Comparison

Bear vs Forgor

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

Forgor

This app helps you remember important dates and deadlines, from birthdays and anniversaries to expiring documents and subscriptions. It provides timely reminders and organizes all your critical dates in one place, preventing things from becoming overdue.

Highlights
  • Centralized date management
  • Customizable reminders
  • Automatic date rollover
  • Household sharing
  • Multiple input methods (typing, contacts, camera, email)
  • Privacy-focused design
Read full description

The dates that cost you something when they slip. The trial that renewed. The registration that lapsed. The passport that expired two weeks before the trip. The birthday you'd hate to miss. Forgor keeps all of them on one shelf and nudges you ahead of time — two weeks by default, or however far ahead you choose. Then it gets out of the way. ONE SHELF, NOT FIVE APPS Birthday apps do birthdays. Home apps do filters. Car apps do oil changes. Forgor holds all of it — Anniversaries, Home, Car, Documents, Health, Money, and any shelf you add — and answers the only question that matters: what's due this month? A NUDGE, NOT A NAG One notification per date, early enough that you can still do something about it, at the hour you choose. Two weeks is the default; passports get two months, haircuts get three days, and any date can have its own. No badge on the icon. No daily digest. No second reminder about the first reminder. NOTHING IS EVER OVERDUE A date that passes rolls forward to next year on its own. A one-off leaves the list after its day. No checkboxes, no red badges, no pile of things you failed to do. The only number that goes up is the one for dates you kept. ONE HOUSEHOLD, ONE LIST Invite the people you share a life with. Each date says who it's for, so the smoke-alarm batteries nudge whoever changes them and Mom's birthday nudges everyone. Add someone later and their own dates come with them. FOUR WAYS IN Type it. Take it from a contact — only the name, birthday and anniversary — you pick who, and only the people you keep are saved to your list. Point the camera at a passport, a card or a letter and let the date come off it. Or forward the renewal email to your household's own address and the date shows up as a suggestion — keep it or don't. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO No ads. No selling anything about you. Nothing you keep is used to train a model. "Photos never leave the phone. Contacts you don't keep don't either. Forwarded mail is read once by an AI model to find the date, and not stored. Save it once. Forget it on purpose.

Screenshots

Bear4 screens
Forgor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Forgor at none against Bear's 2. Forgor also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7). Bear's advantage is ratings volume (6.9K vs 2) and device support (4 vs 1). On price, ads 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 sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Forgor asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Forgor 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.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Bear versus Forgor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBearForgor
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (6.9K ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews76.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings6.9K — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size230 MB14 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShiny Frog Ltd.Shaileen Shah

Customer experience

Bear

All ratings6,871 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral2.6%
Negative5.8%
Written reviews1,754 reviews
Positive76.9%
Neutral9.5%
Negative13.7%

Forgor

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

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

Forgor

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

Forgor

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bear free?
Bear is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Forgor free?
Forgor is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Bear or Forgor?
Forgor is rated higher. Bear averages 4.7 out of 5 from 6.9K ratings, while Forgor averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Bear or Forgor have ads?
Neither Bear nor Forgor shows ads.

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