Bear vs Heptabase
Bear
bear.app
Heptabase
heptabase.comSide by side
| Figure | Bear | Heptabase |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $2.50/mo | $8.99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 5 | 9 |
| Spec score · Note And Writing Apps | 9.1 (#1) | 8.7 (#8) |
| Spec score · Notes apps | 9.1 (#4) | 8.7 (#18) |
| Spec score · Note-taking apps | 8.9 (#26) | 8.8 (#30) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Bear documents Apple Shortcuts support on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with actions such as creating notes, adding tags, and searching notes. | The site shows Readwise and Zotero integrations; its help center says Zotero sync is one-way, manually initiated, and skips attachments over 100 MB. |
| Note sharing | Yes | Yes |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes |
| Supported platforms | web,macos,ios | web,windows,macos,linux,ios,android,chrome_extension |
| Paid from | 2.99 | 8.99 |
| Support | Bear provides support pages and accepts support requests through its contact page or [email protected]. | Support is available in-app or by email, and the team says it aims to reply within 24 hours during its Monday-to-Friday working hours. |
Plans
Bear
- FreeFree
- Bear Pro$2.99 a month
- Bear Pro$29.99 a year
- Bear Pro (monthly)$2.99 a month
- Bear Pro (yearly)$29.99 a year
Heptabase
- Pro$11.99 a month
- Pro$107.88 a year
- Premium$23.99 a month
- Premium$215.88 a year
- Premium+$71.99 a month
- Premium+$647.88 a year
- Pro$8.99 a month
- Premium$17.99 a month
- Premium+$53.99 a month
In their own words
Heptabase
Heptabase is a visual knowledge base for students, researchers, and lifelong learners. Whiteboards and cards support visual thinking, while a block-based editor, bidirectional links, PDF annotation, daily journals, and a web clipper help organize material. Its AI can explain sources, take notes, and organize a knowledge base from PDFs, YouTube, notes, and journals. Heptabase supports web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and a Chrome extension, and lists integrations with Readwise and Zotero. The free plan is available through collaboration, allowing edits to shared whiteboards and cards but excluding personal libraries, journals, tag databases, tasks, highlights, and AI features. The desktop app stores data locally, and notes and files are accessible offline. For AWS cloud storage, the company describes encryption in transit and at rest, but not end-to-end encryption. After a subscription or trial ends, users can access and export content indefinitely; creating or editing notes requires renewal. Paid plans start at $8.99/user/mo (annual), with a 7-day trial.