Bear Alternatives

Bear provides flexible writing and note-taking with markdown support and cross-note linking, popular among Mac users for its clean interface. Users seek alternatives primarily due to privacy concerns over its reliance on Apple's ecosystem, cost complaints for plain text functionality, and the availability of better options on Mac.

For users wanting stronger privacy protection, Standard Notes encrypts notes end-to-end across all devices while maintaining markdown support and seamless syncing. Those frustrated by Bear's Apple-only limitations can turn to Obsidian, which offers similar markdown editing and internal linking but works across Windows, Mac, and Linux with a powerful graph view to visualize note connections. Users seeking more advanced knowledge management find Roam Research's graph-based approach superior for linking and visualizing complex note relationships. Trillium Notes handles hierarchical note organization with rich text formatting, making it ideal for complex projects that outgrow Bear's simpler structure.

filter to find the best alternatives

Bear alternatives are mainly Note-taking Tools, but if you're looking for Todo List Managers or Task Management Tools you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Windows, Android, Linux, Mac and Open Source. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Bear.
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Alternatives list

  1. jott.ing icon
     1 like
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    jott.ing is a private, offline note-taking app with free AI features. Keep your notes secure and local on your device.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  2. Note Crypt icon
     3 likes
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    Keep your notes safe and secure.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Android
    • F-Droid
     
  3.  8 likes
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    Squibler is an online book writing tool built to enable you to write books faster with a highly focused, minimalist editor and writing prompt generators to help you get ideas recorded fast.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Subscription)
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  4. Mindful icon
     1 like
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    Mindful is a space for your thoughts, ideas and ongoing tasks. It's a Chrome browser extension that helps you get ideas out and organize them with note-taking capabilities that automatically syncs across browser instances.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Google Chrome
     
  5. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    Without taking notes, only 10% of what you hear may last in memory [1]. With good note-taking, that number can go up to over 80%. Despite the benefits of note-taking, 1 out of every 3 students do not take notes.

    Cost / License

    • Pay once
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  6. notenote.cc icon
     4 likes
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    Your own Instagram, encrypted.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Pay once or Subscription)
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Android
     
  7. ThinkComposer icon
     40 likes
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    Create deep visual documents, adaptable and multi-level diagrams, flowcharts, concept maps, mind maps and models.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  8. WriteRoom icon
     51 likes
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    For Mac users to write without distractions. WriteRoom is a full screen writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you're used to, WriteRoom lets you focus on writing. Requires Mac OS X 10.

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  9. Citronote icon
     2 likes
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    Citronote is a note-taking application for Windows that allows you to create Markdown, Scrap, ToDo, and Plaintext notes.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  10. vim-pad icon
     3 likes
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    a quick notetaking plugin. Contribute to fmoralesc/vim-pad development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  11. MarkMyWords icon
     2 likes
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    MarkMyWords is the ideal markup-writing tool for authors. By using Markdown, MultiMarkdown, Textile, Wikitext, HTML or BBCode MarkMyWords makes writing articles for the web a breeze and remains platform-independent by using plain text documents.

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
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