Bear is one of the nicest places to write Markdown on a Mac or an iPhone, so people rarely leave it over the editor. They leave because Bear has no Windows or Android app, because sync sits behind Bear Pro, or because they want every note encrypted rather than a few. NotePrivate put six Bear alternatives beside Bear, NotePrivate included, and lists every catch with the source next to it.
Prices read from each vendor's own site on 29 September 2026 · Named products are market context, not endorsements
The best Bear notes alternative depends on why you are leaving Bear. If you need Windows, Android or Linux and want to keep writing Markdown, Obsidian is free on all of them, though its files sit on disk unencrypted and Sync costs $4 a month billed annually. If you want a phone app with every note end-to-end encrypted by default, Notesnook and Standard Notes both have free plans. If you want a Bear-like app that simply runs everywhere, UpNote covers iOS, Mac, Android, Windows and Linux, free up to 50 notes. If you want a Mac and Windows notes app where every note is encrypted on your own disk from the first launch, that is the job NotePrivate is built for. NotePrivate is planned at $59 a year, is not on sale yet, and has no iPhone or Android app, while Bear Pro costs $29.99 a year.
Sources for this Bear alternative summary: Bear's "Features and price of Bear Pro" FAQ, obsidian.md/pricing, notesnook.com/pricing, standardnotes.com/plans and getupnote.com, all read on 29 September 2026. The NotePrivate price is planned, not live.
Bear and six apps people weigh against it, NotePrivate included. The encryption column asks one question: is every note end-to-end encrypted before you touch a single setting?
| App | Encrypted by default | How sync works | Platforms | Price, read 29 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NotePrivate | YesVault encrypted on disk from first launch | Optional, as ciphertext through a cloud folder you already use | macOS, Windows | $59/year planned, not on sale |
| Bear | PartialSingle notes with a Note Password (Pro); synced notes end to end only with Apple's Advanced Data Protection, titles and tags stay unencrypted | iCloud through Apple's CloudKit, Bear Pro only | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch; Bear Web in a browser | Free without sync; Bear Pro $2.99/month or $29.99/year |
| Apple Notes | PartialLocked notes are end-to-end encrypted without Advanced Data Protection; other iCloud notes require it | iCloud | Apple devices; iCloud.com in a browser | Free with an Apple device |
| Obsidian | NoLocal vault is plain Markdown | Paid Obsidian Sync with end-to-end encryption, or your own file sync | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS | Free; Sync $4/month billed annually |
| Notesnook | YesSame on free and paid | Notesnook sync | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, web | Free (50MB storage a month); Essential $1.99/month; Pro $6.99/month, less billed yearly |
| Standard Notes | Yes | Standard Notes account | Web, desktop, mobile | Free plain text; Productivity $90/yr; Professional $120/yr |
| UpNote | Not claimedSite lists a passcode app lock, not end-to-end encryption | UpNote sync | iOS, Mac, Android, Windows, Linux | Free up to 50 notes; Premium $1.99/month or $39.99 lifetime, bought in the app |
Sources for this Bear alternatives table, all read 29 September 2026 unless marked: Bear's FAQ pages "Features and price of Bear Pro", "How to encrypt and lock notes with Bear" and "Information about Syncing and Privacy", and the Bear listing on the App Store; Apple's "iCloud data security overview" and "Secure features in the Notes app" support pages; obsidian.md/pricing, with platforms from obsidian.md/download read 28 September 2026; notesnook.com/pricing, with platforms from notesnook.com/downloads read 28 September 2026; standardnotes.com/plans; getupnote.com. Bear Pro prices are in US dollars and Bear notes that they vary by country. The NotePrivate price is planned, not live.
Bear wins design awards, so the reasons to leave Bear are about reach and privacy rather than the editor. Each card below names the Bear source it rests on and where NotePrivate stands.
Bear's FAQ and App Store listings cover iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and Bear Web opens your notes in a browser with your iCloud login. There is no Bear app for Windows or Android. NotePrivate is a native app on macOS and Windows, and one planned license covers both machines.
Bear's own "Features and price of Bear Pro" page lists iCloud sync first among the features Pro adds, at $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. The free Bear app keeps your notes on one device. NotePrivate includes sync as ciphertext through a cloud folder you already use, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive.
Bear's privacy page says CloudKit data is encrypted with Apple's keys, and Apple's iCloud security overview says standard data protection keeps those keys in Apple data centers. Turning on Advanced Data Protection makes Bear sync end to end, but Bear says note titles and tag names stay unencrypted. NotePrivate encrypts every note, title included, inside a vault on your disk.
Bear's FAQ says its notes live in a SQLite database on your Mac that "any third-party app or library that has SQLite support" can open. So a Bear note without a Note Password is readable by any program that can reach that file while you are signed in. The NotePrivate vault stays encrypted on disk while the Mac is running.
Bear's syncing and privacy page says "We may access anonymous, in-app usage statistics in order to improve Bear App", and adds that none of that data is sensitive. The NotePrivate app carries no telemetry at all. This website does run analytics, which the NotePrivate homepage states plainly, but the app on your Mac or PC does not.
Bear Pro is $29.99 a year for every Apple device on your Apple ID, per Bear's FAQ. NotePrivate is planned at $59 a year, roughly twice that. If you only use Apple devices and a Note Password on the sensitive notes is enough, staying with Bear is the cheaper answer.
The forum threads that rank for "bear notes alternative" mostly swap names. This NotePrivate comparison goes app by app on the trade-off, with the vendor source in the same card.
NotePrivate stores every note and attachment in a vault on your Mac or Windows PC, encrypted with a master key wrapped by a password that never leaves the machine. It writes Markdown and rich text, has backlinks with [[ autocomplete, tags, folders, saved searches, version history, per-note passwords and on-device OCR, and opens offline. The catches: no iPhone, iPad, Android or Linux app, closed source, no published audit, and not on sale yet at a planned $59 a year.
Obsidian's pricing page calls the app free without limits and says your data is stored locally, with Sync at $4 a month billed annually and end-to-end encrypted. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, which is everything Bear is not. The catch for a Bear user who cares about privacy: the vault on disk is a folder of plain Markdown files. The NotePrivate page on an encrypted Obsidian alternative covers that gap.
Notesnook's pricing page says the free plan gives unlimited notes on unlimited devices, end-to-end encrypted by default, with 50MB of attachment storage a month. Essential is $1.99 a month and Pro $6.99 a month, less when billed yearly. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and the web. For a Bear user who wants encryption and a phone, Notesnook beats NotePrivate today.
Standard Notes' plans page puts end-to-end encryption, offline access and per-note passwords on the free plan, but the free plan is plain text only. Markdown and rich text arrive with the Super note type on Productivity at $90 a year, and Professional is $120 a year. A Bear user will want Productivity, which costs three times Bear Pro. The Standard Notes versus NotePrivate comparison walks through each plan.
UpNote's site lists apps for iOS, Mac, Android, Windows and Linux, Markdown support, a web clipper and links between notes, and Bear itself publishes a guide for migrating from UpNote, which says a lot about the overlap. The free version stops at 50 notes. UpNote describes a passcode lock for the app, and its site does not describe end-to-end encryption, so treat it as a reach fix, not a privacy fix.
Apple Notes costs nothing on an Apple device. Apple's security guide says locked notes are end-to-end encrypted without Advanced Data Protection; turning it on also protects other iCloud notes. It has the same platform wall as Bear, with only iCloud.com on Windows, and it does not write Markdown. The NotePrivate comparison of Apple Notes alternatives sorts the Apple-only apps, Bear included, from the private ones.
Every Bear alternative detail above comes from the vendor pages named in the comparison table sources, read 28 and 29 September 2026. Features and prices change, so check each vendor's own site before moving your notes.
These four questions show up on the search results page for "bear notes alternative". Straight answers from NotePrivate, including where NotePrivate is the wrong pick.
Good alternatives to Bear depend on what Bear is missing for you. For Windows or Android, UpNote runs on iOS, Mac, Android, Windows and Linux, and Obsidian is free on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS with Markdown files you own. For notes that are end-to-end encrypted by default with a phone app, Notesnook and Standard Notes both have free plans. For free and already installed on Apple devices, there is Apple Notes. For an encrypted vault on your own Mac or Windows disk, NotePrivate is planned at $59 a year, is not on sale yet, and has no iPhone app.
Bear is better for writing in Markdown on Apple devices, and Evernote is better if you need Windows, Android or the web alongside a Mac. Bear Pro costs $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year on Bear's own FAQ and syncs through iCloud, while Evernote keeps notebooks on its own servers and its download page lists Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android and the web. Neither one encrypts every note end to end by default. NotePrivate is the option for Mac and Windows with every note encrypted on your own disk, at a planned $59 a year.
Leaving Evernote as well as weighing Bear? The encrypted Evernote alternative page covers the ENEX export and what NotePrivate imports from it.
Bear is better for fast personal writing, and Notion is better for databases, shared pages and team work. Bear is a Markdown notes app for iPhone, iPad and Mac that keeps notes on your device and syncs them through iCloud once you pay for Bear Pro. Notion is a hosted workspace that also runs on Windows and in a browser, and the company stores your pages. If you want to reach your notes on a Mac and a Windows PC without handing them to a server, NotePrivate keeps an encrypted vault on your own disk, with no team features.
Moving off a Notion workspace rather than Bear? The private Notion alternative page covers offline access and a Notion export.
The best free notes app is the one that already covers your devices. On iPhone, iPad and Mac, Apple Notes is free and installed, and Bear is free too, but without sync between devices, since iCloud sync needs Bear Pro. Across Windows, Linux and Android, Obsidian is free with no limits according to its pricing page, and the Notesnook free plan is end-to-end encrypted with 50MB of storage a month. NotePrivate is not free: it is planned at $59 a year with no free tier.
Most "Bear alternative for" searches are about a device or a budget. Here is where NotePrivate fits, and where another Bear alternative is the better call.
Bear has no Windows app, so a Bear user who gets a Windows PC needs a second app or a new one. NotePrivate ships a native Windows installer, and one planned $59 a year license covers the Mac and the PC with the same encrypted vault opening on both. Obsidian, UpNote, Notesnook and Standard Notes also run on Windows. The encrypted notes app for Windows page covers what BitLocker and Notepad leave open on a PC.
NotePrivate is the wrong answer here: it has no Android app. UpNote, Obsidian, Notesnook and Standard Notes all list Android on their own sites, and Notesnook and Standard Notes encrypt every note by default. If you are moving from an iPhone with Bear to an Android phone, pick one of those.
NotePrivate is a native Mac app with Touch ID sign-in, auto-lock and lock on sleep, and unlike Bear's SQLite database, the NotePrivate vault on your Mac stays encrypted while you are signed in. Bear can get close for synced notes if you turn on Advanced Data Protection and add a Note Password to the sensitive ones, but titles and tag names still sync unencrypted, per Bear's privacy page.
The free Bear alternatives are Apple Notes on Apple devices, Obsidian on every platform, and Notesnook and Standard Notes if you want encryption, with Standard Notes limited to plain text on its free plan. Bear's own free version is worth a look too: it keeps full Markdown editing and export, and only sync, encryption and some export formats need Bear Pro. NotePrivate is neither free nor open source.
Bear and Obsidian both write Markdown, and the difference is reach and storage. Bear keeps notes in a database and syncs through iCloud on Apple devices only. Obsidian keeps a folder of plain .md files and runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. Neither encrypts the notes on your disk. NotePrivate does, and still exports every note as Markdown, which the NotePrivate encrypted Markdown notes page explains.
Bear Pro is worth $29.99 a year if you write on more than one Apple device, because the free Bear app does not sync. It also adds single-note encryption, app lock, OCR search and PDF, HTML, DOCX, JPG and ePub export, per Bear's FAQ. It is not worth it if you need Windows or Android, because no Bear Pro feature changes the platform list. That is the case where NotePrivate or Obsidian makes more sense.
Bear exports Markdown for free and NotePrivate imports Markdown, so moving from Bear to NotePrivate is an export and an import, not a conversion. Five steps, in the order that saves you tidying twice.
Bear's export formats and steps come from its "Export Notes in Different Formats" and "Import notes into Bear" FAQ pages, read 29 September 2026. The NotePrivate homepage runs four tests any private notes app should pass.
Switching has a cost. Here is where Bear keeps the advantage over NotePrivate, said plainly.
Bear runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and NotePrivate has no phone or tablet app yet. If most of your notes start in your pocket, stay with Bear.
Bear's App Store listing describes sketching on iPad with an extendable canvas and Apple Pencil. NotePrivate is a typed notes app with no pen input at all.
Bear Pro is $29.99 a year per Bear's FAQ and the free Bear app has no time limit. NotePrivate is planned at $59 a year with no free tier.
Bear's App Store listing covers Siri and Shortcuts, and its FAQ covers widgets and an Apple Watch app. NotePrivate has a global capture shortcut on the desktop and none of the Apple system hooks.
If only a handful of Bear notes are sensitive, Bear Pro's Note Password plus Apple's Advanced Data Protection may be all you need, and you keep the editor you like.
This is the one NotePrivate takes. If you want a Bear alternative where every note is encrypted on your own Mac or Windows disk from the first launch, with Markdown in and Markdown out, NotePrivate is worth joining the waitlist for.
Only in part. Bear syncs through Apple's CloudKit, and Bear's own privacy page says that data is encrypted with Apple's keys unless you turn on Apple's Advanced Data Protection. Even with it on, Bear says note titles and tag names stay unencrypted. Bear Pro can also encrypt individual notes with a Note Password that Bear cannot see or reset. NotePrivate encrypts every note in the vault on your own disk from the first launch.
No. Bear's FAQ and App Store listings cover iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and Bear Web opens your notes in a browser with your iCloud login. There is no Windows or Android app. NotePrivate runs natively on macOS and Windows, and UpNote and Obsidian are the Bear alternatives on this page with Android apps.
Bear Pro is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year according to Bear's own FAQ, read 29 September 2026, bought through the App Store and shared across devices on the same Apple ID. It adds iCloud sync, encrypted notes, app lock, extra export formats and OCR search. NotePrivate is planned at $59 a year for Mac and Windows and is not on sale yet, so Bear is the cheaper app if you stay on Apple devices.
Yes, through Markdown. The free version of Bear exports notes as Markdown, plain text, TextBundle, Bear Note and RTF, and NotePrivate imports Markdown, plain text and RTF. Export all notes from Bear as Markdown, import them into NotePrivate, and keep a TextBundle export as a backup, since Bear describes TextBundle as text, Markdown and attachments together.
Not yet. NotePrivate runs on macOS and Windows only, while Bear runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. If most of your Bear notes start on a phone, stay with Bear or pick Notesnook or Standard Notes, which both encrypt by default and have phone apps.
Yes. NotePrivate writes Markdown alongside rich text, code, checklists, spreadsheets and one-time codes in one vault, with backlinks through [[ autocomplete, tags and saved searches. Bear is Markdown first, with inline formatting and #tags typed into the text. NotePrivate exports every note as plain Markdown, so the notes can go back to Bear if you change your mind.
Private by design, rich enough to be your only notes app, and yours to keep forever.
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