Markit, Obsidian, Typora, VS Code

All four leave an ordinary .md file on disk, so none of them holds your writing hostage. What separates them is what each one optimises for. Here is the short answer, then the details — including the cases where one of the other three is the better pick.

Checked against each tool's own documentation on 13 September 2026. All four ship updates; their own sites are the authority.

The short answer

Obsidian, if one tool should hold a whole knowledge base
It is built around linking, it runs on Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android as well as Mac, and its community plugins can grow almost any feature you can name. Markit deliberately has none of that.
Markit, if you write long-form Chinese on a Mac
Typesetting as you type without the cursor's line falling back to raw syntax, and Chinese typography decided against a written standard, are the two things it was built for.
Typora, if you want that same feel on Windows or Linux
It has been doing document-centred WYSIWYG Markdown for years, on all three desktop platforms.
VS Code's preview, if you mostly read the README in a repo
It is already installed, it is free, and the file sits in the same window as the code it describes. For occasional Markdown that is enough.

Side by side

Rows where all four agree are worth as much as the rows where they differ: none of these tools invents a storage format.

What	Markit	Obsidian	Typora	VS Code preview
Platforms	macOS, plus the browser version	Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android	Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
What you see while editing	Renders as you type; the line under the cursor stays typeset	Live Preview: the syntax of whatever the cursor enters becomes visible	WYSIWYG	Source on the left, preview on the right — you always edit the source
What lands on disk	A plain .md	A plain .md	A plain .md	A plain .md
Syntax	Strict GFM; nothing non-standard added	GFM plus its own: ==highlight==, ![[embeds]], %%comments%%	GFM plus optional extras — ==highlight==, sub/superscript, $math$ — off until enabled in preferences	GFM
Highlights and notes	Yes — eight named colours with notes, kept by the app (online, by your browser); the .md is untouched	==highlight== and %%comments%%, written into the file	==highlight==, written into the file once enabled in preferences	No
Wikilinks and backlinks	Yes	Yes — it is the core of the product	No native support; community plugins exist	No
Diagrams and formulas	Mermaid, Markmap and KaTeX drawn in place	Yes	Yes, once enabled in preferences	Math built in; Mermaid needs an extension
Spacing between Chinese and Latin	Built in	Not built in; a community plugin does it	Not built in	Not built in
How it extends	No plugin marketplace, by choice	Community plugin ecosystem	Community plugins	The VS Code extension marketplace

Three differences that won't go stale

Feature lists change with every release. These three follow from decisions each tool made early and is unlikely to reverse.

Files as truth is table stakes; inventing syntax is the real fork

All four write ordinary .md, so that is not the difference. The question is what a tool allows itself to add on top. Obsidian owns its ecosystem, so ==highlight== and ![[embeds]] can mean something there. Markit took the opposite constraint: your file has to open correctly in any other editor, so nothing outside GFM gets added — not even highlight. You can still highlight and annotate in Markit, but those marks live in Markit rather than in the file, so they stay behind unless you export them. That is the cost. What it buys is that nothing you write today reads wrong somewhere else in five years.

Rendering as you type, and what happens to the line you are on

Obsidian documents its choice plainly: when the cursor enters formatted content, the underlying syntax becomes visible for editing. That is a defensible choice — you see exactly what you are changing. Markit made the other one, and the line under the cursor stays typeset. Which you prefer is a matter of taste, but it is the difference you feel in the first minute.

Chinese typesetting as a first-class concern, not a plugin

A 720px measure, automatic spacing between Latin and Chinese, emphasis dots instead of slanted glyphs, punctuation that never hangs wrong. Every one of those was decided against a written standard rather than eyeballed. In the other three, the parts that exist at all are community plugins or settings you assemble yourself.

When one of the other three is the better choice

If any of these is true for you, the table above has already answered the question.

Your main machine is not a Mac
Markit is macOS 14 or later, and that is the whole list. A Windows version is a v2 goal, not a promise. Obsidian, Typora and VS Code all run on Windows and Linux today.
You write on your phone
Obsidian has iOS and Android apps. Markit has no mobile version and none planned.
You want to shape the tool yourself
Obsidian's plugins and the VS Code marketplace can turn those tools into something quite different. Markit has no plugin marketplace, no accounts and no sync service — that is not a gap waiting to be filled, it is the shape of the product.
You want highlights to travel inside the file
Obsidian's ==highlight== is part of the .md, so it goes wherever the file goes. Markit's highlights and notes stay where you made them — in the app on that Mac, or in that browser if you used the online editor; another device or another editor only sees them once you export them.

Rather judge for yourself?

The type specimen is the same essay the app opens, rendered by the same rules. Read it here, or open the online editor and type in it — nothing to install.

Get it on the Mac App Store Open the online editor Type specimen