Comparison

Bear vs Auto Task

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

Auto Task

Features
Read full description

Auto Task is an innovative idea developed to help you in a place where you were used to be on your own before. Auto Task schedule your assignments and tasks for you so you can be on top of your work and just focus on studying. Delaying a large amount of work and starting it only a few days before the deadline sound familiar ? Keeping up with the amount of tasks and assignment you receive as a student of multiple courses per semester can cause a lot of anxiety. The main obstacle for a lot of students is actually the anxiety caused from even thinking about the amount of work they have left, and the burden of scheduling your remaining time accordingly. Auto Task is here to help. Auto Schedule - with the unique concept of Auto Schedule all you have to do is just Add And Forget ! Fill In your tasks and provide a deadline, Auto Task will take care of the rest for you. Need a Break ?, No Problem - Auto Task offers you a variety of options to set a break between your scheduled work periods. Not only students can enjoy Auto Task, but anyone who feels the struggle of a large amount of work that's need to be done. Scheduling according to your own fixed schedule - fill in your repeated activities such as: college, work, etc.. Auto Task will not interfere with your personal schedule. Smart scheduling - Auto Task can schedule your work so you will have to deal with less amount of stress and less amount of work for each day. Specify the task difficulty when you fill it in, and Auto Task will take it into account and make your schedule less difficult and stressful. What's more important to you ? less amount of work time or less amount of difficulty ? Auto Task provides you with multiple smart algorithms to chose from, you decide what's best for you. Assignment Dividing - Auto Task will divide your work load so you will have much more relieve dealing with heavy and long assignments. Clear and Beautiful Design - with the unique Index Card design you can see all your scheduled tasks in one concentrated place. Click on a card to pull it up to see more details about your tasks (it's fun too !). Multiple Ways To View Your Schedule - In addition to the Index Card View, Auto Task includes a Daily View and a Weekly View as well so you can view your schedule in the most suitable way for you. Notifications - Auto Task will notify you when it's time to start working on your assignments. You don't have to be alone with handling your assignments and schedule them into your limited time, Auto Task can now help you with this burden. It's time to focus on your actual studies and let Auto Task schedule your work for you.

Screenshots

Bear4 screens
Auto Task4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Bear at Free against Auto Task's $5.99. Auto Task's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On update cadence, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

Bear is free to download; Auto Task costs $5.99 up front. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Auto Task asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, Auto Task every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Bear versus Auto Task: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBearAuto Task
PriceFree — better$5.99
Rating4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings6.9K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS1615 — better
Further details — not scored
Size230 MB33 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShiny Frog Ltd.Ran Amir

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

Auto Task

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

Auto Task

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bear free?
Bear is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Auto Task free?
Auto Task costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Bear or Auto Task have ads?
Neither Bear nor Auto Task shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bear or Auto Task?
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, and Auto Task every 6 days. Most recently, Bear was updated on October 15, 2026 and Auto Task on September 30, 2026.

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