When comparing Focused vs Bear, the Slant community recommends Bear for most people. In the question“What are the best Markdown editors for OS X?” Bear is ranked 15th while Focused is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Bear is:
Well-designed app.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Distraction free writing experience
Focused's interface is quite minimalistic and allows you to focus on the writing and the writing only. There's nothing that may distract the user.
Pro Integrated Markdown viewer
You won't need an additional app to preview generated content.
Pro Stress-free writing
Very uncomplicated. Creates a stress free writing environment.
Pro Comes from a good stable
Developer has produced other well-designed and stable apps.
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 Might be abandoned
There has not been any update for quite some time.

Con Clunky interface
The interface is somewhat clunky and using it just isn't all that enjoyable.
Con Cannot publish directly to wordpress or other blogging platforms
Con No footnotes support
Doesn't handle MultiMarkdown footnotes well - or at all.
Con The "music" won't be to everyone's tastes
Focused uses various soundtracks to keep the user focused on the writing. But these soundtracks are built-in and may not be liked by everyone.
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.
Con Sometimes there are sync problems between iOS and macOS
