head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs markdown-viewer
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars, 4,167 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped yesterday. markdown-viewer has 1,723 stars, 234 forks, 99 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 2,625% (46,944 vs 1,723 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; markdown-viewer is written in JavaScript under MIT. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, markdown-viewer 14%. monaco-editor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| monaco-editor | markdown-viewer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 234 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monaco-editor if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick markdown-viewer if
- You want the markdown-viewer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and markdown-viewer fits your workflow better
About monaco-editor
Monaco Editor The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code. Check out the VS Code docs to see some of the supported features. Try it out Try out the editor and see various examples in our interactive playground. The playground is the best way to learn about how to use the editor, which features is supports, to try out different versions and to create minimal reproducible examples for bug reports. Installing You will get: inside /esm : ESM version of the editor (compatible with e.g. webpack) monaco.d.ts : this specifies the API of the editor (this is what is actually versioned, everything else…
read the full monaco-editor overview →
About markdown-viewer
Markdown Viewer / Browser Extension Install: [Chrome] / [Firefox] / [Edge] / [Opera] / [Brave] / [Chromium] / [Vivaldi] Features Secure by design Render local and remote file URLs Granular access to remote origins Multiple markdown parsers Full control over the compiler options ([markdown it], [marked], [remark]) 30+ Themes ([cleanrmd], [GitHub][github theme]) Custom theme support GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) Auto reload on file change Syntax highlighted code blocks ([prism][prism]) Table of Contents (ToC) MathJax formulas ([mathjax]) Mermaid diagrams ([mermaid]) Convert emoji shortnames (icons provided free…
read the full markdown-viewer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or markdown-viewer more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars and markdown-viewer has 1,723. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and markdown-viewer free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and markdown-viewer under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and markdown-viewer?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and markdown-viewer in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, monaco-editor or markdown-viewer?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,944 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose markdown-viewer if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.