Our take
Pick Bear if people on Mac / iPhone / iPad who will stay on Free local while they write a first Polar Bears note — then Pro at US$2.99/mo or US$29.99/yr when they want themes / export / OCR / deeper iCloud, not Obsidian Sync $4 first unless they want a graph vault, and not if they need Windows / Android (Bear is Apple-only). Pick Logseq if students and knowledge workers who will stay on the open-source app at $0
Best for
Bear A note you start at a public $
Logseq A graph notebook you start at a public $0
Free plan
Bear $0 · local notes, Markdown, tags, tables. No Pro themes / advanced export / OCR / full iCloud depth
Logseq $0 · “Free forever for personal use.” Open source. Local Markdown. iOS & Android apps
Lowest paid
Bear Bear Pro $2.99/mo
Logseq Not published by the vendor
Watch out
Bear Apple platforms only
Logseq There is no public Sync $ on the pages we fetched
Last checked
Bear 2026-10-23 · bear.app/faq/features-and-price-of-bear-pro
Logseq 2026-10-23 · logseq.com/pricing
people on Mac / iPhone / iPad who will stay on Free local while they write a first Polar Bears note — then Pro at US$2.99/mo or US$29.99/yr when they want themes / export / OCR / deeper iCloud, not Obsidian Sync $4 first unless they want a graph vault, and not if they need Windows / Android (Bear is Apple-only).
Read the Bear pagestudents and knowledge workers who will stay on the open-source app at $0 (local Markdown; Free forever for personal use) while they open a first Queries page — not teams that need a printed Sync seat (we did not find a public Sync $).
Read the Logseq page
