Bear vs Note Share
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/
Note Share
Create and share digital notes overlaid onto the real world using augmented reality. Point your camera, tap to add notes, and share AR maps with other users. Save maps offline without an account.
- Create unlimited AR post-it notes
- Share AR note maps with other users
- Load saved and shared maps anytime
- Save AR note maps offline
- Augmented reality note placement
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Noteshare AR is an augmented reality app that allows you to create and share notes in the physical world with other iOS users. Simply point your camera at a point of interest, tap the screen, and you can add a post-it note in the real world! Features include: -Creating an unlimited amount of post-it notes per AR map -Sharing AR note maps with other iOS users who have the app -Loading saved and shared maps with no time restrictions (e.g., load maps that were saved or shared days, weeks, months, or even years ago!) -Save an AR note map offline without an account Optional Auto-Renewable Subscription Plus Plan - Monthly or Annual -Save an unlimited amount of note maps A subscription charge will be applied to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel subscriptions anytime in your Apple ID account settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial, if offered, will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription. Terms of Service URL: https://appzario.com/terms-of-service.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Bear at 4.7 against Note Share's 4.2. Bear also leads on ratings volume (6.9K vs 9). Note Share's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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 Note Share sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Bear holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bear has 6.9K ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Bear ships an update every 9 days, Note Share weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bear | Note Share |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better | 4.2 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.9% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K — better | 9 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days | 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 | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 230 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shiny Frog Ltd. | Appzario LLC |
Customer experience
Bear
Note Share
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
Note Share
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Bear
- Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Note Share
- Plus Plan - Monthly$2.991 Month
- Plus Plan - Annual$29.991 Year









