The functionality that you are looking is something called "what you see is what you get" aka WYSIWYG
If you want a open source alternative to typora there's Mark text
You can also use Joplin, it also has a mobile app
You might like wordgrinder (Although I switched to MarkText as a fancier graphical version of the same idea, you can get that from Flathub)
Yes I agree Krita has way more tools than Firealpaca. For my use though Firealpaca is perfect because it's basic enough to not be confusing. It has a simpler learning curve.
I use a few more softwares that I can recommended. You can add them to the list if you like. Hakuneko for downloading Manga. WPS office is free but it has ads so I think you can skip it, but it's genuinely the best Microsoft Office replacement I've found. It can open all the office files types, pdfs and it can also read epub files.
YacReader is a good library manager for comics. I download comics with HakuNeko and manage them with YacReader. Koodo reader is the best looking ebook reader I've found. It's on github.
Marktext is a good markdown editor.
Free Download Manager is all in one download manager. It can download torrents too, and it's free.
SmartEdit writer for writing stories. It has a very clean and simple interface. Quite easy to get used to.
Pycharm community edition is a very good python IDE. I find it's prediction system to be much more versatile than VS code.
PotPlayer is a good video player. I find it better than VLC but that's just my opinion. It can also play flash games too.
Try a free and open source markdown app, Mark Text. Clicking the link will take you to their website. I tried adding an inline photo from a link, and it worked for me in Mark Text. The picture comes from Pexels.
Here is a screenshot image of the inline photo from the web in Mark Text. Mark Text can also export your picture in PDF, and the acutal picture is included.
It's a free download so you can try it out for yourself.
I hope this is what you're looking for.
Tupora.io is a really good markdown editor with LaTex/MathJax Support (inline).
The problem is that to my knowledge you cannot run it on an iPad so you will have to connect to a server (e.g. via VNC) to use it.
You can get a hosted server or setup your own machine at home and either use DynDNS or setup a real domain. The only thing left is setting up a VNC server on this machine and installing a VNC client onto the iPad.
I have never used a better editor for text sprinkled with images, links, LaTex etc. There is an open source competitor (https://marktext.app/) which is not quite as good but closing fast.
I used this for a bit, and really like hybrid markdown/WYSIWYG interfaces for personal note taking.
Was especially stoked with the fact that you can use your own CSS file, especially for checkbox "checked" state, as I use them a lot and want unchecked/done to be totally different colours (the whole line of text).
But sadly found that copy and paste is a bit glitchy with checkboxes. Often I'd move some checkbox lines, and some of the checkboxes would toggle state.
Anyway, I hope more programs like this come out for note taking. Even thought I'm a programmer and deal with raw markdown all the time, I never liked dual-pane separate editing vs preview for personal note taking. It makes a lot of sense for doco that you're publishing to the web, and even typing up long reddit posts. But when I just want to quickly navigate my personal notes and make quick minor edits etc, having both editing/formatting combined in a single pane like typora wins out for me.
Typora is free, but not open source. Not a huge deal for me. But for those interested there's also https://marktext.app/ which is very similar and is open source.
Mark Text have an option for hand-drawn diagrams. I don't know if this is the case, because I've never used this function, but I use this application to write my README.md files so if I will ever need a diagram, I'll give it a try!
EDIT: typo
I've tried a lot of open source markdown editors and the only one that I've found that does not have the classic edit/preview double-panel/toggleable view is MarkText. It has a built-in table of contents panel, search functionality and you can open directories. I hope it gets more customizability in the future though.
noteable? its save files as plain-text markdown and you can sync your notes folder using something like syncthing. unfortunately it doesnt use sub-folders to organise your notes which i would rather and the dev seems fairly set on only using tags as folders.
marktext is another editor im using instead. its more of a single page editor compared to noteable/evernote but it does have a sidebar so you can navigate through your files and folders
theres also note self that ive only found recently. it says that its "evernote-like"
The best markdown editor is IMHO Mark Text. Everything just works with it.
But you should really start using git and make edits on your local machine, then uploading changes.
Or use a different platform. Ghost is indeed a great publishing platform that also supports markdown. Nextcloud Notes is also great.
But what exactly is your goal? It seems to me like your using the wrong tools.