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#1in Text Editing

Runestone Text Editor

S Tier
Best in class
92
4.73.3K ratings
FreeIn-App Purchases
2mosince update
Developer Tools
category
4+age rating
1language
Made for iPhone
Made for iPad
Made for Apple Vision Pro

What is Runestone Text Editor?

A plain text editor for iPhone and iPad with syntax highlighting, line numbers, search and replace, and code formatting.

Runestone is a plain text editor for iPhone and iPad, described in its listing as more powerful than TextEdit. It offers syntax highlighting, selectable themes, find and replace, file encoding options, and Prettier.js code formatting, along with a set of premium display settings. The app is built on the open source Runestone framework and is made by a single developer.

Pricing. Runestone Text Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases on the App Store.

Good for

  • Editing source code files on an iPhone or iPad
  • Viewing and modifying text files with syntax highlighting
  • Formatting CSS, HTML, JavaScript, JSON or PHP files with Prettier.js

Screenshots

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Why this app is in S tier

92/100The average of 4 parts, with no weights
Rating94
Ratings75
App Store search rank98
Update recency100

S tier follows from that score within this list. The full explanation, as data.

Runestone Text Editor scores 92 out of 100: rating 94, rating count 75, App Store search rank 98, update recency 100. The four parts are averaged and S tier follows from that score within this list.

Description

A plain text editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, search and replace, page guide, and much more. It's like TextEdit but more powerful and optimised for iPhone and iPad.

Runestone is made by a single person with a love for text editors and a vision of building the most lightweight text editor for iPhone and iPad that still has the core features for editing code.

Features

Read more
  • Syntax highlighting of many languages including HTML, JavaScript, JSON, Markdown, Swift, Python, PHP, YAML, and many more.
  • Select one of the twelve standard themes including popular themes like Tomorrow, Dracula, Solarized, and One Dark Pro.
  • Innovative find and replace for searching and modifying text while still viewing your file.
  • Choose font and font size, including support for custom fonts imported using another third-party app.
  • Show the line and column the cursor is located on.
  • Uses the standard document browser for an experience similar to the Files app.
  • Quickly navigate to a specific line.
  • Automatically close opening brackets and quotes.
  • Multiple windows on the iPad.
  • Format code using Prettier.js. Supported languages include CSS,HTML, JavaScript, JSON, PHP and more.
  • Choose text encoding between popular encodings like UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO Latin 1, and many more.
  • Enable or disable autocorrection, autocapitalization, and smart punctuation.
  • Set default file extension of new files.
  • Open files in Runestone from the Share Sheet.
  • Print documents.

Premium features

  • Choose between eight app icons.
  • Show line numbers.
  • Highlight the selected line.
  • Increase line height and letter spacing.
  • Disable line wrapping to allow horizontal scrolling.
  • Show tabs, spaces, and line breaks using a selected symbol.
  • Enable page guide at a specific column to easily tell when lines are getting too long.
  • Add vertical and horizontal overscroll.
  • Remember the selected language per file.
  • Save file extensions and filenames that should always be treated as plain text files.
  • Enable soft tabs and choose the width of the tab character.
  • Specify whether pressing the tab key should insert a tab or indent the line.
  • Adjust the scaling of Markdown headings and disable highlighting of code blocks in Markdown.

Runestone was built on the open-source framework with the same name. Find more information on the Runestone framework at github.com/simonbs/runestone

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Questions about Runestone Text Editor

Which languages does syntax highlighting support?

HTML, JavaScript, JSON, Markdown, Swift, Python, PHP and YAML, and says many more languages are supported.

Can the app format code?

Yes. It formats code using Prettier.js, with supported languages including CSS, HTML, JavaScript, JSON and PHP.

Is Runestone Text Editor free?

Runestone Text Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases.

Is Runestone Text Editor right for me?

Runestone Text Editor is built for editing source code files on an iPhone or iPad, viewing and modifying text files with syntax highlighting, formatting CSS, HTML, javascript, JSON or PHP files with prettier.js. It sits in the text editing list on AppTierList.

Is Runestone Text Editor worth it?

Runestone Text Editor is S tier, ranked #1 of 8 text editing apps with a score of 92 out of 100, from a 4.7 App Store rating across 3,309 ratings. That is the top of its list.

How does Runestone Text Editor compare to Text Editor.?

Runestone Text Editor is S tier at 92; Text Editor. is A tier at 89. Runestone Text Editor ranks higher. Runestone Text Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases, Text Editor. is free to download, with in-app purchases.

How often is Runestone Text Editor updated?

Runestone Text Editor was last updated on 2026-09-10, 55 days ago.

Alternatives

Categories

All the facts

Ranking

List
Text Editing (S tier, #1)
Tier
S (Best in class)
Score
92 / 100
Rank in list
#1 of 8
Ranking certainty
settled

Ratings

App Store rating
4.7 out of 5, every App Store country
Ratings
3,309

App

Price
Free + IAP
App Store category
Developer Tools
Current version
(55 days ago)
Size
68 MB
Requires
iOS 15.0 or later
Age rating
4+
Languages
1
Runs on
iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro

Links

Developer pages
Website · Support · Privacy policy
Maker
not verified
App Store data read

App Store data read · ranking