Welcome to my channel; I’m Nancy, and today we are reviewing two powerful note-taking apps available.  The first one is called Bear, and the second app is Evernote. First, let’s see how they compare.  Now be sure to stay till the end as I will tell you the pros and cons of Bear and Evernote.

Bear

The creators of the app state that this app is perfect for creating quick notes to in-depth essays.  It even has a focus mode that helps you concentrate, and advanced markup options are an online writer’s best friend.  In addition, full in-line image support brings your writing to life. The app is beautifully designed and does not require a Cloud account for data storage. 

Evernote

Bear Pros

• Supports Markdown for text Formatting (Plain Text, Markdown, & Rich Text Format)
• Excellent Options for exporting and importing notes
• Inexpensive
• Stores data on your hard drive

Bear Cons

• Extremely light on features
• Only works on Apple devices
• Syncing requires a paid plan

Evernote Pros

• Multi-Device Note Sync
• Powerful Advanced Search
• Comprehensive Formatting
• Evernote Web Clipper is the Best there is.
• Collaboration Tool for Productive Teams
• Affordable Pricing

Evernote Cons

• Limitations of Free Plan (60MB monthly upload limit, 25MB maximum note size, two devices)
• You cannot password protect the desktop version
• You cannot password protect individual notes. It is all notes or nothing at all.
• Cloud-based storage of data could be an issue for some people

Bear vs. Evernote

Surprisingly, there are so few genuinely competitive contenders among note-taking apps today.  The Bear app is for Apple devices only does not do anything innovative, but it is a low-cost alternative to Evernote and aims for simplicity.  Bear does not have folders or notebooks, and it just gives you a place to create notes and store them.  It does not have any elaborate text styling; instead, it uses Markdown language.  This app is excellent for people with modest note-taking needs.

Bear will not fill your needs for users who need cross-platform support, web app, OCR search capabilities, email forward, and other features.  It would be best to look at Evernote as it is still your best option. 

Costs

Bear App Costs

Bear is free to download, install and use on any Apple device.  Bear has apps for macOS, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.  Also, the creators of Bear have added a web clipper browser extension.  You can create and store notes with the free bear version, but you cannot sync your devices unless you get the Pro account.

A Pro account will set you back $14.99 per year or $1.49 per month.  You will pay through the Apple App Store. However, now all syncing does go through the iCloud. As a result, you may need to pay for extra space depending on the size of your notes database with Bear and whatever else you keep in iCloud.

A paid account also gives you the ability to encrypt individual notes and password-protect them, along with the ability to use Face or Touch ID. 

Evernote Costs

Like the Bear app, Evernote does have a free plan available. However, with the free plan, you can sync across only two devices and are limited to 25MB maximum note size with a limit of 60MB per month.  I love the fact that Evernote lets you sync across two devices for free.  I really which more apps would allow you to do this! 

The Premium plan costs $7.99 per month or $69.96 per year.  With the Premium plan, you get unlimited sync between devices, access to your notes offline, search text inside Office docs and PDFs, create custom templates, and more. However, your note size is limited to 200MB and a 10GB monthly upload limit. 

Lastly is the Business Plan, which costs $14.99 per user per month. In addition, each user is limited to 2GB per month and a 20GB monthly upload limit.

Yes, Evernote costs a lot more than the Bear app; however, you get a lot of features with Evernote that you do not get with the Bear app.  For instance, the ability to scan documents using your smartphone camera then turning these into PDFs.  Evernote then can make the text searchable. In addition, when you snap a picture that contains text-like handwriting on a whiteboard, then the writing in the image becomes searchable too.  Bear also does not let you record audio, whereas you can do this with Evernote. 

My Thoughts

 Now, if you only need a straightforward feature set and Markdown tools satisfy your note-taking requirements, and you own Apple devices, then Bear very well may be the app for you.  However, if you have any experience with other note-taking apps, you will quickly see where Bear comes up short.  Nothing rivals Evernote, although OneNote is a very close second.  If you need something simple, then consider Joplin instead, which is free.  For me, I will stick with Evernote.  I have been using the Free version for a long time, and it suits my needs.

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