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Writing, notes & markdown

Bike

Fast native outliner, perpetual only if you buy it direct

Price: $30 once

Paid upgradesMajor versions cost again

Buy direct WebsiteApp Store

Price read on support.hogbaysoftware.com, the page Buy direct opens.

The catch

Only the direct licence is perpetual; the Mac App Store version is a subscription that stops working

The full picture

Buy direct if you want to own it - the developer states plainly that the Mac App Store licence is a subscription and that Bike stops working when it expires. On the direct licence, updates past the first year need a paid renewal at about half the current price, though the version you already have stays unlocked forever either way. It is Mac only: no iPhone or iPad app, and no sync service of its own, so you supply iCloud Drive or Dropbox. It is an outliner, not a notes database - no backlinks, no library, no tags.

Pays back in
4 months
Seats
3 MacsLicensed to a person rather than a machine: the developer states a default activation limit of three Macs and will raise it on request.
Developer account
None needed
Buy once$30Rent 5 years$480

$450 kept over five years, and you still have the app.
Against Dynalist Pro at $96 a year, $7.99 a month billed annually. Also replaces WorkFlowy Pro at $84 a year and OmniOutliner.

What it looks like

Bike: Bike document window titled 'Row Types' with a real outline open: disclosure triangles down the left gutter, a heading row, a blockquote row, a monospaced code-block row, a horizontal rule, a checked task-list row with strikethrough, and ordered/unordered list rows. Clean macOS window chrome, no marketing overlay.
Bike document window titled 'Row Types' with a real outline open. Mac App Store (id1588292384, screenshotUrls)
Bike: Bike window titled 'Rich Text' showing an outline with bold, italic, code, yellow highlight and strikethrough runs, an inline link with its link button, and a collapsed/expanded parent row with indented children. Text cursor visible. No overlay.
Bike window titled 'Rich Text' showing an outline with bold, italic, code, yellow highlight and strikethrough runs, an inline link with its link button, and a collapsed/expanded parent row with indented children. Mac App Store
Bike: Bike window titled 'Moby Dick' with a large document open: breadcrumb bar (Home > Moby Dick > Chapter 1), selected row with the focus-in button, body paragraphs, and the status bar showing the row type 'Body'. Caveat: a large marketing overlay reading 'Big Outline? Still Fast!' sits across the middle of the text. Use only as a third choice.
Bike window titled 'Moby Dick' with a large document open. Mac App Store
Bike App Store screenshot 1 of 3
Bike App Store screenshot 2 of 3
Bike App Store screenshot 3 of 3

3 screenshots published by the developer on the Mac App Store.

Images belong to their developers.

What you’re buying

Bike is an outliner and nothing else: rows, indentation, folding, and a plain file at the end of it. Jesse Grosjean has been making small Mac text apps since WriteRoom and TaskPaper, and the same priorities show. It launches immediately, stays smooth in documents with thousands of rows, and writes readable HTML or plain text that any other editor can open. Everything is reachable from the keyboard, and the whole app is scriptable.

The pricing needs attention, because there are two completely different deals wearing the same icon. Buying direct from Hog Bay is $30 once and that licence does not expire. It includes a year of updates, after which renewing costs roughly half the current price — and the copy you already have keeps working whether you renew or not. The Mac App Store listing is a $19.99-a-year subscription, and the developer says outright that Bike stops working when it lapses. Same app, opposite ownership. It is also bundled with Setapp if you already pay for that.

Do not buy it expecting a notes system. There are no backlinks, no tags, no library view, no iPhone app, and no sync of its own. If your outlines already live inside a tool you pay for and sync across devices, this will feel like a step sideways. If you want structure that opens in a tenth of a second and a file you can still read in ten years, it is hard to beat for $30.

What owners report

Points that recur across the discussions below. A report of what users say, not our verdict: we don’t review software.

Praised

  • Owners consistently point to how fast it opens and how it stays responsive in very large outlines
  • The plain HTML and OPML files are repeatedly given as the reason people trust it with documents they want to still read in ten years
  • Buyers say the direct one-time licence is what made them try it at all, several stating they would not have touched a subscription

Criticised

  • The absence of an iPhone or iPad companion comes up again and again, with users falling back on OPML and somebody else's app
  • People arriving from Workflowy, Dynalist or Logseq repeatedly call it feature-thin next to what they already use
  • The animated typing divides people: more than one user says it felt laggy until they found the setting to slow it down or turn it off

Details

The price in full

Direct from Hog Bay Software: $30 (written $29.99 in places) as a one-time purchase that does not expire, including one year of free updates. Renewing updates afterwards costs about half the current price, roughly $15. The Mac App Store route is instead $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year, and Bike stops working when that subscription ends. Also included with a Setapp subscription. Free trial download available direct.

The Bike page at hogbaysoftware.com
The developer’s own page. hogbaysoftware.com, captured 22 Sep 2026
Free trial
Yes
Works offline
Yes
Apple Silicon
Native
On Setapp
Yes
Minimum macOS
not stated
Developer
Hog Bay Software

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