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Bear Reviews & Product Details

Verified User in Information Technology and Services
UI
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Bear?

You can write your notes in markdown, adding easy formatting and code snippets Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Bear?

Have to pay to unlock nice features through the Bear Pro subscription Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?

Taking down notes, keeping code snippets Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Bear Overview

What is Bear?

Bear is a note taking tool for Mac and iOS.

Bear Details
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Bear Community
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Product Description

Bear is a note taking tool for Mac and iOS.


Seller Details
Year Founded
2005
HQ Location
Dublin, Ireland
Twitter
@shinyfrog
787 Twitter followers
LinkedIn® Page
www.linkedin.com
4 employees on LinkedIn®

Recent Bear Reviews

Philip C.
PC
Philip C.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"simply the best for markdown in my opinion"
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 ...
Law S.
LS
Law S.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"Bear is a creative alternative to Evernote"
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...
Rohit S.
RS
Rohit S.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
4.5 out of 5
"A beautiful note taking app for Mac and iOS made with great detail"
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 c...
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Bear Media

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Video Reviews

42 out of 43 Total Reviews for Bear

4.6 out of 5
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42 out of 43 Total Reviews for Bear
4.6 out of 5
42 out of 43 Total Reviews for Bear
4.6 out of 5

Bear Pros and Cons

How are these determined?Information
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Pros
Cons
This product has not yet received any negative sentiments.

Overall Review Sentiment for BearQuestion

Time to Implement
<1 day
>12 months
Return on Investment
<6 months
48+ months
Ease of Setup
0 (Difficult)
10 (Easy)
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Philip C.
PC
Leader Node at DTube
Consulting
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Organic Review from User Profile
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Bear?

could be a little cheaper on the yearly but very good all the same. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Law S.
LS
D
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite
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(Original )Information
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Bear:

If you want to compartmentalize your notes by app, Bear is great for those creative Shower Thoughts Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rohit S.
RS
Documentation and Training Developer
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Müge G.
MG
Software Testing Specialist
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rick M.
RM
Director of Photography
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Rob L.
RL
Product Marketing & Education Lead
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Alexander H.
AH
Product Owner
Information Technology and Services
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
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.

Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Oil & Energy
UO
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Bear?

I really like how Bear uses iCloud to sync my notes across my iPhone and Macbook. Bear has constant updates that bring great features, such as new themes, a feature to lock certain notes with a password, and the ability to tag certain notes into sub groups. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Bear?

There isn't anything in particular that I don't like about Bear. It is easy to use and fairly cheap if you choose to be a Pro member (which allows your notes to sync across devices). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Bear:

Bear is a notes app that has many features that other notes apps don't offer. With a sleek design and ease of use, Bear is definitely work trying out! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?

Bear helps me organize my work notes based on projects. I have realized that I can create checklists within Bear based on each project which help me prioritize certain features and stay on task. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nick J.
NJ
Marketing Manager
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Review source: Organic
Artem K.
AK
Entrepreneur
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
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Validated Reviewer
Review source: G2 invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Bear?

Comfortable mode of input, reading, searching for information, synchronization between devices. And a beautiful design. The possibilities of text formatting and storing notes using hashtags are very well implemented. The main advantage of hashtags is that they are easy and convenient to deal with. The mark can be put in any part of the text and create a new one on the go. For example, in Evernote would have to fool your head with separate notebooks. Apple has folders, but seriously, someone uses them?)) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Bear?

Deficiencies not found. A good balance of features, design, convenience, and software speed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Bear solving and how is that benefiting you?

Much needs to be recorded. Well, almost everything)) Fleeting ideas, conclusions from an article or a book, the results of an important conversation with a colleague, thoughts on the course of the project, personal memories, observations. It is easy to do here, it is pleasant and it seems to me effective. I advise you to try. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.