--- title: Bear Reviews meta_title: 'Bear Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 45 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Bear works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.5 review_count: 45 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-17' parent_category: name: Collaboration & Productivity url: https://www.g2.com/categories/collaboration-productivity --- # Bear Reviews **Vendor:** Shiny Frog **Category:** [Note-Taking Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/note-taking-software) **Average Rating:** 4.5/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 45 ## About Bear Bear is a note taking tool for Mac and iOS. ## Bear Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **ease of use** in Bear, allowing for distraction-free note-taking and efficient organization. (2 reviews) - Users admire the **ease of use** in Bear, enabling focused and organized note-taking without distractions. (2 reviews) - Users love the **intuitive design** of Bear, enabling focused writing without distractions from menus or notifications. (1 reviews) - Users value the **ease of use** in Bear, appreciating its organization and seamless cloud sync for note-taking. (1 reviews) - Users value the **organization features** of Bear, appreciating easy tagging and seamless cloud sync for note-taking. (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users desire **additional features** like slash commands found in Notion/Craft to enhance their experience with Bear. (1 reviews) - Users find the **tool limitations** frustrating, especially the lack of free syncing across devices. (1 reviews) ## Bear Reviews ### 1. Bear Makes Note-Taking Effortless with Tags and Cloud Sync **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alex B. | Video and Photo Production Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2026 **What do you like best about Bear?** The ease of use that bear enables for simple note-taking while giving the ability to stay organized with easy tags and cloud sync is key. **What do you dislike about Bear?** Wish there were features like found in Notion / Craft where you can use a slash command to find other important features. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed a way to take notes in meetings that can sometimes go from client to client and rapidly changing without getting disorganized. ### 2. Minimalist, Focus-Friendly Writing—But Syncing Costs Extra **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Victor Z. | COO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2026 **What do you like best about Bear?** Bear feels like a quiet desk when I open it. There is nothing shouting for attention. I can just type and not get pulled into menus or notifications. It makes focusing on text actually possible. **What do you dislike about Bear?** To sync across devices I have to pay. If I just want a simple free tool, that feels irritating. I expect syncing these days without a subscription. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** Clean and distraction free writing space ### 3. simply the best for markdown in my opinion **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Philip C. | Leader Node at DTube, Consulting, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 27, 2023 **What do you like best about Bear?** i love the way i can write in markdown, post to my blog in markdown, export is great too, backup is solid, love the way the tagging vanishes after i've used it so it's nice and clean to look at. **What do you dislike about Bear?** could be a little cheaper on the yearly but very good all the same. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** cloud. i can pick up any device, laptop, ipad or phone and i'm ready to write from anywhere. super solid. ### 4. Bear is a creative alternative to Evernote **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Law S. | D, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 14, 2022 **What do you like best about Bear?** Bear has a minimalistic User-Experience (UX) / User-Interface (UI). I love that it syncs on my iPhone 12, iPad Mini 6, Mac Mini (2020), MacBook Pro (2018) and Apple Watch 6. **What do you dislike about Bear?** I do not have many dislikes - maybe the 100s of alternatives out there have a lot more native integrations with other apps. Another dislike might be organization is lacking a bit. **Recommendations to others considering Bear:** If you want to compartmentalize your notes by app, Bear is great for those creative Shower Thoughts **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** I wanted another note-taking tool for non-business-associated notes and dislike the native Apple Notes app on iPhone and OS. Also, the structure and weight of the app help it quickly load to catch creative lightning in a bottle. ### 5. A beautiful note taking app for Mac and iOS made with great detail **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rohit S. | Documentation and Training Developer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2022 **What do you like best about Bear?** I like the fact that the Bear app is minimal on purpose. So there are very less distractions if you're using the app to take down notes, ideas or creating content for your blog. It is super easy to use, offers many optimizations and also comes with a whole lot of keyboard shortcuts. **What do you dislike about Bear?** I would have liked its pro version to be with more advanced features but then that would just lose its objective of being a minimalistic note-making app. Other than this I don't like the default option of the notes being saved to icloud storage. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using Bear for about a year now, for daily notetaking and even for creating draft content for my office work. I love how I can sync my notes within the apple ecosystem and make my own personal keyboard shortcuts as well! ### 6. Preparing a to do list is now very easy **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Müge G. | Software Testing Specialist, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 30, 2021 **What do you like best about Bear?** By creating the shortcut link of the notes, I can make a shortcut from a long archive of notes. I also use the archiving feature a lot instead of deleting it entirely. Sometimes what seems unnecessary may become necessary later on. **What do you dislike about Bear?** When I copy it in other areas and paste it into Bear, it can come in a very different format. And I would like to use the keyboard delete button to archive or delete or create like a shortcut. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have a routine morning meeting with the team every day. This meeting was discussed yesterday and today, and since I keep all my notes on Bear, it is straightforward to list my items here. In addition, I love to use uses such as coloring, emoji, icons among my notes, and it helps me a lot in this regard. ### 7. Move over Evernote...and Apple Notes! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rick M. | Director of Photography, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Bear?** My favorite thing about Bear is how the developers seem to listen to their user community. I like how quick and effortless it is to start a new note using markdown. The UI is clean and minimalistic. I really like how notes can be bundled together. Bear allows you to copy notes in markdown, html, rich text and plain text and export notes as PDF, MD, DOCX, JPG, HTML, RTF. Bear syncs across all my Apple devices. **What do you dislike about Bear?** I wish you could login to your notes via web browser. I would like to be able to have some sort of table function. I know this is in the works but even Apple Notes has this feature. I wish some of the new features that the show up in Panda (the Beta test version of Bear) would trickle their way into Bear sooner. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** I organize to-dos and notes by topic and project. It's a great catch-all note taking app. ### 8. Tried almost every notes app for better focus. Bear wins in simplicity + power. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rob L. | Product Marketing & Education Lead, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 17, 2021 **What do you like best about Bear?** This may sound silly, but as a writer, I'm particular about my writing environment. I want a minimalist interface with almost nothing on it, large type in the middle of the screen only, and formatting options. Bear ticks all the boxes beautifully, on both desktop and mobile. **What do you dislike about Bear?** As of the time of writing this article, the main Bear app still shows your markdown. The new Bear app, (called "Panda") which I am beta testing, hides all this. This is the one thing I didn't like about the old app and it's being fixed. **Recommendations to others considering Bear:** The free version is rich with features, and if you don't like seeing your markdown in-line, go to their site and find the Panda beta download. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** Distractions are the enemy of getting into flow. To write good stories, I need a text editor to just sit down and write in. After trying so many different apps (Google Docs, One Note, Evernote, Workflowy, Notion, iA Writer, SimpleNotes, and some others I'm probably forgetting)... Bear provides the best experience for me. Clean, fast, creativity-boosting! ### 9. Easy Note Taking with Lots of Customisable Features **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 18, 2020 **What do you like best about Bear?** You can write your notes in markdown, adding easy formatting and code snippets **What do you dislike about Bear?** Have to pay to unlock nice features through the Bear Pro subscription **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** Taking down notes, keeping code snippets ### 10. A superior markdown notepad **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alexander H. | Product Owner, Information Technology and Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 15, 2019 **What do you like best about Bear?** It is a extremely good markdown citizen - you can type in GitHub flavoured Markdown and it has no issues whatsoever. I have a lot of notes apps, but ones that respect markdown, whilst being fast at search are hard to find. It also has quick shortcuts for todays date, supports checkboxes (and a filter so you can have one giant to-do). But really, it's the speed that you'll stay for. That also means speed of sync across devices (iOS/MacOS). It even has multiple themes (multiple dark modes, for those who are interested). The build in tagging support is powerful, and allows you to create tags anywhere in a document, it doesn't need to be formatted in a specific way, the sidebar will capture all of the tags created. Finally, it has excellent exporting support - HTML, Markdown, .txt. You'll be able to share your notes, easily. **What do you dislike about Bear?** Honestly I have nothing to dislike. It's a former Apple Design Award winner, it's quite a high bar. **Recommendations to others considering Bear:** Dive in. If you care about Markdown, this is your notepad app. It also works excellently in tandem with it's iOS app, and system 'share' actions on MacOS. **What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?** To reliably sync notes that I take in the field, in a syntax I use (markdown), and share that across devices immediately. Also, quickly dragging all of my 'todo lists' into one single point, where I can see what I've actually achieved. ## Bear Discussions - [Does Bear require iCloud to sync?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/32298-does-bear-require-icloud-to-sync) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View Bear pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/bear/reviews/bear-review-2769403?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-18+10%3A18%3A30+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=ff538a65-85d8-4a52-aad0-4a6bd6a0c7ff&secure%5Btoken%5D=76fa12c2a298f8dbd95bea08f3a9bb433677a128de6cc1914e076ec8c357e1f0&format=llm_user) ## Bear Features **Agentic AI - Note-Taking Software** - Autonomous Task Execution ## Top Bear Alternatives - [Notion](https://www.g2.com/products/notion/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (11,110 reviews) - [Evernote](https://www.g2.com/products/evernote/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (2,010 reviews) - [Microsoft OneNote](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-onenote/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (1,823 reviews)