Bear: Markdown Notes for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By Spike72AFA

  The five star ratings must be employees

  I have been an Evernote user for about 8 years, but because of changes in pricing and privacy policies, I am in the market for a replacement. Based on the reviews, I thought Bear would meet my needs. My needs, IMHO, are fairly simple: fast , clean, cross-platform, powerful search. Being able to import web clippings, scans, and forwarded emails are definitely a plus. According to the reviews, it looked like Bear could handle most of those. Would that it were true. Bear (on my Windows, iPhone, and iPad) is pretty. The tag process is not intuitive, but it works fine. The lack of notebooks is an issue, but I can get around that. But the BIG issue is that it will NOT sync. I won’t bore you with all the different ways I have tried to fix this. It won’t work. I have been in contact with Shiny Frog many times, and they are absolutely worthless. Every suggestion is on the level of “turn it off and then back on again.” I believe they know they have a dog and know that there is nothing that will make it work properly. As I listed above, I have several other needs for a replacement note taker. But since I can’t test them without the ability to sync, this is a non-starter. I am willing to change my mind if there is anyone out there who can figure out what is wrong with how I am trying to use this app. But my 30 day “trial” is about to run out.

  
  
• By dtemple11

  Most Transformative App

  I have been using Evernote heavily since 2009. In recent years, as it has become incrementally more bloated and more expensive, I’ve been looking for a replacement, but everything I found was missing some particular feature that I needed. Bear, while much simpler, and ostensibly less powerful, does absolutely everything I REALLY need for organization, writing, business tracking, and creative thought. It does it in a visually beautiful way, with a markup language that really makes the tool fade into subconscious and lets me record thoughts without distraction of too many buttons and gimmicks. Tagging, note linking, formatting, and organization are completely intuitive. The cost is far less than Evernote Premium, and there are not restrictions with using on all of my Microsoft devices. I hope they can implement note sharing without messing with their formula, and I hope they expand to other platforms so I can share with friends, coworkers, and family, but if it stays just as it is today, Bear will continue to be the foundational piece of my workflow and creative and business processes.

  
  
• By Tufte5

  Gorgeous App

  I don’t think I’ve ever written a Windows app review before, but I find the one-star reviews for this app so befuddling that I felt the need to chime in. Bear is my absolute favorite text editor. It’s beautiful, clean, and charming. I have personally never had a sync issue, and I use it on Windows, iPad, iPhone, and Watch. It’s also been updated quickly to take advantage of new hardware features. I’ve never used Evernote for what it’s worth. Though I have used several markdown editors, and Bear is definitely my favorite. As for notebooks, Bear just uses a different organizational metaphor. Instead of putting one thing in one notebook, you add tags to the document. These tags can be chained together which creates a nested hierarchy in the tag panel. This way you can assign a document to multiple tags if you want. So a work note can be tagged #Company/Project and #Year/Month and #Subject. For me this makes it SO easy to find what I’m looking for in many different contexts. It may not work for everyone, but I suggest giving it a chance if you find the rest of the app appealing.

  
  
• By They’re All Taken

  Buggy and Unreliable

  I purchased a Bear Pro subscription after trying the app for free and reading the positive reviews of the more advanced features. The app worked as expected for a brief period of time, but stopped syncing between my Windows and iPhone a few weeks ago. I emailed tech support, which directed me to a self-help FAQ and asked me to attach device logs. I did, and their team was fairly quick to respond with the prognosis that I had "accidentally removed the files from the iCloud Drive which are required to sync the notes between the devices.” Now this seemed strange considering that I had not removed any files from my iCloud, but I followed direction nonetheless. The result: The app began synching again, but deleted all of my notes. Everything. Gone. This was frustrating, but luckily I had saved the most important information to my iPhone’s Notes app (which, simple as is it is, has never failed me…), so I decided to grin and Bear it for another test run. That was, however, until this morning when the app once again stopped synching between my devices. Bear, while decently-designed, is too unreliable for me to trust. Deleting the app and cancelling my Pro subscription. Use caution and back up your work elsewhere if you value your notes, etc.

  
  
• By smccormi

  Great App!

  This is a fantastic App. I switched from Evernote and have not looked back. The simplicity of the user interface is key. With other note apps it is easy for me to lose or forget about notes because they are hidden behind layers of organization. In Bear, notes don't fall through the cracks of the interface design. It is sleek and simple, and helps tremendously with organizing ideas and finding them quickly. The best feature of Bear is the ability to organize notes relationally and not only hierarchically. With the ability to tag at sentence level, I can connect ideas across categories and later display them quickly in one search. One of the reasons I wanted to switch from Evernote is because tags could only be assigned at note level. I haven't used Evernote for a while, so perhaps this has since changed. For publishing notes, Bear is also superior with the ability to write in Markdown HTML, export as PDF, or create plaintext files. I now use Bear for work and research, and for keeping track of personal matters. Suggestions for future development: more themes (I love these!), support for tables, quick text recognition from a photo, new note from iPhone widget.

  
  

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