Bear vs UpNote
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
Read full descriptionHide 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/
UpNote
This app provides a clean and beautiful interface for writing and organizing notes, journals, and to-do lists. It offers rich formatting options, an intuitive organization system, and instant syncing across devices, with offline capabilities. Premium features include enhanced security and export options.
- Rich text editor with formatting tools
- Intuitive organizing system (notebooks, pins, links)
- Secure note locking with Touch/Face ID
- Instant cross-device syncing and offline access
- Markdown support and export
- Task management and to-do lists
Read full descriptionHide full description
UpNote is a clean and beautiful app for writing and organizing. It's easy to use with rich features and delightful experience. UpNote is designed to help you take notes easily and stay focused on what matters most. UpNote has beautiful fonts and elegant themes that you can adjust to make your writing experience most comfortable and pleasant. UpNote is an ideal place to keep your diary and journal. It has a powerful lock feature so that you can rest assured that your notes stay private and secure. You can also use Touch ID or Face ID to securely unlock your notes. UpNote’s intuitive organizing system will keep your note space neat and light. There are many ways to organize your notes: putting them into notebooks, pinning your notes to the top of the note list, bookmarking them for quick reference or linking to other notes. You can also close any notebooks to focus on only most important one. UpNote’s rich editor makes it perfect for planning and managing your tasks. Simply write down your to-do list and have them synced to all your devices. UpNote offers highlight, text colors, table, nested list, code and many other important formatting tools so that you could easily format your notes. UpNote syncs notes instantly on all devices. It also works reliably offline, so you could take note anytime, anywhere. If you are a markdown user, UpNote is great for you too. It has intuitive shortcuts based on markdown, which makes it more fun to write notes. You can also export your notes to Markdown or PDF. Try UpNote now and you will fall in love with it! ---- Upgrade to Premium to get full power of UpNote: - Lock your notes and notebooks - Insert table and attachments - Write unlimited number of notes - Elegant themes and notebook covers - Export to text PDF, HTML and Markdown ---- Price may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes 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. Manage your subscriptions in Account Settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription. ---- If you have any question or feedback, we would love to hear it. Send an email to support@getupnote.com, and we would love to get in touch with you! ---- Privacy policy: https://getupnote.com/privacy.html Terms of use: https://getupnote.com/terms.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Bear at 6.9K against UpNote's 1.1K. UpNote's advantage is review sentiment (86% vs 77%). 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 and UpNote sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Bear against 4.7 for UpNote. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bear has 6.9K ratings behind it against 1.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 77% of Bear's written reviews are positive against 86% of UpNote's.
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, UpNote weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bear | UpNote |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) | 4.7 (1.1K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.8% of reviews | 85.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K — better | 1.1K |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 230 MB | 81 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shiny Frog Ltd. | UpNote Company Limited |
Customer experience
Bear
UpNote
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
UpNote
From 1.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Seamless syncing across devices
- 🚀 Fast and responsive
- 💡 Nested notebooks and tags for organization
- 👍 Clean and intuitive interface
- 💡 Lifetime premium option
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional bugs and crashes
- 🐛 Issues with image/attachment handling
- 🐛 Formatting problems with pasted content
- 🐛 Syncing problems between devices
- 🔒 Lack of end-to-end encryption
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
UpNote
Reported bugs
4 issues- Black screen issues
- Lost notes and data
- Incompatibility with newer iOS versions
- Google sign-in not working
Requested features
8 requests- Reminders and calendar integration
- More customization options (fonts, colors, etc.)
- Improved drawing/handwriting support
- PDF annotation and embedding
- Optical character recognition (OCR)
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Ability to reorder bullets and lists
- Improved table editing and formatting
- Apple Watch app
In-app purchases
Bear
- Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
UpNote
- Premium monthly subscription$1.991 Month
- Life-time Upgrade$19.99
- Life-time Upgrade to Premium$19.99
- Life-time Upgrade$24.99
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Life-time Upgrade to Premium$24.99
- Life-time Upgrade$29.99
- Life-time upgrade to Premium$34.99
- Life-time upgrade to Premium$39.99









