A Ulysses alternative you buy once
Ulysses is a polished, capable writing environment — and it is a subscription with no free tier at all. Inkiostro covers iPhone, iPad and Mac for a single purchase, and puts version history, EPUB export and selectable-text PDF at the centre rather than behind a renewal.
Ulysses asks $5.99 a month, or $39.99 a year, and there is no free version — the app stops working when the subscription does. For a professional writer publishing weekly that is easy to justify. For someone writing documentation, a thesis, lecture notes or a technical blog, renting the editor forever is a harder sell, especially since the files are plain Markdown that any editor can open.
Inkiostro is bought once. The free tier is not a countdown: unlimited documents, import, iCloud sync across all three devices, PDF export and print, LaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams and the full editor are free and stay free. Pro is a single purchase with a 14-day trial, and it unlocks the parts that finish a document rather than the parts that let you write one.
Where the two really differ is what happens to a document over time. Inkiostro keeps up to 40 automatic versions of every file and lets you compare them line by line and restore any of them — including bringing back a single paragraph without touching the rest of the file. If you have ever rewritten a section and wanted only the old opening back, that is the feature.
Inkiostro vs Ulysses, feature by feature
A ✓ means it ships today. Notes mark the differences worth knowing about.
| Feature | Inkiostro | Ulysses |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free · Pro $19.99 once | $5.99 / month or $39.99 / year |
| Usable without paying | Free tier, no time limit | — |
| iPhone, iPad & Mac in one purchase | ✓ | One subscription, all devices |
| iCloud sync | Free | ✓ |
| Version history with restore | Pro · 40 versions per file, restore a single paragraph | Yes, within the Ulysses library |
| LaTeX math (KaTeX) | Free | — |
| Mermaid diagrams | Free | — |
| PDF export | Free · formulas, diagrams and code stay selectable text | ✓ |
| EPUB export | Pro | ✓ |
| Self-contained HTML export | Pro · single file, styles and images embedded | HTML export |
| Plain .md files on disk | ✓ | Own library format (external folders supported) |
| Focus & Typewriter mode | Pro | ✓ |
| Publish to WordPress, Medium, Ghost | — | ✓ |
| Windows / Android | — | — |
Ulysses — pricing and features checked on 13 August 2026 from Ulysses. own site. Both products change — verify before you buy.
Where Ulysses is still the right choice
- You are writing a book or managing a large manuscript. The Ulysses library, with sheets, groups, filters and per-sheet goals and deadlines, is built for exactly that and Inkiostro is not.
- You publish directly to WordPress, Medium or Ghost. Ulysses posts straight from the editor; Inkiostro exports a file and stops there.
- You want a mature, decade-old product with a large user base and a deep support history.
- You genuinely prefer a managed library to a folder of .md files.
Where Inkiostro pulls ahead
- Version history that restores a paragraph, not just a file. Inkiostro saves up to 40 versions of every document automatically while you write, shows a line-by-line diff, and lets you bring back one section without reverting the rest.
- PDF that stays text. Equations, Mermaid diagrams and syntax-highlighted code are exported as selectable, searchable text — not flattened into images. It matters the moment someone tries to copy a formula out of your PDF, or a screen reader tries to read it.
- EPUB export: a real .epub with a navigation table of contents and metadata, ready for Apple Books, Kindle or Kobo.
- LaTeX and Mermaid included in the free tier. Write $E = mc^2$ or a flowchart in a fenced block and see it render as you type.
- You own it. One purchase, no renewal, and the free tier keeps working forever if you never buy Pro.
Your text comes with you
Ulysses exports to Markdown, and Inkiostro opens plain .md files — there is no import step and no proprietary container to unpack. Point Inkiostro at a folder (or drop the files into iCloud Drive) and they are simply documents. Nothing is converted, nothing is locked in, and if you decide to go back the files are still ordinary Markdown.