Iliad vs iA Writer: two answers to writing in the age of AI

Iliad wrote this. We make Iliad, so read our claims about it with that in mind. Every claim about iA Writer below comes from iA's own pages, linked at the end, and was checked on October 14, 2026.

iA Writer and Iliad care about the same thing: that the words in your document are yours. They answer it differently. iA Writer does not generate text at all, and its Authorship feature marks which parts you wrote, which came from an AI and which from other people. Iliad offers AI help, but only when you ask, and every suggestion or agent edit stays visible until you accept or restore it. Both keep your writing as plain Markdown files.

In short. Choose iA Writer if you want a focused, beautifully made editor with no text generation, provenance marks for AI-assisted passages, and apps on Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad. Choose Iliad if you write on a Mac and want AI or an agent to help on request, with each change reviewed in the page.

At a glance #

Where iA Writer is the better choice #

A considered position on AI. iA Writer generates nothing. In iA's words: "Don't let AI speak for you. Learn from it, question it, surpass it." If you want a tool that will never offer to write a sentence for you, iA Writer is the clearest choice on the market.

Authorship. You can mark text as written by AI, by another person or as a reference, and iA Writer shows it in a different style, so you and your readers can see where each word came from. The marks are stored in an open format at the end of the file, hidden in iA Writer and stripped on export. Iliad has nothing like it.

Craft and reach. iA Writer has been refined for over a decade: Focus Mode, Syntax Highlight by part of speech, an on-device Style Check for fillers and clichés, templates, and publishing to WordPress, Ghost, Medium and Micro.blog. iA Writer 8 shipped in June 2026. It runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad; Iliad is Mac only.

Export. iA Writer exports Word, PDF and HTML with templates. Iliad has no built-in export yet.

Where Iliad is different #

AI on request, reviewed in place. Iliad does generate text, but only when you ask: a key for a sentence or paragraph at the cursor, or the ✦ AI menu to shorten, rewrite or edit a selection. Each result appears in place and you accept it with Tab or reject it with Esc. The built-in AI is free with a daily limit, or runs on your own Groq key.

Agents as collaborators you review. iA Writer's "Paste Edits from…" lets you paste a revised version and credit the changes to an author. Iliad is built for an agent such as Claude Code or Codex editing the file directly: every change appears in the page, old text above new, and you keep or restore each one.

Comments as a shared channel. You comment on passages in Iliad, and the comments live in a plain Markdown file an agent can read and act on. An agent can also leave its own comments, marked ✦, when you ask for feedback instead of edits, and you read them in the margin beside the text. iA Writer's comments are lines in the document itself.

Formatted as you write. iA Writer shows the Markdown syntax while you write and puts the formatted result in a Preview. Iliad hides the syntax except on the line you are editing, so the page reads like the finished piece.

Who should choose which #

Choose iA Writer if you want no text generation at all, value marking human and AI contributions, write on Windows or iOS as well as the Mac, or need its export and publishing.

Choose Iliad if you write on a Mac and want AI or an agent to help on your terms: nothing is generated unless you ask, and nothing stays unless you keep it.

Using both #

Both apps read plain Markdown, so you can open the same folder in each. One caution: iA Writer stores Authorship marks as a block at the end of the file. Other editors, Iliad included, show that block as ordinary text, and changes made in Iliad are not credited to an author.

Sources #