# Bear

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Bear and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Markdown notes app for Apple devices, praised for fast performance and polished design. Critics say it's subscription-priced and stores notes in a database rather than plain Markdown files.

## What people warn about

- Subscription cost without enough extras (3 comments): "it offers only subscriptions, yet comes with absolutely nothing that could possibly justify a subscription" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47089751)) "One time purchase, then I would have been interested. Yeah, a free version, but subscription…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49264580)) "I do not want to pay $$ per month just to sync notes between iPhone and Mac" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874274))
- Stores notes in a database, not Markdown files (2 comments): "it doesn't work on markdown files directly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887678)) "it does not work with a directory of Markdown files, but locks them away in a database" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47890818))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Obsidian](https://hackerapproved.com/p/obsidian.md): 447 recommend
- [Org mode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/org-mode.md): 175 recommend
- [Notion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/notion.md): 91 recommend
- [Logseq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/logseq.md): 52 recommend
- [Apple Notes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-notes.md): 39 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://bear.app/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Bear", https://hackerapproved.com/p/bear/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).