Everything Bear does well, and the two things it does not.
Bear has the better editor, nested tags, real export, and an agent server of its own. It cannot file a selection without a right-click, or hide from a screen share.
Floats on topOut of screen sharesOne-key capture$9.99 once
The short answer.
If you only read one part of this page, read this.
Choose HushNotes if…
- You save lines from many apps and want one key to do it
- You want notes over your work, full-screen apps included
- Your notes must stay out of screen shares and screenshots
- You want every note gone with one key, and back again
- You’d rather pay once than subscribe
Choose Bear if…
- You need to sync to your iPhone or iPad
- You need to export your notes anywhere
- You need to organise anything by tags
- You need to find the words inside a picture
Many people use both: Bear for writing, HushNotes for the notes that sit over your work.
What each one
gives you.
Every line Bear wins is here too. Each cell comes from the vendor’s own documentation.
| Capability | HushNotes | Bear |
|---|---|---|
| Capture selected text from any app with one key | Yes, one key | Partial, Right-click only |
| Keeps where the text came from | Yes, The app, and the page from Safari or Chrome | Not documented |
| Floats above other apps, full screen included | Yes, full screen too | Floats, yes, Full screen not documented |
| Hidden from screen sharing and screenshots | Yes, by default | Not offered |
| Hide every note from another app, with one key | Yes, one key, ⌥⇧H, and it relocks | No, ⌘H hides the front app only |
| Lock a note behind Touch ID | Yes, per note | Yes, on Pro |
| Paper per note, opacity per window | Six papers, 10–100%, The paper fades, never the ink | Not documented, Themes, scope not documented |
| Works without an account | Yes, none exists | Yes, CloudKit, no registration |
| Syncs to iPhone and iPad | No, Between Macs, through iCloud | Yes, on Pro |
| Export your notes | No, Does not ship today | Yes, full on Pro |
| Agents can read your notes | Yes, four tools, Off by default, no delete | Yes, wider reach |
| Price | $9.99 once33% off at launch | $2.99 a month |
Nine things it does, four it will not.
HushNotes does a few things well. Here are the limits too, so you can decide with both lists in front of you.
HushNotes does
- Keep a selection from any app, one key
- Keep the app it came from, and the page from a browser
- Float over full-screen apps
- Stay out of screen shares and screenshots
- Clear the desk from wherever you are
- Lock a note behind Touch ID
- Give each note its own paper; opacity per window
- Work with no account, offline, paid once
- Answer an agent, on your machine only
HushNotes doesn’t
- Sync to your iPhone or iPad
- Export your notes anywhere
- Organise anything by tags
- Find the words inside a picture
Bear Pro covers all four of the second list.
One of these is a subscription.
$9.99 once is under four months of Bear Pro, and nothing after that. That is 33% off at launch, down from $14.99.
Keep writing in Bear.
The long pieces stay where the better editor is. The line you grabbed in the middle of a call comes here.
Your notes are on your screen,
not in the share.
Every note window is left out of screen shares, recordings and screenshots, on by default. Bear doesn’t offer this.
The awkward ones,
answered.
Asked the way people ask them.
Yes. The editor is more capable, there are far more themes, and a long piece belongs there. This one is built for the line you take while you are doing something else.
Bear's reaches further: it searches, reads, creates, appends, tags, pins, attaches, archives and trashes. HushNotes serves four tools on a loopback address, off by default and read-only to begin with, with no delete and no edit, and a locked note is filtered out before anything is served.
No. Export of any kind does not ship today. Bear Pro exports to Markdown, TextBundle, RTF, PDF and more, and that is a real reason to keep it.
Yes. Any HushNotes note locks on the one $9.99 licence. Bear encrypts a note on Pro, which is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year.
The menu bar icon, which macOS always shows and which holds no note content, and a camera pointed at your display. Treat it as a strong privacy measure and not a guarantee.
That the vendor publishes no answer. Nothing there was proven absent, only left undocumented, which is why it does not read No.