You just want to take notes. Without hassle. Without having to spend an hour first figuring out how the app works. I’ve used Bear intensively for two months – on my iPhone, iPad and Mac – and can tell you exactly where it’s brilliant and where it falls short.
Bear: the company
Bear was developed by Shiny Frog, a small Italian development team that decided in 2016 that the world deserved a more beautiful note-taking app. Not another bloated tool with a thousand features you never use. Just an app where writing feels good.
And you can see that reflected. Bear won the Apple Design Award in 2017, and for good reason. The app feels like an Apple product – minimalist, fast, without frills. The team keeps the focus sharp: this is a writing tool, not a project management system that also happens to make notes.
What makes Bear unique? They deliberately chose the Apple ecosystem. Only Apple. No Windows, no Android, no web version (okay, there’s a beta for Pro users, but that doesn’t really count). That choice is simultaneously their greatest strength and greatest limitation.
Who is Bear actually for?
Let’s be honest: if you have a Windows laptop, you can stop reading now. Bear is exclusively for people who live in the Apple ecosystem.
But who should consider Bear? Writers who want a frictionless experience. Students who want to keep their notes organized with tags instead of endless folders. Journalists who need to quickly capture ideas and find them later. Developers who write their documentation in Markdown.
Who is it not for? Teams that need to collaborate on documents. People who need complex databases. Anyone who occasionally uses a Windows PC. And if you already find Apple Notes just fine and don’t need Markdown, Bear might be overkill.
The ideal Bear user has an iPhone, a Mac, and wants mainly one thing: writing without distraction. With the assurance that everything syncs neatly via iCloud.
Bear features
What exactly do you get when you open Bear? More than you initially think.
Those nested tags deserve some extra attention. In practice, you work like this: you start with broad tags like #work and #personal. After a few weeks you notice you need #work/meetings, and later #work/meetings/weekly-standup. It grows organically. And because one note can have multiple tags, you don’t have to choose between categories.
The Markdown support is also stronger than you think. Bear supports tables, checklists, code blocks with syntax highlighting for 150+ programming languages, and even LaTeX for mathematical formulas. For 90% of users, that’s more than enough.
Bear pricing
This is where it gets interesting. Bear has a free version, but it’s quite limited. You can make notes on one device. Period. No sync between your iPhone and Mac. No export to PDF or HTML. No beautiful themes. No encryption.
For most people, the free version is basically an extended trial. You taste how nice the editor is, but you can’t really work with it if you have multiple devices.
Bear Pro costs $ 2.99 per month or $ 29.99 per year (which comes out to $ 2.50 per month). There’s a free 14-day trial. On one hand, that’s not expensive – less than two coffees per month. On the other hand: you’re paying for functionality that’s standard in many other apps.
Apple Notes is completely free and also syncs across all your devices. Obsidian is free for personal use and has many more features. Notion has a free plan that’s usually enough for individual users.
Is Bear Pro worth it? If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and write a lot: probably yes. The editor is simply better than the alternatives. It feels nicer. But you’re mainly paying for feel and design, not for unique functionality.
What should you watch out for?
Okay, time for the honest criticism. Because Bear isn’t perfect.
The biggest problem? You have to pay to sync between your own devices. That just feels weird in 2024. Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud – all free sync. But with Bear it’s behind a paywall. For many people, that’s a dealbreaker.
Then the platform limitation. No Windows. No Android. If you ever consider buying an Android phone, or if you have to use a Windows laptop at work, you’re stuck. Your notes are trapped in the Apple ecosystem. Export is possible, but then you lose the sync and have to transfer manually.
Collaboration? Forget it. Bear is purely personal. You can export a note and email it, but real-time collaboration like in Google Docs or Notion doesn’t exist. So for teams, Bear isn’t an option.
The development speed is also a point of criticism. Bear 2.0 came out in 2022, after years of waiting. New features come slowly. If you’re used to apps that roll out new things every month, Bear can feel frustrating.
And then the tag system. Yes, it’s flexible. But it’s also different from what you’re used to. Some people just want folders. That traditional hierarchy feels familiar. With tags, you have to discipline yourself to stay consistent. Do you type #Work or #work? That makes a difference.
Backlinks are there, but they’re not as prominent as in Obsidian or Roam Research. You have to actively search for which notes link to each other. There’s no graph view that visualizes your network of ideas.
Last but not least: Bear uses your iCloud storage. That’s usually not a problem, but if your iCloud is full, you have to pay extra to Apple. That’s on top of your Bear subscription.
What do others think?
The general sentiment about Bear is overwhelmingly positive. People get especially enthusiastic about the design. “The most beautiful note-taking app” is a frequently heard description. And that’s not an exaggeration – Bear just looks great.
The writing experience also gets a lot of praise. It feels fast and responsive. No lag, no hassle. You open the app and start typing. That frictionless experience is what people come back for.
The tag system divides opinions. Some users find it brilliant – finally no endless folder structures where you lose notes. Others miss those traditional folders and find tags too abstract.
The most common complaint? The subscription for synchronization. That comes up in almost every review. People understand that developers need to make money, but sync feels like a basic feature that should be free.
The platform limitation is the second stumbling block. Many people want to use Bear, but can’t because they also have a Windows laptop or Android phone. That’s frustrating, especially because the app is otherwise so good.
A positive point that often comes up: you retain ownership of your data. Everything is stored in Markdown, an open format. If Bear stops tomorrow, you can simply export all your notes and import them elsewhere. That gives peace of mind.
Bear alternatives
Bear doesn’t quite fit what you’re looking for? These are the serious alternatives.
Of course there are more options – Evernote, OneNote, Craft, Ulysses – but these three are the most direct competitors. Obsidian if you want to be platform-independent, Notion if you need more structure, Apple Notes if you want to keep it simple.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bear available for Windows or Android?
No, Bear is exclusive to Apple devices. You can use it on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, but not on Windows or Android. There is a web version in beta for Pro users, but it’s still limited. If you use even one non-Apple device, Bear is probably not the right choice.
Does Bear support folders?
No, Bear has deliberately chosen tags instead of folders. You organize your notes with nested tags like #work/projects/clientA. That’s more flexible because one note can have multiple tags, but it does take some getting used to if you’re accustomed to a traditional folder structure.
Can I export my notes?
Yes, Bear has good export options. You can export to Markdown, PDF, HTML, DOCX, RTF and even JPG. Some export formats like PDF and HTML are only available in the Pro version. The nice thing is that your notes are stored in Markdown, so you’re not dependent on Bear’s own format.
Conclusion
Bear is a bit of a paradox. Objectively speaking, it’s one of the best note-taking apps out there – beautiful interface, powerful editor, smart tag system. But it’s also frustratingly limited by the choices the team has made.
If you’re fully in the Apple ecosystem and mainly want to write, Bear is fantastic. That $ 30 per year is worth it for the experience. It just feels good to work in Bear.
But as soon as you operate even slightly outside that Apple ecosystem, it becomes problematic. And the fact that you have to pay for synchronization between your own devices remains a sore point, no matter how beautiful the app is.
My advice? Try the free version for two weeks. Actually use it, don’t just open it briefly. If after those two weeks you notice that you keep reaching for Bear instead of your other apps, then you know enough. Then that $ 2.50 per month is money well spent.
But if you have doubts, or if you know you sometimes need to work on Windows, look at Obsidian first. It’s free, works everywhere, and is perhaps slightly less beautiful but functionally more powerful.
For me personally? I still use Bear for my daily notes. Not because it’s objectively the best choice, but because writing in it just feels good. And sometimes that’s enough.
