A Bear alternative where sync is not the paywall
Bear is beautifully designed, and its free tier stops at a single device — syncing your notes requires Bear Pro, forever. Inkiostro syncs over iCloud for free and asks for a single payment only for the finishing tools.
Bear is one of the best-looking apps on the App Store, and the tag-based organisation is genuinely pleasant. But the free version is a single-device notepad: iCloud sync — the thing that makes a notes app useful across a phone and a laptop — is behind Bear Pro at $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, indefinitely.
Inkiostro takes the opposite position. iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac is in the free tier, along with unlimited documents, the full editor, PDF export, LaTeX and Mermaid. Pro is a one-time $19.99 and covers version history, EPUB and self-contained HTML export, external folders, Focus and Typewriter mode and the rest of the themes.
The two are also aimed at different work. Bear is a note-taking app: many short notes, tags, quick capture. Inkiostro is a document editor: fewer, longer files that end up as a PDF, an ebook or a page. If what you write gets exported and read by somebody else, that difference matters more than the price.
Inkiostro vs Bear, feature by feature
A ✓ means it ships today. Notes mark the differences worth knowing about.
| Feature | Inkiostro | Bear |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free · Pro $19.99 once | Free · Pro $2.99 / month or $29.99 / year |
| Editing model | Your choice: visual editor (Pro, 7-day trial) or Markdown + rendered preview | Formatted as you type; “Hide Markdown” option, symbols return when you select a word |
| iCloud sync across devices | Free | Pro only |
| Unlimited documents | Free | ✓ |
| Version history with restore | Pro · 40 versions per file, line-by-line diff | — |
| LaTeX math (KaTeX) | Free | ✓ |
| Mermaid diagrams | Free | — |
| PDF export | Free · formulas, diagrams and code stay selectable text | Free |
| EPUB export | Pro | Free |
| Self-contained HTML export | Pro · single file, styles and images embedded | HTML export |
| Plain .md files on disk | ✓ | Own database (exports to Markdown) |
| Themes | 5 free, 29 with Pro | 3 free, 28+ with Pro |
| Tag-based organisation | Folders & colour labels | ✓ |
| Web clipper & note encryption | — | ✓ |
Bear — pricing and features checked on 13 August 2026 from the official site of Bear. Both products change — verify before you buy.
Where Bear is still the right choice
- You want a note-taking app, not a document editor — lots of short notes, captured fast, found later by tag.
- Nested tags are how your brain works. Inkiostro has folders and colour labels, which is a simpler model and a less powerful one.
- You need the web clipper, note encryption, or search inside PDFs and images.
- Bear exports ePub and DOCX in its free tier; Inkiostro puts EPUB behind Pro.
- Design is the deciding factor. Bear is a genuinely lovely piece of work and nobody should pretend otherwise.
Where Inkiostro pulls ahead
- Sync is free. Your documents are on your iPhone, iPad and Mac without paying anything, ever. In Bear that is the paywall.
- Version history with restore. Up to 40 automatic versions per document, a line-by-line diff, and the ability to bring back a single paragraph. Bear has no version history at all.
- Mermaid diagrams: flowcharts, sequence and Gantt charts written as text in a fenced code block and rendered live.
- PDF that stays text. Formulas, diagrams and highlighted code export as selectable, searchable text rather than images.
- One payment. $19.99 once against $29.99 every year — Bear costs more in year two than Inkiostro costs ever.
Getting your notes across
Bear exports your notes to Markdown, individually or in bulk, and Inkiostro opens plain .md files directly — put them in its iCloud folder and they are documents. Bear-specific things do not survive the trip: nested tags become folders or colour labels, and encrypted notes have to be decrypted in Bear first. The text, the formatting and the attachments come across as ordinary Markdown.