Bear vs Google Keep
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bear
A beautiful and simple Markdown app for capturing, writing, and organizing your thoughts and ideas. It offers a distraction-free writing environment, flexible formatting, and powerful organizational tools like tags and tasks. Ideal for anyone looking to streamline their note-taking and creative processes.
- Distraction-free writing environment
- Flexible Markdown formatting
- Tag-based organization
- Task management
- Note linking (WikiLinks)
- Web clipping extension
- Apple Pencil sketching
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Bear is a beautiful, powerfully simple Markdown 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. "My journaling app of choice is Bear" - Kit Eaton, New York Times * 2017 Apple Design Award * 2016 App Store App of the Year * Editors' choice for 7 consecutive years * Most of our parents love it ## BEAUTIFUL. SIMPLE. POWERFUL. PRIVATE - Tools stay out of your way so you can just write - Sketch ideas on iPad with an extendable canvas and Apple Pencil (and other styli) - Clip web pages and other content with Bear’s app extension - The redesigned Info Panel now with Table of Contents and Backlinks - Use Apple Watch to dictate and append to recent notes - Support for all the scripts including RTL languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian - Easily create notes with Siri and Shortcuts - Your notes, not ours - Bear is private at its core: We cannot see your notes, tags, or anything else ## FLEXIBLE MARKDOWN - Work in plain text - easy to move between apps - Still use formatting like bold, italics, strikethrough, links, tables, and more with Markdown - Combine text styles like bold and underline, even in headings - Markdown hides for a clean reading experience - Use WikiLinks to connect notes and build a personal wiki or knowledge management tool ## GET ORGANIZED with #tags, tasks, and more - Add #tags, #multi-word tags# and even #multiple/nested/tags anywhere in a note for quick organization - Pin important tags to the top of the Sidebar - Make important tags stand out in the Sidebar with TagCons - Add tasks to notes and easily view all notes that include tasks - Fold sections to get them out of the way ## SHARING MADE EASY - Export notes to plain text, Markdown, TextBundle, Bear note, and rich text - Export notes to HTML, DocX, PDF, JPG, and ePub (Bear Pro required) - Easily share your notes to any third-party app with the Share Sheet ## SEARCH FAR AND WIDE - Use Spotlight to search your notes from anywhere - Search for text inside photos and PDFs (Bear Pro required) - Focus on specific types of notes with powerful Special Searches like @todo, @images, and @yesterday ## CREATE YOUR COZY SPACE * Pick from nearly 30 themes for the perfect writing space in both Light and Dark Mode (Bear Pro required) * Choose an app icon that speaks to your personality (Bear Pro required) * Set your own fonts for plain text, headings, and code * Set line height and width, paragraph spacing, and more ## GET MORE WITH BEAR PRO One subscription enables a variety of features on all your devices and keeps the Bear hugs coming. - Sync notes between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud - Encrypt individual notes with a password that is entirely private to you - Lock Bear with Face/Touch ID - Export to more formats including HTML, DocX, PDF, JPG, and ePub - Search for text inside images and PDFs in Bear notes - Over 30 beautiful app themes & app icons $2.99 monthly $29.99 yearly 14-day free trial ----- Price may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your App Store account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You will not be able to cancel the subscription once activated. After purchase, manage your subscriptions in App Store Account Settings. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription. ----- bear@shinyfrog.net Twitter: BearNotesApp Reddit: reddit.com/r/BearApp Facebook: BearNotes Instagram: BearNotesApp Privacy Policy: http://www.bear.app/privacy/ Terms of Service: http://www.bear.app/terms/
Google Keep
Capture, edit, and share notes and lists across all your devices. Organize with labels and colors, and set time or location-based reminders. Collaborate with others in real-time for shared tasks.
- Capture notes, lists, photos, and audio
- Organize with labels and colors
- Set time and location-based reminders
- Collaborate on notes and lists
- Transcribe voice memos
- Extract text from images
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• Capture, edit, share, and collaborate on your notes on any device, anywhere. • Add notes, lists, photos, and audio to Keep. • Organize your notes with labels and colors. • Set and forget. Get reminded about a note at the right time or place. • Record a voice memo and have it automatically transcribed. • Grab the text from an image to help you quickly find that note again through search. WHEN AND WHERE YOU NEED IT Need to remember to pick up some groceries? Set a location-based reminder to pull up your grocery list right when you get to the store. Need to finish a to-do? Set a time-based reminder to make sure you never miss a thing. SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS Next time you go to the store, share your shopping list on Keep and watch as items get checked off in real time. No need for text messages back and forth. Get things done together, faster. FIND WHAT YOU NEED, FAST Quickly filter and search for notes by color and other attributes like lists with the label “To-dos”, audio notes with reminders or just see shared notes. Find what you're looking for even faster, and let Keep do the remembering for you. ALWAYS WITHIN REACH Keep works on your phone, tablet and computer. Everything you add to Keep syncs across your devices so your important stuff is always with you. Try Google Keep on the web at http://keep.google.com and find it in the Chrome Web Store at http://g.co/keepinchrome.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Google Keep at none against Bear's 2. Google Keep also leads on chart position (#70 vs unranked) and ratings volume (29K vs 6.9K). Bear's advantage is review sentiment (77% vs 42%) and device support (4 vs 2). On price, rating, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Google Keep asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Bear against 4.6 for Google Keep. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6.9K and 29K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 77% of Bear's written reviews are positive against 42% of Google Keep's.
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, Google Keep every 6 days. Both last shipped on October 13, 2026.
| Parameter | Bear | Google Keep |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better | 4.6 (29K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.8% of reviews — better | 42.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K | 29K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | — | #70 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 230 MB | 212 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shiny Frog Ltd. | |
Customer experience
Bear
Google Keep
User reviews
Bear
From 6.9K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Elegant and minimalist design
- 🚀 Smooth and fast performance
- 💡 Flexible tagging system for organization
- 🔒 Secure and private notes
- 🎨 Customizable themes and fonts
Room to improve
- 🔒 Subscription required for syncing and advanced features
- 🔍 Limited search functionality within notes on iOS
- 🖼️ Issues with image handling and resizing
- 🐛 Occasional bugs and crashes reported
- 💻 Lack of web/Windows app for cross-platform access
Google Keep
From 29K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Lean and efficient
- 👍 Minimalistic and easy to use
- 🤝 Good for collaboration
- 💡 Useful for note-taking and lists
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and crashes frequently
- 🔄 Sync issues and data loss
- 🕰️ Slow performance and lag
- 📱 Limited functionality on mobile
- 🔒 Lack of security features
Bugs and requests
Bear
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sync issues causing note conflicts and data loss
- Cursor jumping and input issues on iPad
- Inconsistent behavior when importing/exporting content
Requested features
5 requests- Add password protection for individual notes
- Improve search capabilities to find text within notes
- Implement table support for more robust note-taking
- Develop a web-based version for broader accessibility
- Allow manual sorting and organization of notes
Google Keep
Reported bugs
4 issues- Notes randomly duplicating or disappearing
- Checkboxes not working as expected
- Keyboard issues and text input problems
- Refresh failures and connectivity problems
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for widgets
- Improve text formatting options
- Introduce folder/category organization
- Enable password protection for notes
- Enhance search and sorting capabilities
In-app purchases
Bear
- Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Google Keep
No in-app purchases








