Jotura vs Bear.
Bear is a Markdown notes app for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Jotura runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. This comparison is honest about where Bear wins, starting with the iPhone.
An Apple app, or your notes on any computer.
Bear has no Windows or Android app and says it has no plans for one. Jotura runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android, and keeps your notes as ordinary .md files in a folder. Its optional sync is end-to-end encrypted whatever your iCloud settings, and it adds sharing with other people, three years of history, and a book reader on Android. Bear keeps its notes in a database and syncs them through iCloud. If you live on an iPhone, stay with Bear, because Jotura has no iOS app.
What each app gives you.
Both are Markdown apps. Most of the difference is which devices they run on, how sync is protected, and where the notes are kept.
| Feature | Jotura | Bear |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Mac, Windows, Linux, Android | Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Bear Web in public beta |
| Windows desktop app | Bear Web in a browser, public beta | |
| Android and Linux | Bear says it has no plans for Android or Windows | |
| iPhone and iPad | ||
| End-to-end encrypted sync | always on: Argon2id keys, per-file keys, HMAC path ids | only with Apple's Advanced Data Protection turned on, and titles and tag names stay unencrypted |
| Where your notes live | plain .md files in an ordinary folder | a SQLite database inside the app's container, Markdown on export |
| Sync | Jotura Sync, $5 a month or $50 a year, no free trial | iCloud sync with Bear Pro, $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, 7-day free trial |
| Book reader | Android: EPUB, PDF and CBZ, highlights saved as notes | |
| Tags | frontmatter tags and inline #tags, nested with slashes, with a Tags pane showing counts | inline #tags, nested with slashes, multi-word tags between two pound signs, tag icons |
| Wikilinks | [[Note]], [[Note#Heading]] and aliases; renaming a note updates its links | [[Note]], [[Note/Heading]] and aliases |
| Backlinks panel | linked and unlinked mentions | |
| Lock a single note with a password | Pro, with Face ID or Touch ID | |
| Search text inside images | OCR search, Pro | |
| Search inside PDFs | a searchable Markdown mirror beside each text-bearing PDF | OCR search, Pro |
| Search inside Word and Office files | the same Markdown mirror for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument files | not listed: Bear's Pro search covers PDFs and images |
| Web clipper | Safari, Chrome, Firefox | |
| Export | nothing to export, the files are the notes | Markdown, TXT, TextBundle, RTF free; HTML, DOCX, PDF, JPG, ePub on Pro |
| Command-line tool | the jotura CLI, on Mac, Windows and Linux | BearCLI, Mac only |
Bear pricing, platforms, export formats and sync details as published by Bear, October 2026.
Where Bear wins.
Eight reasons to stay with Bear, written for the people who love it.
- The iPhone, the iPad and the Mac. Bear is built for Apple hardware and it shows on every device you pick up. Jotura has no iOS app at all. If your phone is an iPhone and you want your notes on it, Bear is the answer and the rest of this page is background.
- A writing surface people love. Bear won a 2017 Apple Design Award, and its editor is the reason most people choose it. Pro adds more than two dozen themes and a set of app icons, and the whole app feels at home on Apple hardware. Jotura's editor is capable and fast, but Bear's focus on one family of devices shows in the finish.
- Cheaper sync, with a trial. Bear Pro is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, and both come with a 7-day free trial. Jotura Sync is $5 a month or $50 a year with no free trial. On cost alone, Bear wins.
- Backlinks in the app. Bear's Info Panel lists every note that links to the one you are reading, plus notes that mention its title without linking. Jotura has no backlinks panel.
- Search inside photos and scans. Bear Pro runs OCR, which means optical character recognition, over images and PDFs, so a photo of a receipt turns up in search. Jotura mirrors text-bearing PDFs and Office files into searchable Markdown, but it never reads text out of an image.
- A web clipper. Bear's browser extension saves pages from Safari, Chrome and Firefox straight into a note, as long as the Bear app is installed on the same device. Jotura has no clipper.
- Locking one sensitive note. Bear Pro encrypts individual notes behind a password, unlocked with Face ID or Touch ID. Jotura has nothing similar, and your notes sit unencrypted on disk, so protecting a lost laptop is the job of FileVault or BitLocker.
- A browser tab on someone else's computer. Bear Web lets you browse, edit and search your notes from any major browser. It is a public beta today, it does not work while Advanced Data Protection is on, and Bear says Pro will be required once the beta ends. Jotura has no web app.
Where Jotura wins.
What you get on any desktop and an Android phone.
- Windows, Linux and Android. Jotura runs natively on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. Bear says it has no plans for Android or Windows, so on a Windows PC your choice is Bear Web in a browser. If your desk is a Windows machine and your phone runs Android, Jotura covers both.
- Encryption that does not depend on an iCloud setting. Bear syncs through Apple's CloudKit. It is end-to-end encrypted only when you turn on Advanced Data Protection, and even then note titles and tag names stay unencrypted. Jotura Sync encrypts every note on your device first, and the server never sees plaintext, file names or keys.
- Your notes are the files. A Jotura vault is a folder of .md files that any editor or backup tool can open. Bear keeps notes in a SQLite database, and its own documentation says the file is safe to read but warns that editing it can crash the app or lose data. Plain files suit you when something other than the app needs to touch your notes.
- Sharing and three years of history. Share a folder or a single note with the people you pick, as editors or viewers, end-to-end encrypted to them. Edits made at the same moment merge. Every synced note keeps three years of history showing who changed what. Both people need Jotura Sync.
- A book reader with highlights as notes. EPUB, PDF and CBZ books in your vault open in the Android app. Highlight a passage in one of four colours, add a comment, and the highlight lands in a Markdown note for that book, ready to read and edit on any device. Your reading position syncs privately.
- An Obsidian vault opens as it is. Obsidian callouts, %% comments %%, block ids and ![[embeds]] work in the editor, so an existing Obsidian vault opens with no import step. A file you open and save without editing comes back byte-identical.
Common questions.
- Is there a Bear app for Windows?
- No. Bear runs on Mac, iPhone and iPad, and its FAQ says it has no plans for Windows or Android. The closest thing is Bear Web, a public beta you open in any major browser with your iCloud account. Bear says Bear Web does not work while Apple's Advanced Data Protection is turned on. Bear says Pro will be required once the beta ends. Jotura has a native Windows app, free to download.
- I have an iPhone and a Windows PC. Which should I use?
- Neither app covers that pair natively. Bear gives you the iPhone and a browser beta on Windows, while Jotura gives you a full Windows app and nothing on the iPhone. If most of your writing happens on the phone, choose Bear. If most of it happens at the desk and you want your notes as plain files, choose Jotura.
- How do I move my notes from Bear to Jotura?
- In Bear on the Mac, select the notes, choose File, then Export notes, and pick Markdown, which Bear exports on the free plan. Turn on Keep tags during export under Bear's General preferences first. Open the exported folder in Jotura as a vault. Three things need a manual pass. A multi-word tag such as #meeting notes# is read as #meeting. Heading links that Bear writes as [[Note/Heading]] need rewriting as [[Note#Heading]]. Bear's single-tilde underline has no equivalent, because Jotura has no underline. Check that images came across too.
- Is Bear end-to-end encrypted?
- Only if you turn on Apple's Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. Without it, Bear's CloudKit data is encrypted with Apple's keys. With it, only you can decrypt your notes, though Bear says note titles and tag names stay unencrypted so its Pro features keep working. Jotura Sync is end-to-end encrypted by default, file names included, and a forgotten password with no recovery phrase means nobody can read the sync copy, us included.
- Which is cheaper?
- Bear. Both apps are free to download and use without sync. Bear Pro, which adds sync, is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year with a 7-day free trial. Jotura Sync is $5 a month or $50 a year in the US, £4 or £40 in the UK, with no free trial. Jotura Sync also covers sharing with other people and three years of history. Prices change, so check each app's own pricing page.
- What does Jotura not have?
- Jotura has no iOS app, no web app, no web clipper, no OCR, no per-note lock, no backlinks panel, no plugins, no graph view and no publish-to-web. It is closed source, Sync has no free trial, and notes sit unencrypted on disk. Bear covers the iPhone and iPad, a web app in beta, a clipper, OCR search, per-note locks and a backlinks panel.
If your notes need to reach a Windows, Linux or Android device, export a few from Bear and open the folder in Jotura.
More comparisons on the compare page, includingthe best Markdown note apps side by side.