Simpletext vs Bear Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Simpletext
This app offers a minimalist writing experience, focusing solely on plain text. It provides a distraction-free environment with beautiful typography and native performance across Apple devices. Ideal for those who want to concentrate on their words without unnecessary features.
- Zero clutter interface
- Beautiful typography with professional fonts
- Plain text only support
- Fully native Apple app
- Supports custom fonts
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The Simplest Writing App for Mac, iPad and iPhone There are many writing apps for you to choose from today, so why bother with yet another one? Because Simpletext is simpler. Its single-minded commitment to simplicity means you’ll get a no-frills writing app that works well and looks great, forever. Simpletext started as a passion project because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Most apps were trying to do too much and ended up bloated with features I never needed. So I built Simpletext based on a simple premise — what if there’s an app that refuses to do more, choosing instead to do just one thing, and do it well? For Simpletext, that one thing is writing. Why Simpletext? Most people would say Simpletext is lacking in features, and they’re right. In fact, Simpletext began the opposite way — by listing down everything I didn’t want in a writing app. The goal is to create a dumbed-down writing app that inspires you to do nothing else but write. In order to achieve this, I designed Simpletext around four cornerstone principles: 1. Zero Clutter Simpletext is unobtrusive. It provides a blank canvas to write with absolutely nothing to distract you from writing. There’s no visual clutter — the intent is to create a quiet space that helps you connect with your voice, get into the flow, and simply write. With zero clutter, Simpletext lets your words take centre stage. 2. Beautiful Typography Simpletext comes with three professional fonts for you to choose from, handpicked to provide the finest writing experience. They are: (1) Akkurat Mono by Lineto (Monospaced); (2) Graphik by Commercial Type (Sans Serif); and (3) Tiempos Text by Klim Type Foundry (Serif). And if you have a personal favourite font, you can use it in Simpletext too. 3. Plain Text Only Simpletext supports only plain text, which is fast, lightweight and platform-independent. It will never have formatting options, so your files will never be filled with unnecessary attributes. Plain text also ensures your files are always accessible on any device, now and in the future. 4. Fully Native Simpletext is a fully native app developed in Swift and runs natively on Apple silicon. It uses only Apple’s framework and UI components, just as they were intended to be used without any custom workarounds. This approach results in less code, less bugs and better overall performance. Here's What Others Have to Say “I just wanted to thank you for developing Simpletext. It’s perfect. I’ve enjoyed its simplicity and smoothness for quite some time, but now that I can use my favourite font in it (Sina Nova, free on Fontspring) it has truly become not just the best app to write in, but my favourite app period. Thank you for creating and maintaining it.” - Bart “This app does everything it says on the tin. It is not meant to do a lot, but what it does it does very well. It is well designed and suits well those who want to focus on writing and avoid dealing with formatting, proprietary file types and hidden saving locations. It produces and edits .txt files, which will probably be around for as long as there are computers, and saves them in plain sight. Five stars.” - Fernando “I’ve tried all sorts of writing apps but Simpletext is definitely the best of all. So grateful for your dedication and those productivity tips in the blog post are so good. Simpletext is such a joy to use.” - LWL Art Studio “A writing app that is as simple as stated, beautiful to write with and opens and closes wherever you want. Simple tweaks are easily accessible, if required, and only add to the minimalistic perfection. Good job.” - Tuntle Get Back to Basics In a world full of feature-rich, subscription-based apps, I wanted to create something that goes back to basics. Simpletext is intentionally simple, yet it has everything you need. It’s an app I use every single day. I hope you will too. Best wishes, Yeow Jin P.S. Simpletext comes with a promise — find out more at simpletext.app/promise
Bear Notes
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Amazing app for note takers and people who are trying to remember things. Beautiful art is created specifically for this app, handcrafted by pencil. Every single page has individual art to make writing beautiful. Art of this app is inspired by the beautiful creatures from Mother Nature. You can write anything on this app. --Groceries --Password --Dates --Generic Notes --Students who want to take notes --Businessmen who want to write important things The app data is totally secured and remains in your phone. There is no privacy issues. It is not connected by iCloud or anything from outside. The art is personally designed by me with hours of work put into it. The developer of this app is my friend he put a lot of hardworking into this. This app is made by two people to be used by many many people around the world.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Bear Notes at Free against Simpletext's $14.99. Bear Notes also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 months). Simpletext's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Bear Notes is free to download; Simpletext costs $14.99 up front. Bear Notes sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Simpletext asks for nothing beyond the download.
Simpletext ships an update every 3 months, Bear Notes every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and October 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Simpletext | Bear Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (23 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 73.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 23 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yeow Jin Gan | Charly Nelson |
In-app purchases
Simpletext
No in-app purchases
Bear Notes
- Unlock all the doors$3.99









