Comparison

Bear vs MarkDown Reader

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

MarkDown Reader

Features
Read full description

MarkDown Reader is a free, lightweight viewer for Markdown files. Double-click any .md file and read it beautifully rendered — no editor chrome, no distractions, just your document. It also turns a checklist into somewhere to work. Tick a task and the change is written straight back to the file, one character, instantly. Add a note to any item and it is saved as an ordinary indented bullet, so every other Markdown tool still reads it. On the Mac, drag a file onto an item to attach it, and click the chip to open it again later. Nothing is locked in a database. Everything this app writes is plain Markdown you can read in any editor. - Clean rendering of headings, tables, code blocks, and images - Interactive task lists: click a checkbox and the .md file updates instantly - Notes on any checklist item, saved as plain Markdown - Attach files to checklist items by dragging them in (macOS) - Clickable file references: a path in a code span opens in your editor (macOS) - Table of contents sidebar for long documents - Full-text search with match navigation - Live reload — edit the file elsewhere and the view keeps up - Zoom, print, and export to PDF - Copy the document's path or reveal it in the Finder (macOS) - Opens .md, .markdown, .mdown, .mkd, and .mkdn files - Sandboxed and private: no accounts, no analytics, no data collection

Screenshots

Bear4 screens
MarkDown Reader3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: MarkDown Reader at none against Bear's 2. Bear's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 5 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. MarkDown Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bear ships an update every 9 days, MarkDown Reader every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Bear versus MarkDown Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBearMarkDown Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.8% of reviews—
Number of ratings6.9K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size230 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShiny Frog Ltd.Edward Juden

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

MarkDown Reader

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

MarkDown Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bear free?
Bear is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is MarkDown Reader free?
MarkDown Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Bear or MarkDown Reader have ads?
Neither Bear nor MarkDown Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bear or MarkDown Reader?
Bear ships an update every 9 days, and MarkDown Reader every 5 weeks. Most recently, Bear was updated on October 10, 2026 and MarkDown Reader on September 25, 2026.

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