About Zettlr
From Passion to Profession
Zettlr started in 2017 as a passion project by Hendrik Erz. Dissatisfied with existing solutions to academic writing, he began working on a small Markdown-based editor. Built from the ground-up to cater to the needs of academic researchers, Zettlr was the first solution to an old problem: existing Word processors and note-taking apps had little support for academic workflows, instead being targeted at administrative staff or authors.
Soon thereafter, it became clear that Zettlr filled a niche like no other software could. In the following two years, a community of academics and students emerged around the app. By 2020, the app was used on all continents and in some of the most prestigious universities in the world.
With two large updates – versions 2.0 in 2021 and 3.0 in 2023 – Zettlr continued to evolve into a comprehensive workbench with a rich feature-set. At that point, Zettlr was not just used by academics from students to professors, but by anyone who needed to write serious amounts of text for their day-to-day work, including journalists and authors.
As the app grew, so did the demands for development. With a large and diverse community, Zettlr had to cater to more users that all had their own preferred styles of writing. While Zettlr had largely been a one-man-show until 2023, in mid-2024, a Zettlr Steering Committee was founded to oversee the continuing development.
Today, Zettlr is one of the most successful and battle-proven writing tools for various professions. It has proven its worth for academic papers, theses, and even entire books. With the awesome support we receive from our community, and a group of dedicated maintainers, we look forward to keeping Zettlr the number one writing tool: fast, efficient, and, most importantly, free and open source.
