Ask HN: Are there any messaging apps supporting Markdown? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are there any messaging apps supporting Markdown?

19 points5986043handy12 comments

I'd like to easily send formatted code, and bullet points, etc. through a messaging app without having to resort to a heavy app like Slack.

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Mattermost supports CommonMark Markdown: https://docs.mattermost.com/help/messaging/formatting-text.h...

Zulip supports ~CommonMark Markdown: https://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/subsystems/markdown.h...

Reddit supports Markdown. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/markdown

Discourse now supports CommonMark Markdown.

GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab and Gogs/Gitea support Markdown.

I wouldn't consider Discourse/Reddit/Github/etc. to be a messaging app per se, even if some of those have messaging functionality between users...

I digress on the category definition. Public messaging (without PM or DM features) is still messaging; and often far more useful than trying to forward 1:1 messages in order to bring additional participants onboard.

It's worth noting that GH/BB/GL have all foregone PM features; probably for the better in terms of productivity: messaging @all is likely more productive.

Wire supports a subset of markdown syntax, https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002676029-Use-...

You can register for a free personal account with only an email, no requirement for phone number or contacts upload.

Riot seems to support a subset of Markdown. You should be able to use any Matrix client you feel like.

And their encryption is audited!

riot-desktop and Riot Android are solid.

RiotX on Android quickly catching up, has very modern UI, but no room management/calls yet.

People seem to love FluffyChat.

Don't waste your time with Fractal.

RiotX is really nice. I wish the other clients would catch up in terms of UI/UX which I hear is getting a big update soon.

To respond to OP: https://volt-app.com/

Related discussion: I've built FastComments to be "realtime" and support markdown. Been thinking of reusing the infrastructure to launch a little chat app, but not sure what the killer feature would be aside from being lightweight...

Edited to add Volt link.

WhatsApp supports italic, bold, strikethrough, and monospace using backticks you could use for source code, though no syntax highlighting[1].

[1]: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/chats/how-to-format-your-me...

Telegram has some support. I believe it's an incomplete implementation.

WhatsApp isn't "markdown", but supports code blocks using triple backquote (and uses underscore for italics and star for bold, which I think is a lot better than markdown anyway).

Discord works great, lighter than slack.

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