Bear

a beautiful, simple Markdown note-taking app

4.6•34 reviews•

1.1K followers

a beautiful, simple Markdown note-taking app

4.6•34 reviews•

1.1K followers

Visit website

Note and writing apps

•

Writing assistants

Bear is a beautiful, powerfully simple Markdown note taking app to capture, write, and organize your life. Take notes, plan your day, journal thoughts, organize tables, create lists and tasks, sketch ideas, link notes together, write a book, and much more. Bear is used by writers, lawyers, chefs, CEOs, teachers, doctors, engineers, students, parents... you get the picture. Getting started couldn't be faster—no signup and no account. Just open a note and write naturally.

AdaptYour company brain. AI that thinks + acts across your stack.

Promoted

Bear Launches

Bear 2Simple, powerful, private Markdown notes

Launched on July 12th, 2023

BearBeautiful writing app for notes and prose

Launched on November 4th, 2016

BearBear is a beautiful writing app for crafting notes and prose

Launched on October 18th, 2016

BearA beautiful, flexible writing app for notes and prose

Launched on June 21st, 2016

4.6

Based on 34 reviews

Review Bear?

Reviewers largely praise Bear for being fast, polished, and easy to write in, with Markdown, exports, backlinks, tables, shortcuts support, and flexible hashtag organization repeatedly called out as useful for everything from quick capture to long-form drafting. Many say it stays simple without feeling limiting, especially on Apple devices. The clearest complaint is platform lock-in: users on Windows or Android, or anyone wanting a web app, feel shut out. A smaller set also mentions slow sync, copy quirks, and hashtags becoming cluttered.

+31

Summarized with AI

Pros

beautiful design (13)

simple interface (13)

markdown support (8)

apple ecosystem integration (4)

fast performance (4)

backlinks (3)

export options (2)

ios compatibility (2)

reasonable subscription cost (2)

Cons

limited cross-platform support (4)

no web version (3)

wysiwyg editor issues (2)

Pros

Cons

Reviews

All Reviews

Most Informative

•4 reviews

What's great

simple interface (13)markdown support (8)beautiful design (13)

I've been using bear for about 5 years now. I use it for everything. Before I discovered it, I had a hard time organizing the infinite number of notes I make every day. Sure, I could probably use the notes app that comes with MacOS but I always disliked the interface of that one. It felt clunky and keyboard-unfriendly. Then came Bear. I fell in love with markdown almost instantly. Now I can basically throw my mouse away and I couldn't be happier. I mean, I'm probably not the most demanding user but for what I do (writing) it's the best editor I've had in decades. Simple, yet powerful. (Okay, that sounds like something their marketing team would come up with on a bad day, but I mean it.) Oh, and I also highly appreciate the ability to copy my text in different formats (RTF, markdown, HTML...)

What needs improvement

Syncing across devices never worked fast enough for my taste. When I select all + copy, it copies the tag at the bottom of each document too. I dislike that. Other than that, no huge complaints.

vs Alternatives

Apple Notes

Bear has markdown. Apple's Notes app does not.

Ratings

Ease of use

Reliability

Value for money

Customization

Report

93 views6mo ago

Revel.xyz

•1 review

I am looking for a better .md editor than VS code or Obsidian. I tried to use this but I can't see how to 'view source'. There's a pref checkbox to "hide markdown" but it seems to not do anything? Sometimes the WYSIWYG editor messes up when you paste a link, or you want to put in some extra html (eg for an image tag to control its width or add a style sheet). But seems that's not possible? It's like Slack's updated frustrating rich-text input editor. The point of markdown is that you can edit it cleanly with a scalpel. Maybe it's not for technical people, just treat it as a replacement rich text editor like Word or Apple's own Notes app? Just checked Typora and it has a keyboard shortcut to toggle source mode, would really like that here.

What needs improvement

wysiwyg editor issues (2)

Report

43 views3yr ago

•1 review

I installed the Bear app years ago when it was first released, and from the moment I started using it, I thought, "What a beautiful design!" Years later, not only does it still have a stunning interface, but it's also incredibly user-friendly. The integration with Markdown is incredibly practical, allowing me to focus solely on writing without searching for buttons or commands—just pure text. Now, in its new version, the integration with tables and additional control over images are more than welcome. I have faith that we'll see even more improvements in a shorter time.

What's great

simple interface (13)markdown support (8)beautiful design (13)

Report

44 views3yr ago

•4 reviews

What's great

simple interface (13)markdown support (8)beautiful design (13)

What needs improvement

Syncing across devices never worked fast enough for my taste. When I select all + copy, it copies the tag at the bottom of each document too. I dislike that. Other than that, no huge complaints.

vs Alternatives

Apple Notes

Bear has markdown. Apple's Notes app does not.

Ratings

Ease of use

Reliability

Value for money

Customization

Report

93 views6mo ago

Revel.xyz

•1 review

What needs improvement

wysiwyg editor issues (2)

Report

43 views3yr ago

•1 review

What's great

simple interface (13)markdown support (8)beautiful design (13)

Report

44 views3yr ago