Notion Reviews & Product Details
Notion is the all-in-one workspace that combines docs, wikis, and project management. Tens of thousands of teams around the world use it to collaborate, stay informed, and get more done together.
| Capabilities |
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|---|---|
| Segment |
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| Deployment | Cloud / SaaS / Web-Based, Desktop Mac, Desktop Windows, Mobile Android, Mobile iPad, Mobile iPhone, On-Premise Linux |
| Support | 24/7 (Live rep), Chat, Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support |
| Training | Documentation |
| Languages | English |
Notion Review: Is This Project Manager Right For You?
While a relatively new entry into the project management space, Notion has evolved quite quickly to meet the needs of its users. It’s a platform that is notable for its versatility, and it is a well-known option for individuals and teams who want a reliable tool to organize and manage tasks–from note-taking to in-depth project management.
But does it incorporate the best project management techniques to help you or your team get organized?
Let’s find out.
What is Notion?
Notion is a cloud-based workspace where individuals and small teams can take notes, create documents, track projects and organize and manage tasks all in one place. It’s often referred to as an “all-in-one” workspace because users can collate all of their projects onto a single platform.
Notion’s popularity among professionals and students is credited to its personalization that caters to any workflow. As a user, you’ll have the freedom to customize the layout of your workspace, while still getting helpful guidance and templates to help you get started.
Background on Notion
Founded in 2016, Notion started as a note-taking app but has evolved into a comprehensive project management tool for solopreneurs and small teams. The platform’s mission is to make it possible for people to shape the productivity tool they use every day to match their needs.
Getting Started with Notion
Every feature on Notion is designed to help users be as organized as possible.
The platform is segmented into pages that can be nested or interlinked at your convenience. As soon as you sign up, you’ll be redirected to your Welcome screen containing some tips to get started. This includes linked videos that guide you in creating your first page and setting up your to-do lists and projects.
On the left side, you’ll find a list of default pages, such as ‘Quick Note’, ‘Personal Home’, and ‘Task List’ which you can customize and add. Whenever you create a new page it will show up on the left panel. You can add personalized header images, descriptive comments, and add associated icons to your pages.
Simply click anywhere on a page to add blocks for individual pieces of content such as text, lists, media, links, and sub-pages. You can also just type “/” to bring up a menu of blocks you can add to your new page. 
How Notion Works: Key Features
Although Notion started as a note-taking app, it has become far more than that. The tool has promising features that go beyond creating to-do lists and make it a competent productivity and project management app.
Integrated User Guides
A commendable feature of Notion is that user guides are already embedded in the platform. For example, if you want to create a new document, you’ll find guides on how to get the most out of the preinstalled page.
Of course, this can be a hit or miss. Some users may be grateful for the step-by-step guides, while others may be frustrated with manually deleting pre-installed guide pages to clean up their workspace.
Customizable Pages & Templates
Notion makes it easy for you to create pages and documents in whatever style you want. Pages are like folders where you can store all information related to a particular topic. You can include a range of blocks or items on your pages such as text, toggle lists, to-do lists, images, video links, tables, boards, and maps.
Every change you make to a page or block is automatically saved in Notion. So you can always go back and view the history of a page if there’s something that you want to restore. This is pretty useful for when you make a mistake or just want to experiment with different versions of a page.
Notion is also very generous when it comes to templates. It provides users with a ton of options, whether they’re creating blog posts, articles, event schedules, or product launch plans. Fortunately, all templates are fully customizable so you can modify them to your taste without having to build from scratch. The platform also encourages users to submit their own templates so the library grows to fit a wider range of needs.
Collaborative Workspaces
Users can create different workspaces for different projects, which is useful if you need to manage multiple projects at once. Every workspace will have its own pages so all your information will remain separate and organized.
Notion allows you to invite other people to your workspace so you can collaborate in real time. The limit of guests you can have at a time depends on the plan you choose.
Integrations
As a good workspace should, Notion integrates with a wide range of popular productivity tools so you can easily share information across the platforms you use. These tools include Slack, GitHub, Zoom, Trello, Google Drive, and more.
For instance, you can make use of the Google Drive integration to quickly add and share files from your Google Drive directly to your Notion workspace.
Notion AI
Notion AI is a relatively new feature for workspaces. It’s a connected assistant powered by GPT-3 that’s developed to help boost your creativity and write content faster. Essentially, it eliminates the need to jump between your work and a separate AI-powered tool.
The feature can help you generate ideas for blog posts, social media posts, press releases, job descriptions, meeting agendas, and more. You’ll also be able to summarize pieces of content, correct spelling, and grammar, and translate text (English, Spanish, Chinese, and French).
Notion Use Cases
Solopreneurs
Individuals who are working freelance will benefit from an organizational tool like Notion. It can help with a variety of processes such as:
- Documenting and managing career goals
- Organizing projects for different clients
- Managing content creation schedules
Professional teams
Small professional teams can benefit from Notion’s features because it ensures that all team members can collaborate on the same tool for multiple purposes. These purposes include:
- Planning meetings and recording meeting notes
- Setting task lists based on priority
- Drawing up onboarding documentation for recruits
- Brainstorming internal team goals (digital suggestion box)
- Organizing a company roster
Students
Students also make great use of Notion because of its impressive note-taking and organizational capabilities. Students can easily organize their notes by class and keep track of all reading and assignments (by the due date) for each class. The best part is Notion can even allow easier collaboration for group projects since the free plan allows sharing with up to 10 guests.
What makes Notion stand out from other platforms?
Notion stands out in two major ways; it’s very customizable to support any workflow, and it brings all work together in one shared location.
Unlike many productivity tools, Notion doesn’t just focus on solving one problem, such as organization. The way Notion is designed gives users the freedom to mold their workspace in a way that works best for them. On one hand, individuals can use it to keep their notes, to-do lists, calendars, and journals in one accessible platform. Additionally, professional teams can use it to build collaborative docs, product roadmaps, and wikis for their company.
Notion Pricing
Notion has four pricing plans: Free, Plus, Business, and Enterprise.
- Personal (Free): The forever-free plan allows users to create unlimited pages and blocks with an allowance of 5MB file uploads. You can also share or collaborate on projects with a maximum of 10 guests, and receive basic page analytics, 7-day page history, and integration with other tools such as Slack or GitHub.
- Plus ($8/month per user): The Plus plan is geared towards small professional groups. On this plan, you can invite up to 100 guests for collaboration. You’ll also get unlimited file uploads and 30-day page history.
- Business ($15/month per user): This plan is for companies that use Notion to connect many teams and tools and you can invite up to 250 guests. You also get authentication features (SAML + Single Sign On), private team spaces, bulk PDF export, advanced page analytics, and 90-day page history.
- Enterprise: This subscription is targeted toward medium to large businesses and offers more advanced capabilities. You will need to contact the Notion sales team to discuss the pricing plan that fits your business’s complex needs. You can request a trial of this specific plan if you’d rather try it before making any significant investment.
Unfortunately, none of the plans come with Notion AI because it’s an optional add-on. It costs $8/month per member and is billed annually at $96. If you’d rather pay monthly, it’ll set you back $10/per month per member.
Notion’s Pros and Cons
Pros
- The customization features are better than most.
- A great solution for note-taking and creating to-do lists.
- You can use Notion to create wiki pages or simple websites with useful information about your business or products.
- Pricing is affordable for solopreneurs and small teams.
- The forever-free plan has sufficient features for solopreneurs.
- The structure of folders allows for shortcuts so you can reach your content from multiple places.
- Notion’s tutorials are comprehensive for everyone to understand and the support team is responsive and helpful.
Cons
- Although Notion’s UI is very usable, it can sometimes get cluttered once you start adding multiple projects, which can be overwhelming for newbies.
- Advanced project management features, such as reporting, time tracking, and Gantt charts are lacking.
- Managing multiple projects on Notion can become tedious.
- Security features are lacking, as basic features like two-factor authentication are not available, even for paid plans.
- Notion AI is billed separately as an add-on.
- May not be the best option for those looking for project management software for software development.
Is Notion Right For Your Organizational Needs?
Notion should be commended for its simplicity, familiarity, and affordability. If you need a straightforward entry-level solution for creating content and planning and managing projects then Notion is a great choice.
With that being said, large businesses that have complex needs may not see the platform as comprehensive enough to streamline their project management. However, Notion is a tool that keeps evolving and works hard to improve its capabilities to fit businesses of all sizes.
If you want to keep checking other project management software that may suit you better, Findstack has more helpful reviews and insights that you can take a look at. Our goal is to help you find the right tool for your needs.
I love that each page is free form and I can customize anything from meeting notes to client portals before exporting them to beautiful PDFS. Best value software I have ever had.
Some learning curve with getting started and it's not obvious how to save a formatted page as a template. It can be overwhelming if you're not used to full control of your documents. There are a LOT of features, Which is awesome but, a lot to wrap your head around all at once.
I love that I can quickly link to drive files, capture web pages and sync all of my data in one place. If I write brief notes on a topic from a meeting I want to revisit I can quickly reframe this from a client perspective or add additional information from AI. Because the AI relies mostly on the internal documentation from the notes I provide it's sometimes a little hit and miss with answering but all in the software is a beautiful and affordable edition to my workflow.
The flexibility in the tools. It's nice to be able to chatagarize my thoughts into sections and pages and databases to really keep everything together. Its also very helpful for my to explain my thought processs and checklists to my team
The ipad version crashes a little more than I woudl like it to. I'd also love for there to be a better option for notes with the apple pen but it doesn't always register on the mobile notion app
All organization. When you're a creative and a business ownder it's hard to keep track of all your thoughts AND all of your todo lists and deadlines. Notion helps me succeeed at both
The best thing about Notion is its excellent UX that lets you focus on what you're writing. In addition, Notion has a ton of easily accessible functionality to build your pages, be it Kanban boards, Roadmaps, Databases, and tons of handy things. Honestly can't go back to my personal and professional writing without it.
Unfortunately, it still doesn't allow for the customizability that would take it to the next level. You should be able to change the fonts, background colour/palette of pages and build advanced dashboards (handy for team managers in tech organisations) - alas, this is not available yet.
Notion's ability to structure your pages into wiki-like sites makes it ideal for writing technical documentation for projects, internal company wikis and personal writing projects. Furthermore, the AI tools are quite handy - some of them need significant prompting work from the user to be useful, but the "Improve Writing" functionality is perfect to use on any text.
Summarizing notes. Rewriting things in a tone.
Notion is slow sometimes. Honestly there's not much else tay, its freaking epic besides that.
Solving mental clarity. Its solving memory storage. Its solving relationship management. Its solving my life.
I really enjoy being able to write rough drafts and let NotionAI polish them and turn them into things like meeting minutes and whatnot
I really don't have any dislikes at the moment.
It's helping me transfer ideas into an actionable todo list with useful details so I can offload my thoughts into a document.
The ease of managing my day-to-day task routine as well as being able to store all important information in one place.
Sometimes it is hard to find an appropriate template for a specific task and then it tasks a lot of time to create one.
I need to write a lot of stuff for my area of work/research, and before AI assistant, it took a lot of time to do a google search and then collect all the relevant information in one place. Now, it's like magic happening in front of my eyes, and Notion's AI writing assistant is doing most of the painstaking tasks for me. Although I still need to read and sometimes make several adjustments in the response provided I feel like it is time worth spending on improving rather than collecting information from scratch. AI writing assistant is truly amazing. Although, I do say that the per-month cost is slightly higher.
While there are many different aspects about Notion that are noteworthy, the two factors that stand out are the ability to have database integration across several pages and the new integration of AI into the Notion workspace.
While it is relatively minor, by far the biggest drawback of Notion is the complete lack of an integrated autocorrect, and a lackluster spellcheck. While this is not the end of the world, not having it available for note taking is particularly inconvenient.
As a student using Notion for all of my planning, note taking, and organization, the new implementation of AI into the workspaces has been a game changer. Whether it has to do with creating question sets based on notes, or helping to brainstorm project ideas, it has completely changed the way I use Notion.
It's a one stop shop for organization, generating ideas, and sharing externally. As a education innovator with an ADHD diagnoses, it's been a game changer for me.
There is a learning curve and a lot of information to consume. I also wish there was more flexibility and designing the Notion landing pages when sharing externally.
Really bringing everything in one place to reduce distractions while also increasing productivity
It helps me organize notes, classes, and AI has helped me to write emails to professors, employers, and school administration. I also use Notion for journaling which is helpful to organize my thoughs and share what i am thankful for.
I think there should be more customization to Notion as a white screen is not so exciting when using the app. I think there should be color lettering and more backdrops.
AI is definitely saving myself time with creating outlines and writing emails that I feel that I do not have the time to write quickly and efficiently. I also love love love the student dashboard it helps me plan my week as a student with homework, quizzes, and exams.
I can have all my info in one place. I thought I needed to write down everything but with Notion I stopped using notebooks. Also I find it super easy to use, and have been storing not only Work stuff but also personal projects.
Sometimes it gets slow when I'm handling too many databases or tables.
It is allowing me to create copy for landing pages, emails and even for my own portfolio. I have found it's "Improve writing" super useful since english is not my main language and I don't want to have any grammar mistakes in my interactions and job stuff.
Notion AI has been a valuable resource, not just for organising my business assets but for generating useful content for blog posts, videos scripts and much more. Thank you Notion.
There's not a lot I dislike about Notion. It's very very designed, user friendly and customisable to suit my busienss needs. I'd recommend Notion to any of my colleagues.
Notion AI is helping me to brain-storm ideas for web content, blog posts, social posts, video script ideas and much much more. I don't know how I've survived without it.
It is very user-friendly and has a fantastic UI, making note-taking fun and easy to organize. The thing that puts Notion above the competitor's apps is Notion AI.
I absolutely love everything about notion and notion ai is my favorite aspect. The only thing I could come up with is that I want Notion AI to stay up to date with the new GPT releases by OpenAI. This means I would like for Notion AI to switch to use the new GPT-4.
As I am studying for interviews, I need a note-taking app to help me organize tips, tricks and algorithms. Notion AI helps me caption algorithms as well as generate question prompts and examples that help me with the study process.
What I like the most about notion is to keep all my data storage in one app. It's easy to navigate across my panels and switch between them. I like to use it for personal and work purposes.
At first, it's a bit difficult to get used to all white interface but as soon as you understand, how does it work it's just really simple to get things going and then you'll learn how to customize things to look more appealing
I keep all my information there from my recipes to my résumé and interview notes. It's easy to access everything from my computer or my cell phone. This way I can maintain all my Contant up-to-date and on my hand every time.
Easy to use Easy to use with APIs Is pretty I like how it has integrated code-blocks and markdown Able to use as a centralized workspace I use Notion AI as a second brain - and it has really changed the way that I use Notion.
Notion AI is great, but there are obviously teething problems. Frequently the AI pop-up stops working and moves to the top-left of Notion's UI. Presumably this is an error, but I can't actually see if it is or not. Also, I get frustrated because sometimes I want Notion AI to answer something not related to the document at hand, but it has a problem doing that.
Quick, general answers to generalised and technical queries. E.g., "List the films which won the Palme D'or in the 1970s". Can write code in markdown. Can organise and summarize large text strings.
Minimalist approach making it easy to organize and workflow fast with custom templates. Still getting used to the Shortcuts, but recently, the best feature is the AI tool.
I wouldn't say I like the sidebar function; I think finding pages and constantly popping up and switching my page length is weird. It's also hard to expand the size of the page horizontally.
It's solving my organization and finding those faster than what I was using before the benefits of it is that it's easy to put pages together and make it make sense in a way that helps my brain.
The most helpful part Notion AI is using AI to summarize my notes and brainstorming.
I think it would be great to have an autocorrection function or grammar check function.
Notion is good at helping me to establish my personal knowledge database.
I write a variety of content, including books, articles, tweets, website copy, newsletters, and LinkedIn posts. While I mainly use Notion, I am open to using other products such as Apple Pages or MS Word. However, things changed when I started using AI Assist. Here are a few ways in which it has improved my writing process: 1. Faster writing: One thing that slows down content creation for me is getting stuck on a thought. With AI Assist, I experience fewer writing blocks because when I have it rewrite something, it gives me an opportunity to agree or disagree with what it wrote. This helps me figure out the best way to express my idea. 2. Less busy work: Sometimes, defining concepts can be tedious and time-consuming. With AI Assist, I let it do the work for me. 3. Get stuck less: I often wonder if I'm using the correct concept or wording. With AI Assist, I can quickly verify my understanding and move on. 4. No need for a proofreader: I struggle with spelling and sentence structure, but AI Assist helps me catch errors and improve my writing. While I don't always agree with its suggestions, it usually does a great job, and I can focus on writing. P.S. I used AI to help me write this review.
The only downside I have for Notion now is some usability things. It's gotten much better over the years but I still want a better way to navigate around the content, have multiple screens up at once, and so on.
I mentioned this before. I use this for content creation and knowledge management. Without a product like notion, I don't have anything that can help me do those things.
I could use it to write, plan, create, structure my work, learning and goals. It is beautiful that I can use it for anything I want to do.
Can we have an add on that checks grammar?
I use it mostly for Project Management and Note taking
its easy, intuitive and really helps me find easy solutions to daily needs. the ai really changed my life and my work. i've been using it for my small business and its saving me time and money.
the ai is not super consistent yet, and i feel like it could improve. also the usage of images are no easy. not easy to crop, not easy to reduce. also videos, and stuff. id def work more on my visuals - that would help me a lot creating - if the tool was better
as a small business owner, i use AI to find any sort of ideas for my business. from administrative to creative. it helped me with my business plan and and also copywriting.
The fact that I can stay in Notion and use the AI when I take notes or journal is amazing. It is helping me so much, particularly as a neurodivergent person.
I would love more options to customise pages and the look of databases.
Executive functioning support