Bear vs Inkdrop
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Bear
Markdown notes app for Mac, iPhone and iPad with tags and links
Inkdrop
Markdown note app for developers with encrypted sync
Where they differ
- Bear starts at $2.99 per month, or $29.99 per year. Inkdrop starts at $8.31 per month, billed annually ($99.80 per year).
- Bear has a free plan. Inkdrop does not, though it has a free trial.
- Only Inkdrop lists Windows, Linux and Android apps.
- Inkdrop is end-to-end encrypted, according to its own site.
- Bear also covers linked notes.
At a glance
| Bear | Inkdrop | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $2.99 per month, or $29.99 per year | $8.31 per month, billed annually ($99.80 per year) |
| Free plan | The free version covers writing and organizing notes with 3 themes. iCloud sync, note encryption, OCR search and export to PDF, HTML, DOCX and JPG need Bear Pro. | None |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on both the monthly and yearly Bear Pro subscriptions. | 30-day free trial; charging starts once the trial has ended |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Shiny Frog | Takuya Matsuyama |
| Price read from | bear.app | inkdrop.app |
| Checked | Oct 4, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Bear
- Writers who want a focused Markdown editor on Mac, iPhone and iPad
- People who prefer organizing notes with tags rather than folders
- Apple users who want notes synced through their own iCloud account
Inkdrop
- Developers keeping technical notes in Markdown
- People who want encrypted sync across desktop and mobile
- Giving coding agents access to notes through MCP
Worth knowing
Bear
- Bear is offered only for Apple devices: Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
- Syncing notes between devices requires a Bear Pro subscription.
- Note encryption, OCR search and export to PDF, HTML, DOCX and JPG are Pro features.
- Subscriptions are billed through Apple's App Store, and prices vary by country.
Inkdrop
- There is no free plan; when the 30-day trial ends without payment the account is deactivated and local notes become read-only.
- Cancelling means deleting the account, which permanently removes the notes and images stored on Inkdrop's server.
- The built-in AI features need your own API key for Anthropic or an OpenAI-compatible provider.
- The editor is plain-text Markdown with no rich-text mode, and only images can be attached to notes.
Key features
Bear
- Markdown editor
- Notes mix text, photos, tables and to-do lists in one place, with sketches inserted inline next to text and attachments.
- Tags and nested tags
- Notes are organized with tags, including nested tags, and more than 250 icons help individual tags stand out.
- Wiki links and backlinks
- Notes link to each other with wiki links, and an info panel shows each note's backlinks and table of contents.
- Web Clipper
- Extensions for Safari, Chrome and Firefox save a full page or a highlighted selection as a note, with the clipping done on your device.
- Sync, encryption and OCR search (Pro)
- Bear Pro syncs notes through iCloud, encrypts individual notes, locks the app and searches for text inside photos and PDFs.
- Export and import
- Exports to TXT, Markdown, TextBundle, RTF, PDF, JPG, HTML, DOCX and ePub, with migration guides for Evernote, Apple Notes and Obsidian.
Inkdrop
- Markdown editor
- Plain-text Markdown editing with slash commands, a floating format toolbar, code-block autocompletion and link pasting that fetches the page title.
- Rendering for technical notes
- The preview renders syntax-highlighted code blocks, Mermaid diagrams and KaTeX math for inline and block equations.
- Notebooks, statuses and tags
- Notebooks nest inside one another, and each note can carry tags and a status of active, on hold, completed or dropped that the note list filters by.
- End-to-end encrypted sync
- Sync between devices is end-to-end encrypted and notes stay available offline. A self-run CouchDB-compatible server can be used instead of Inkdrop's.
- MCP server and AI assistant
- An MCP server lets agents such as Claude Code search and read notes. The inline assistant and next edit suggestions run on an API key you supply.
- Keyboard control and plugins
- A command palette, per-context keymaps and a Vim plugin cover keyboard use, and plugins are written against a TypeScript API.
Plans
Bear
Free$0
Markdown notes with tags, links, tables and sketches, and 3 themes. No sync between devices.
Bear Pro$2.99
per month, or $29.99 per year
Adds iCloud sync across devices, note encryption and app lock, OCR search in PDFs and images, 28+ themes and export to PDF, HTML, DOCX and JPG.
Inkdrop
Basic$8.31
per month, billed annually ($99.80); $9.98 billed monthly
The only plan, with everything included: cloud sync, an unlimited number of notes and 30 GB of storage.
Ways to pay less
Bear
- Annual discount
About 15% lower price with the yearly subscription
Bear's site marks the $29.99 yearly subscription as 15% cheaper than paying $2.99 each month.
- Education
30% off the first year for students and academics
Students and people working in academia can ask support for a code giving 30% off the first year of the Bear Pro yearly subscription. It renews at the regular price.
Inkdrop
- Annual discount
About 17% less with annual billing
Annual billing is $99.80 a year, shown as $8.31 a month, against $9.98 a month on monthly billing, which totals $119.76 over a year.
