Compare markdown or org mode

I love org-mode. But I do sometimes wonder if the definition of 'plain text' is stretched a little far? Particularly when you look at org files outside of emacs. You could say HTML is plain-text too...? Okay org's not so bad as that, but it's pretty illegible without CSH and folding. Markdown certainly is just as readable without CSH as it is with.

Other than that though, I prefer org-mode, and the ability to export from org to Markdown (or HTML, or PDF or ...) means that it's pretty well able to be consumed (read-only) all over the Web now, not just by Emacs people.

I prefer also org-mode's link style [[url][text]] as it mirrors HTML's <a href=url>text</a>; moin-moin's [[url|text]], and MediaWiki's [url text], whereas Markdown's syntax [text](url) is the wrong way around to my mind -- and I always end up getting this wrong when I use it! I suppose it's because in reStructured Text a link is written this way around too: `text <url>_` (and surrounded with backquotes, which are hard to do in Markdown code blocks, I am learning -- thanks for the Edit @Demi !)

I think markdown and org derive from the different demands, while they coincidently have the similar markup syntax to edit plain text documents.

Markdown is only designed to easily read/write plain text. Refer to its philosophy:

Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible.

However, org is more complicated and it also has more features. You can use org for GTD, maintaining TODO lists, project plans etc. And the markup syntax seems just one accessory in the whole org system.

In my options, if only write some plain documents, you can choose anyone as you wish. However, if GTD or intend to export your plain documents for more formats (tex/pdf/docbook), you have to choose org.

I started out with markdown, but switched to org-mode after a few years of using markdown.

I think that Markdown is more readable than org-mode - especially if you don’t use Emacs. You have the special headings with underline while org-mode uses a line starting with #+title: as title and *, **, … for chapter/section/… headings. Also markdown links are [text](link) instead of [[link][text]] and footnotes are [^footnote] instead of [fn:footnote].

On the other hand, org-mode can do about everything you might want to do with a plain-text list - from planning your work and scheduling your writing time to including code-fragments which actually can get executed on export, so an exported document always contains the output of the latest version of the code automatically.

I switched to org-mode after starting to use it just for todo lists. Then I realized that I could also write nicely in it. And that the link syntax might be more complex than markdown, but C-c C-l generates it for me. And that exporting just works.

If you use emacs, I would definitely suggest org-mode.

I even write for my markdown-based website with org-mode, using the markdown-export, which for example adds support for convenient creation and editing of beautiful tables.