Comparison

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal vs Present

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal

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

Present

Features
Read full description

Most planners grade you. Present doesn't. Present is a calm daily planner for days that don't go to plan. Your day is a curve you can touch: drag a plan where it belongs and let go. No streaks, no scores, nothing in red — and nothing that counts what you didn't do. WHY IT FEELS DIFFERENT • See it before it happens. Drag a plan and the day lights up every place it could go. A line above your finger tells you what moves — "Lunch moves to 13:45" — before you let go. • Nothing to save. No Save, no Apply, no confirm. Letting go is the answer, and Undo waits right beside whatever changed. • Now stays still. What you're doing sits at the centre, and the rest of the day moves around it. WHEN THE DAY BREAKS It will. Here, that's not a failure — it's Tuesday. • Ran long? You get two honest answers: Still going, and the rest of the day makes room — or Done. No tally of lost minutes. • Stopped halfway? Pull it down. The time you spent stays on the day as a trace, and the rest goes wherever you drop it. • Lost the morning? Present doesn't insist you're still in a meeting that ended hours ago, and it doesn't hand you a list of what you missed. Pick the day back up. TIME BLOCKING WITHOUT THE HOMEWORK • Type it the way you'd say it. "Call mum 20m at 6" becomes twenty minutes at six o'clock, pinned. "Read 3 chapters" stays a title. • Routines in plain words. "Gym 1h mon wed fri" comes back every week, on its own. • The shelf. Things you mean to do that have no time yet — a name and a length, nothing else. Carry one onto the day when the day has room. • Focus. Tap what you're doing and the day folds into a ring around it. • Still yours. Your free time, counted until the end of your day — not your failures. Built for full, scattered, unpredictable days — a job that runs over, a toddler, or a brain that doesn't do rigid schedules. PRESENT PRO — TOMORROW, ALREADY ARRANGED Give tomorrow its shape tonight, and wake up to a day that already has one. With Pro, tomorrow gets its own arc: what you sent to tomorrow is already waiting on it, ready to be placed the evening before. Everything about today is free, always. Pro is monthly or yearly, or a one-time lifetime purchase. If Pro ever ends, nothing you made disappears. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple Account settings. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account. No ads. No tracking. Your plans stay on your phone. Terms of Use (EULA): https://usepresent.app/terms Privacy: https://usepresent.app/privacy

Screenshots

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal4 screens
Present4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Present at every 3 days against Bear Markdown Notes & Journal's every 10 days. Bear Markdown Notes & Journal's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

Both are free to download. Bear Markdown Notes & Journal sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Present sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal ships an update every 10 days, Present every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Bear Markdown Notes & Journal versus Present: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBear Markdown Notes & JournalPresent
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings6.9K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 10 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS1615.3 — better
Further details — not scored
Size230 MB40 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShiny Frog Ltd.Sanaa Boulal

Bugs and requests

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal

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

Present

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Bear Markdown Notes & Journal

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
3 purchases

Present

Subscriptions2
  • Present Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Present Pro Yearly$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Present Pro Lifetime$39.99

Questions

Is Bear Markdown Notes & Journal free?
Bear Markdown Notes & Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Present free?
Present is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Bear Markdown Notes & Journal or Present have ads?
Neither Bear Markdown Notes & Journal nor Present shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bear Markdown Notes & Journal or Present?
Bear Markdown Notes & Journal ships an update every 10 days, and Present every 3 days. Most recently, Bear Markdown Notes & Journal was updated on October 28, 2026 and Present on October 26, 2026.

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