Bear
Obsidian.md
Simplenote
Evernote
OneNote
Notion
iA Writer
Capacities
GetMD
Typora
iA Writer
MacDown
Markdown by DaringFireball
Marked
Caret
FocusWriter
BearGetMD's answer:
Independent software developers Open source contributors Technical writers and documentation teams
GetMD's answer:
MDViewer is a pure Markdown viewer, not an editor. While most Markdown apps focus on writing, MDViewer focuses on reading. It's built with native SwiftUI — no Electron, no web views for the UI — which means instant launch, minimal RAM usage, and native macOS feel. It also has built-in Git history browsing, so you can see how a Markdown file changed over time without leaving the app.
GetMD's answer:
It's native and lightweight. Typora costs $15 and is built on Electron. Marked 2 costs $14 and hasn't been updated in a while. MDViewer launches in under 100ms, uses ~30MB of RAM, and supports Mermaid diagrams out of the box. Core features are free — viewing, Mermaid, Git history, tabs. If you need to read .md files — not edit them — MDViewer does that one job better than any editor can.
GetMD's answer:
Software developers and technical writers on Mac who work with Markdown daily — reading README files, documentation, changelogs, API docs, and AI-generated output from tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or GitHub Copilot. Also useful for anyone who receives .md files and just needs to read them without installing a full editor.
GetMD's answer:
I kept opening Markdown files in VS Code just to read them — a full code editor for a 2-second task. Every "Markdown app" on Mac was really an editor, not a viewer. So I built what I actually needed: a fast, native viewer that opens .md files like Preview.app opens PDFs. No editing toolbar, no distraction — just rendered Markdown.
GetMD's answer:
Swift, SwiftUI, and Apple's native frameworks. Markdown rendering uses a custom pipeline. Mermaid diagrams are rendered via an embedded engine. The app is fully native Apple Silicon — universal binary, no Electron, no bundled Chromium.
Based on our record, Bear seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 58 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.
I can recommend Bear (https://bear.app) been using for ~6 years or more. - Source: Hacker News / 22 days ago
Bear is what you get when someone builds a notes app that respects developers. It's clean, fast, supports full Markdown, and syncs across devices. Unlike Obsidian, it doesn't require you to set up a vault structure and plugin ecosystem before you can write a single note. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
I kept track of bugs and ideas in Bear which, if you're in the Apple ecosystem, I highly recommend. When I stumbled on a good idea for a component that might be fun to build (sup, flip card), I'd write it down. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
It's odd that this blogging system is using a name also in use by a writing tool: https://bear.app/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
I got this confused with the Bear note-taking app for a minute (https://bear.app/), since it's in a closely adjacent domain and even has similar value statements. Unfortunate naming collision. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
Obsidian.md - A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.
Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.
Simplenote - The simplest way to keep notes. Light, clean, and free. Simplenote is now available for iOS, Android, Mac, and the web.
iA Writer - Minimal Design, Maximum Focus
Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.
MacDown - MacDown is an open source Markdown editor for OS X, released under the MIT License.