head to head · open source
WritingTools vs anymd
WritingTools has 2,528 GitHub stars, 170 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. anymd has 1,069 stars, 93 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. WritingTools leads on adoption by 136% (2,528 vs 1,069 stars). WritingTools is written in Swift under GPL-3.0; anymd is written in Rust under MIT. WritingTools has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, anymd 9%. anymd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| WritingTools | anymd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.5K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-19 | 2026-11-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 170 | ⑂ 93 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick WritingTools if
- You weight community size — 2.5K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick anymd if
- You want the anymd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and anymd fits your workflow better
About WritingTools
Writing Tools 🍎 Using a Mac? Jump to the macOS (Native Swift Port) section → macOS Instantly proofread and optimize your writing system wide with AI: Summarize content (webpages, YouTube videos, documents...) in a click: Add your own buttons for unlimited potential! ✨ What is Writing Tools? Writing Tools is an Apple Intelligence inspired application for Windows, Linux, and macOS that supercharges your writing with an AI LLM (cloud based or local). With one hotkey press system wide, it lets you fix grammar, optimize text according to your instructions, summarize content (webpages, YouTube videos, etc.), and…
read the full WritingTools overview →
About anymd
anymd PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, EPUB, HTML and web pages, images (OCR), audio and video (metadata, subtitles, transcripts). A fast Rust MCP server and CLI that runs on your machine. No API key. Install · Benchmarks · Tools · CLI · Formats · Docs Formerly pdf reader mcp . Migrating from pdf reader mcp A real, unedited terminal recording (asciinema + agg, script ). The last command is Claude Code answering from the PDF through the anymd MCP server. Why anymd Fast. Native Rust converts in parallel, page by page. On the 19 benchmark documents every tool converted, anymd takes 12.1 s in total; docling 1,723.3 s…
read the full anymd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is WritingTools or anymd more popular?
WritingTools has 2,528 GitHub stars and anymd has 1,069. WritingTools has the larger community by that measure.
Are WritingTools and anymd free?
Both are open source. WritingTools is licensed under GPL-3.0 and anymd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between WritingTools and anymd?
WritingTools is written in Swift and anymd in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, WritingTools or anymd?
Choose WritingTools if you want the larger community (2,528 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose anymd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.