Comparison

A Typora alternative that reads Markdown for free

Typora is a writing app: you type Markdown, the syntax disappears as you go, and it costs $14.99. Glance is for the file you did not write. Press Space in Finder and it renders, press Return and you can fix it, and reading never costs anything.

Glance vs Typora

	Glance	Typora¹
Pricing²	Free to read, $9.99 to edit	$14.99 once
Preview on Space in Finder³
Rendering⁴	Native	HTML and CSS
Source and rendered page side by side⁵		A mode you switch to
Type on the rendered page
Mermaid diagrams
LaTeX math
Print and PDF export
Download size⁶	9.8 MB	13.8 MB

Typora's own docs send you elsewhere for Finder previews

This is the gap most people arrive with. Typora's macOS documentation states that it does not provide a Quick Look plugin and points you at QLMarkdown or Glance to get one. Its Glance link goes to a repository by a different developer that has been archived and read-only since November 2020, so anyone following it today lands on a dead project. If that is how you got here, the which-Glance page untangles the three apps sharing the name.

Glance bundles its Quick Look extension and registers it the first time you launch. Select a .md file in Finder, press Space, and the rendered document appears with tables, syntax-highlighted code, Mermaid diagrams, and LaTeX math. Press Return to open it properly.

A Markdown file rendered by Glance in a macOS Quick Look window

Writing a document versus reading one

Typora is built around a document you are composing. You open it, you write, the syntax folds away as you type, and at the end you export. That works well, and it assumes the file is yours and the session is long.

Most Markdown on a developer's Mac is not like that. It is a README in a cloned repo, a changelog you want to skim, a spec somebody sent, the CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md files an agent keeps rewriting. You want to look at it for forty seconds, maybe fix a wrong line, and close it. Glance is shaped for that: it opens one file like Preview opens a PDF, with no workspace and no project to pick first.

Read Markdown free, right in Finder

Download for macOS

Free to read, Pro to edit · v0.2.2 · 9.8 MB · macOS 14+

What you pay, and when

Typora asks $14.99 once, before tax, covering three devices, after a 15-day evaluation. That is a fair price for a writing app and it is not a subscription, which puts it among the honest ones.

Glance splits the bill differently. Reading is free and stays free, with no account and no timer: Quick Look, Mermaid, LaTeX, code highlighting, ⌘F, zoom, ⌘P, and PDF export. Editing is $9.99 once for up to three Macs, free for the first 14 days. If you only ever read Markdown, Glance never asks for money.

Both panes, not one mode

Typora's source-code mode swaps the document for raw Markdown, so you see one or the other. Glance shows both at once: ⌘\ opens the source beside the rendered page, the panes scroll together block by block, and your cursor and selection appear in both. Type in whichever side suits the change, because both of them are live.

Where Typora is the better buy

Typora exports to Word, HTML, ePub, and more, and Glance exports PDF only. Typora's themes are plain CSS files you can rewrite, where Glance ships one appearance and no theming. Typora runs on Windows and Linux, on Intel Macs, and back to macOS 11; Glance needs macOS 14 on an Apple Silicon Mac and has no Intel build. If you write for a living and hand the result to somebody in another format, buy Typora.

For the Quick Look background, read Markdown Quick Look for macOS or the Finder preview guide. Comparing others? See Obsidian, MarkText, MarkEdit, and Marked, or the roundup of Mac Markdown apps.

FAQ

No, and Typora's own macOS documentation says so: it does not provide a Quick Look plugin, and it suggests QLMarkdown or Glance instead. The Glance it links to is an older plugin by a different developer, archived since November 2020. Glance bundles its own Quick Look extension and registers it the first time you open the app.

Reading is free, with no trial timer: Quick Look previews, Mermaid, LaTeX, syntax-highlighted code, find, zoom, print, and PDF export. Editing is $9.99 once for up to three Macs. Typora is $14.99 once, also for three devices, after a 15-day evaluation.

It shows the finished document and lets you type into it, which is the same idea from the other end. Typora hides the syntax as you write; Glance draws the document and treats that drawing as the editable surface. Both let you work on a page rather than on raw text.

Yes. Command-backslash opens the source in a pane beside the rendered page. The panes scroll together, your cursor and selection appear in both, and typing in either updates the other. Typora's source-code mode switches the whole document to raw text instead of showing both.

Typora exports to Word, HTML, ePub, and more, takes custom CSS themes, and runs on Windows, Linux, Intel Macs, and macOS 11. Glance exports PDF only, ships one appearance with no theming, and needs macOS 14 on an Apple Silicon Mac. If you write long documents and hand them off in other formats, Typora is built for that.

That is the common arrangement. Write in Typora, and let Glance handle Finder previews and the files you only need to read: README files, specs, changelogs, notes a coding agent left behind.

Ready to glance?