holy grail for coding on iPad! This app is fairly priced, actively supported, and open source to boot. I especially appreciate the extensive customizability and themes. Also the premium bonus was a very fun surprise! If possible, I would love to see support for more languages, such as Powershell. Being able to compile and run Python would also be extremely helpful. Thank you dev for this amazing app!

Code folding?. Simple feature to set you apart from the rest ;)

No live web preview!. No live web preview!

Excellent iPad Text Editor. On macOS I use the venerable BBEdit, but for several years I’ve looked for an iPad text editor that was even half as capable. Runestone is exactly what I was looking for, and it’s remarkable that it was created and is maintained by a single individual - support them by getting the premium version!

The Best iOS Text Editor. Runestone possesses all necessities and more for text editors. It’s performance is incredible for highlighting large amounts of data and opening large files. It’s many settings make it perfect for how you like to code. It has popular highlighting themes and many languages that it supports. It’s strings and brackets are self closing. The best feature it has goes to the Prettier code formatter that can prettify your code. Altogether, Runestone is the best text editor on iOS and does not have common performance bugs and poor design of other iOS apps.

Nick eh 30. EHHHHHHHH MAZING

Great editor. For some people this may be more of a feature than a bug, but I really just need my ! and my = to remain as != instead of snapping to ≠ automatically. Maybe I just haven’t found the settings, but it shouldn’t be the default in code editors anyway. Otherwise, so far it’s been pretty neat!

Edit undo?. I'm really liking this iPados app. Regex is fantastic! I upgraded. How do I undo a find-replace-all editing error? I just messed up hundreds of lines. Thanks

Perfect. Perfect addition to my work flow, developing on the iPad just got better with Runestone, the Easter egg also gets an additional star that sadly wont show up on here.

This app is great except one thing!. I recently purchased the full version for my iphone, however on the mobile version and I find it difficult to view the final result of the written code. Can the developer make the steps a bit clearer for me please? Other than that, everything else is great!

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Super Lightweight and Intuitive. This just came out and I had it pre-ordered, so I haven't had a huge amount of time to use it yet, however so far my experience has been absolutely fantastic especially compared to my other text editor apps which seem to be very resource-heavy. Also, I love how customizable it is, and it is definitely the easiest way to do a simple edit for any code in a pinch! I'll update this review if I run into any issues but so far, so good! Glad to support the dev too who made it by themselves! 💪

Works flawlessly. I’m gonna integrate Runestone.framework in my app, thank you for making that awesome app and actually contribute a lot of it to the society!