I’ve been using Bear Notes for personal notes for the past week and enjoy it.

I would use Bear for work if it was available on Windows and was local only. I then remembered UpNote. UpNote is a notes app I’ve tried in the past that is highly similar to Bear, but it is cross-platform and is updated frequently.

I saw on my Mac that Upnote could work locally only without syncing your data. Perfect, I thought!

I then installed UpNote on my Windows machine and, without logging in, started adding some notes. It worked flawlessly until…

… I realized I need UpNote premium to use tables, have unlimited notes, export to PDF, and other critical features. No problem, I thought, because UpNote is dirt cheap, $24.99 for lifetime access. I thought it was worth the price.

Next, I realized I couldn’t pay for a premium license without an account (a limitation in the Windows app). Understandable. So, I created an account and set it up on my Mac.

I then switched to Windows, and it said my account was upgraded, and everything was good to go.

Nope!

I signed out of my account because I didn’t want to sync my work notes. I want it locally on my machine. As soon as I log out, my premium license is gone. You must be signed in and syncing data to have a premium license.

What a bummer. I tried to give you money UpNote, but such a simple limitation is all it took to keep me on Obsidian at work.

Regardless, I still highly recommend UpNote for anyone looking for something similar to Bear but is cross-platform. Remember that you can’t use Premium on Windows without syncing data.