Comparison5 min read
An Essayist alternative, with no subscription.
Essayist is a good academic writing app. EssayKraft is another one, for Mac and iPad, and it costs £9.99 once. Here’s how the two compare, and which one suits which kind of essay.
Noah PageI make EssayKraft, so keep that in mind as you read. Everything said here about Essayist comes from its App Store listing in October 2026.
The short answer
If you want an academic writing app on Mac or iPad without a subscription, EssayKraft covers the core of what Essayist does. You get real pages, citations and a bibliography that format themselves in sixteen styles, footnotes, and Word and PDF export, all for a one-time £9.99. It also keeps a private writing record that shows the essay is your own work.
Essayist is the better choice if you write on an iPhone, need LaTeX equations or numbered cross-references, or need a citation style outside EssayKraft’s sixteen.
What both apps do
Both apps do one job: they handle the formatting of an academic paper so you can think about the argument. Both give you a page-based document with margins, page numbers and headings handled for you. Both let you cite sources inline and build the reference list from those citations, with footnotes and endnotes alongside. You can look up sources online in either app and export the finished essay as a Word document or a PDF.
Both are native apps for Apple devices rather than websites, and both work offline, apart from searching for sources.
Price: a subscription or one purchase
Essayist is free to download with a trial. The full app, Essayist Pro, is a subscription. On the UK App Store it’s listed at £5.99 or £9.99 a month, or £39.99 or £79.99 a year.
EssayKraft is also free to download. The free version lets you write a document and export it once as a PDF, so you can try it on a real essay. Unlocking everything is a single purchase, EssayKraft Lifetime, at £9.99. It doesn’t renew.
Over a three-year degree, even Essayist’s lowest yearly price comes to £119.97. EssayKraft stays at £9.99.
Side by side
| EssayKraft | Essayist | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £9.99 once | Free trial, then £5.99–£9.99 a month or £39.99–£79.99 a year |
| Devices | Mac and iPad (macOS and iPadOS 26) | Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro |
| Citation styles | Sixteen, including APA 7th, MLA, Chicago author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver | APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, AMA, Vancouver and over 10,000 more |
| Finding sources | Search by title, author, DOI or ISBN, or paste a link | Built-in search, Google Scholar or a link |
| Importing references | BibTeX and RIS from Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote, and export back out | BibTeX and Zotero import |
| Where references live | With each document | One library synced through iCloud and shared across essays |
| Equations and cross-references | No | LaTeX equations, plus numbered figures and tables with cross-references |
| Export | PDF, Word and RTF | PDF and Word |
| Proof of authorship | A writing record you can hand in | Not listed |
| Markdown documents | Yes | Not listed |
Essayist details are from its UK App Store listing in October 2026. Its features change often, so check the current listing.
What EssayKraft adds
Proof that the work is yours
EssayKraft keeps a writing record for each document. It shows when you wrote, how much you typed and how much you pasted, and how the essay grew over time. The record stays on your device. If a tutor ever asks how an essay was written, you can export it as a PDF and hand it in with the essay. You can turn it off in Settings at any time.
Predictive text that tells the truth
EssayKraft has optional predictive text, and it’s off by default. It runs entirely on your device using Apple Intelligence. Any word you accept is disclosed in the writing record, so the record stays honest even when you use it.
Smaller things that add up
- Word targets and due dates, with a progress bar that fills as you write.
- Markdown documents for notes and drafts, alongside normal rich-text essays.
- RTF export as well as Word and PDF.
- No account and no sign-in. Your documents stay on your Mac or iPad.
Where Essayist is ahead
It’s worth being plain about this, because the right app depends on your course.
- iPhone. Essayist runs on your phone. EssayKraft runs on Mac and iPad only.
- More citation styles. If your department uses an unusual journal style, Essayist probably has it. EssayKraft has sixteen. They cover most humanities and social-science courses, but not everything.
- STEM features. Essayist has LaTeX equations, numbered figures and tables, cross-references and an automatic table of contents. EssayKraft has none of these yet.
- One shared reference library. Essayist keeps your sources in one library synced through iCloud. EssayKraft keeps references with each document. If you build a library over several years, keep it in Zotero and import what each essay needs.
Which should you choose?
Choose EssayKraft if you write on a Mac or iPad, your course uses a mainstream style such as APA, MLA, Harvard or Chicago author-date, and you’d rather pay once than every year. It’s an especially good fit if you want to be able to show the work is yours.
Choose Essayist if you need to write on your phone, your essays include equations or numbered figures, or your style isn’t one of EssayKraft’s sixteen.
Switching from Essayist
- Export your essay from Essayist as a Word document.
- Open the .docx in EssayKraft, which imports Word and RTF files. Your text comes across, but citations arrive as plain text.
- Add your sources to the document. Use Find Online with a DOI or ISBN, or import a BibTeX or RIS file from Zotero. Then replace the plain-text citations with live ones.
The guide to bibliography management in EssayKraft covers the last step in detail.