When comparing Collate Notes vs Bear, the Slant community recommends Bear for most people. In the question“What are the best Evernote alternatives?” Bear is ranked 16th while Collate Notes is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose Bear is:
Well-designed app.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Markdown or Rich Text editor
Choose between Markdown or Rich Text editor.
Pro Web clipper
A web clipper built into the app saves web pages locally.
Pro All data is saved locally
Data is saved to a local hard drive, not stored on a company's servers.
Pro Cross-platform support
Support for macOs, Windows and Linux.
Pro Beautiful interface
Well-designed app.
Pro Easy to use
Pro Instant markdown preview in the editor while preserving original MD code
Pro Easy tagging
For example: #tag/sub tag/foo/bar #tag2/foo/bar
Pro Flawless sync
It's everything Dropbox Paper promised to be, but without the embarrassment. The notes are always in sync between devices.
Pro Lots of export formats
PDF, RTF, DOCX, HTML, TXT and MD.
Pro Hashtag support
Adding a hashtag with a keyword tags the note to make it easy to search.
Pro Simple to back up/export entire note database
Notes are exported as plain text, not a proprietary format, along with all embedded objects.
Cons
Con No mobile support
This app offers no mobile support.
Con No built-in sync options
For data syncing, a service like Google Drive or Dropbox needs to be used.
Con Only subscription-based
Can not buy it straight up.
Con No Tabs - can only view 1 note at a time
Con No inline editing and markup of pictures
The only option is to open in an editor (thereby creating a copy) and saving it again.