Bear vs FTL Paint
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/
FTL Paint
Create 8-bit pixel art on your mobile device with a suite of common and advanced tools. Import images, manage layers, and export your creations as PNGs or JSON. Ideal for casual users, artists, and game developers on the go.
- Common and advanced drawing tools
- Image import and export
- Layer management
- Color mixers
- Sprite sheet and tilemap creation
- Animation support
- PNG and JSON export
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Make pixel art on the go with your phone or tablet! During lunch, on the bus, or wherever you are, make wonderful 8-bit creations for yourself, your game, or to share with the world. Built by a game developer for casual users, artists, and developers alike. Core Features: - Common tools like Paint, Erase, Lasso, Fill, Color picker - Additional tools such as Curves, Color Replace. - Image import and Export support. - Layer Management. - Various kinds of Color Mixers - In-App documentation. - Create sprite sheets, tilemaps, and simple animations. - Export PNGs and JSON. Experimental Features: - Unreal Engine Paper2D export (engine plugin still WIP) This app is still under development. Please send an email to nshkurkin[at]ftlgoats.com if you want to suggest features, improvements, or report bugs.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: FTL Paint at none against Bear's 2. FTL Paint also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 77%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). Bear's advantage is ratings volume (6.9K vs 2) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months). On price, ads 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
Both are free to download. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. FTL Paint asks for nothing beyond the download.
FTL Paint holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bear has 6.9K ratings behind it against 2, 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 100% of FTL Paint's.
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, FTL Paint every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bear | FTL Paint |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 76.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 230 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shiny Frog Ltd. | Nikolai Shkurkin |
Customer experience
Bear
FTL Paint
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
FTL Paint
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
FTL Paint
No in-app purchases









