head to head · open source
WritingTools vs anymd
WritingTools has 2,458 GitHub stars, 160 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. anymd has 939 stars, 83 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WritingTools leads on adoption by 162% (2,458 vs 939 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 | ★ 939 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-19 | 2026-09-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 160 | ⑂ 83 |
| 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
WritingTools is an open source, system wide writing assistant for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is inspired by Apple Intelligence Writing Tools and uses cloud based or local large language models to proofread, rewrite, summarize, and transform selected text across applications. The project is written in Swift and released under the GPL 3.0 license. The README states it works in nearly any language.
read the full WritingTools overview →
About anymd
anymd is an open source Rust MCP server and command line tool that converts PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel workbooks, EPUB files, HTML and web pages, images, audio and video into clean Markdown for AI agents, running on the user's own machine with no API key.
read the full anymd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is WritingTools or anymd more popular?
WritingTools has 2,458 GitHub stars and anymd has 939. 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 (2,458 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose anymd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.