Comparison

Bear vs BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Distraction-free writing environment
  • Flexible Markdown formatting
  • Tag-based organization
  • Task management
  • Note linking (WikiLinks)
  • Web clipping extension
  • Apple Pencil sketching
Features
Read full description

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/

About

BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE

Easily annotate screenshots and photos with text, shapes, and voice notes. Quickly share marked-up images and long screenshots via a simple link, streamlining communication for testers and developers.

Highlights
  • Annotate with shapes, text, and arrows
  • Record voice explanations
  • Merge multiple screenshots
  • Undo/Redo functionality
  • Share via link
  • Select photos from library or camera
Features
Read full description

BugShot is a utility tool to snap, annotate, and markup screenshots and photos, you can easily mark it up with our simple and practical tools, and share them just by sending a simple link. For APP TESTER and APP DEVELOPERS, with BUGSHOT, you can draw some flags, shapes, writing some notes, and recording a voice to explaining the details of issues, when APP developers received a bug link from BUGSHOT, they can reproduce the bug just by checking the screenshot, and all of the steps to reproducing the issue is presented on the screenshot page, and it will become easier for APP Testers and APP Developers to perfect an APP. For None-Testers and None-developers, you can use BUGSHOT to snap some very different cool things and a spark of an idea, mark up photos of silly, cool or inspiring things, all you need is just download it and begin your fantastic journey. BugShot has the following features: - Drawing with all kinds of shapes (Line, Pen, Rectangle, Ellipse, Text, Arrow, etc.) - Picker a photo from the library or camera - Recording a voice to explain your idea - Automatically merge multiple screenshots to a long screenshot - Redo and Undo every single step - Share your accomplished work with other users BUGSHOT is focused on raising our developing productivity and snap every inspiring moment, we need your suggestions and advice, and also we're always eager to improve your experience in BUGSHOT! If you have any bug reports or feature requests, please feel free to contact us at『service@vapeam.com』and every single of your feedbacks will be seriously taken.

Screenshots

Bear4 screens
BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE at none against Bear's 2. BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE also leads on iOS requirement (9.0 vs 16). Bear's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 3 months). On price, rating and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Bear holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bear has 6.9K ratings behind it against 23, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Bear's written reviews are positive against 67% of BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Bear versus BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBearBugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better4.5 (23 ratings)
Positive reviews76.9% of reviews — better66.7% of reviews
Number of ratings6.9K — better23
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemiumAd-supported — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS169.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size230 MB14 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShiny Frog Ltd.政武 刘

Customer experience

Bear

All ratings6,871 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral2.6%
Negative5.8%
Written reviews1,754 reviews
Positive76.9%
Neutral9.5%
Negative13.7%

BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE

All ratings23 ratings
Positive91.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative8.7%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative33.3%

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

BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Bear

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
None

BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bear free?
Bear is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE free?
BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Bear or BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE?
Bear is rated higher. Bear averages 4.7 out of 5 from 6.9K ratings, while BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE averages 4.5 from 23 ratings.
Do Bear or BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE have ads?
BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE shows ads; Bear does not.
Which is updated more often, Bear or BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE?
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, and BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE every 3 months. Most recently, Bear was updated on October 20, 2026 and BugShot, Mark Photo with VOICE on October 7, 2026.

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