Eyrie vs iA Writer

Minimalism vs AI-powered vault.

iA Writer is the reference minimalist Markdown editor — twelve years of typographic refinement and writing-first design. Eyrie is the AI-native vault editor for the notes you've already collected. Both honor your files. They optimize for different jobs.

The fundamental difference.

iA Writer is a writing app. The entire product is built around the act of composing prose — typography, focus mode, content blocks, syntax highlighting for parts of speech. It's beautiful, mature, and deliberately limited.

Eyrie is a workspace. It's an editor, yes, but it's also a vault browser, a semantic search engine, an AI chat panel, and a bridge between your folder of notes and the agents you use elsewhere.

iA Writer is built for the moment you sit down to write a piece. Eyrie is built for the moment you sit down to work with the writing you've already done.

Side-by-side.

Where iA Writer is still better.

We respect iA. Things they do that Eyrie doesn't (yet):

• Focus + typewriter mode. iA's "current sentence" highlighting and centered typewriter scroll are unmatched for distraction-free drafting.
• Typography on the page. iA Quattro (their custom typeface) and the way Markdown renders inline are genuinely beautiful.
• iPad + Pencil. If you write on iPad, iA is one of the best Markdown experiences on the platform. Eyrie is Mac-only.
• Content blocks. iA's transclusion system lets one document include another. Useful for technical writing with reusable sections.

If those are your top requirements, iA Writer is the right pick.

Where Eyrie is in a different league.

Eyrie does what iA Writer doesn't try to do:

• Vault-aware AI. Ask "what have I written about X?" and get a sourced answer. iA can't do this.
• Smart Categories. Auto-classify your notes by type (idea / project / journal / research). iA can't do this.
• MCP integration. One click connects Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf to your notes folder. iA can't do this.
• Inline AI commands. Select text, hit ⌘E, rewrite / summarize / translate. iA doesn't have AI features.

Can I use both?

Yes, and many writers do. iA Writer for drafting prose pieces (where its typography and focus mode shine), Eyrie for managing the larger vault of notes those drafts come from. Both read the same Markdown files. There's no migration step.