What is Notion ?
Notion is a comprehensive tool that combines note-taking, task management, database building, and collaboration features. It allows your company to create workspaces where everyone can share and organize information and documents efficiently. Let’s see the key features of Notion in detail.
What are the key features of Notion ?
- Workspace organization: Notion allows you to have an overview of all your company’s activity with its workspace organization. The different teams of your company can share (or not) their documents, projects to improve collaboration and efficiency.
- Document creation: Notion is equipped with a document creation feature which allows you to create advanced documents with text, checklists, videos, code… It makes the tool suitable for almost any team (engineering, marketing …).
- Project management features: Notion allows to track and manage projects as tasks are recorded and organized and can be consulted by status, owner and timeline at any time.
- Search function: You can search through your workspaces using the search bar available on Notion. It’s very useful as it centralizes all the information and helps you find anything in a breeze !
- Collaboration features: Notion comes with advanced collaboration features to improve teamwork in your company. For instance, it’s possible to leave feedback on documents, in which you can tag people. You can even react to comments posted using emojis.
- AI assistant: Notion is equipped with a powerful AI that answers all your questions but can also help you write text according to what you’re asking.
How much does it cost?
Notion offers several plans, that are rather affordable:
- Free: With basic workspaces, 5 MB of file uploads, 7 day page history and up to 10 guests.
- Plus: $12/user/month with unlimited file uploads, 30 day page history and up to 100 guests.
- Business: $18/user/month with advanced page analytics, 90 day page history and up to 250 guests, with the possibility to add external collaborators to specific pages of your workspaces. Private teamspaces are also available.
- Enterprise: Custom
Note that this is the pricing without any AI feature. If you want to add these features, an extra $10/user/month will be required.
Now that you know how Notion can be useful, it’s time to have a look at other options available on the market. Let’s look at Notion’s top 5 alternatives.
The best alternative: Claap
Claap is a conversation intelligence tool, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s a comprehensive tool that improves collaboration between teams and increases productivity.
Claap’s key benefits
- Conversation intelligence features: Claap is able to record and transcribe meetings in 100+ languages. It’s also equipped with AI features to produce smart summaries and highlight key points of your meetings.
- Asynchronous communication: Claap is an asynchronous meeting tool. Using its interface, you can record your screen while having your camera on. In 5 minutes, you’ve recorded your first claap, and you can share it on your Claap workspaces or with external collaborators to communicate more easily.
- Workspace organization: Just like Notion, Claap is organized in workspaces to help you work easily with your teammates.
- Collaboration features: Your teammates and even external people can watch the videos you share and react, ask questions on them… And the collaboration possibilities are larger than Notion’s as you can even select a part of the screen to react to it more specifically.
- Video library: Claap comes with a video library feature that enables you to search for specific videos based on keywords mentioned during them.
Claap’s limitations
- Limited analysis capabilities: Claap can’t be considered as an advanced conversation intelligence tool as it lacks features such as sentiment analysis. But you certainly aren’t looking for a conversation intelligence tool are you ?
- Compatibility: Claap’s desktop app is currently only available on Mac. Windows is on the way.
Claap’s pricing
- Basic: Free with an upload limit of 10 videos.
- Starter: $10/month per user with unlimited videos upload/storage.
- Pro: $30/month per user with access to AI features.
- Enterprise: Custom
Claap’s price is similar to Notion’s. But in my opinion, it’s better as it allows you to transcribe and record meetings, but is also more advanced in terms of collaboration features. And if you’re not convinced, there is a 14-day test version so you can realize it for yourself !
Trello: the best project management software
If you’re specifically interested in the project management capabilities of Notion, Trello might be a good alternative. Here’s why:
Pros
- Intuitive display: Trello is easy to use and to master. You can drag and drop your tasks (shown as cards) to manage the project’s schedule. Trello categorizes your tasks in different columns in a Kanban board.
- Advanced task management: Trello allows you to create detailed tasks by adding personalized labels, setting a deadline, including a description with a checklist etc…
- Customization: Trello’s Kanban board is highly customizable as you can modify the background color, but also name the columns of the Kanban board as you wish. You can also create specific labels and aren’t limited to the classic “To do” and “Done
Cons
- Simple features missing: Trello is a comprehensive tool, but still lacks crucial features like the possibility to erase a card.
- Not great for complex projects: Trello is incredibly useful for simple projects. But I wouldn’t recommend using it for more complex projects with Gantt charts and long lists of dependent tasks as the main advantage of Trello is its efficient display.
Pricing
- Free: With basic features and up to 10 collaborators.
- Standard: $6/month/user with unlimited boards, unlimited collaborators and more advanced features such as advanced checklists.
- Premium: $12.50/month/user with access to more advanced features and AI capabilities.
- Enterprise: $17.50/month/user (for 50 users) with unlimited workspaces and 24/7 support notably.
Overall, Trello is a solid project management tool and a good value for money.
Zoho: the most comprehensive tool
If you’re not looking for a note-management tool but a more comprehensive solution that can improve the global efficiency of your company, then Zoho might be a good solution. Let’s see why
Pros
- Comprehensive platform: Zoho provides a comprehensive range of business, collaboration, and productivity applications, such as an HR platform, project management tool, chat, and more. That’s why it can replace Notion and do a lot more.
- Workspace organization: Zoho Workplace allows you to collaborate on documents with other teammates, chat with them and overall improve your efficiency with a dashboard view.
- Scalability: Zoho is known for its scalability and will accompany your company in its growth without any issue.
- Sales automation: I know we’re straying a bit from the main topic but I have to mention that Zoho is an excellent CRM and is very useful if you’re looking to improve your sales team’s efficiency. Zoho enhances your sales process with features like lead and deal management. It comes with Blueprint, which helps you define and standardize best practices for your sales team. But you should know that the best tool to boost your sales efficiency is still Claap!
Cons
- Support issues: Zoho's support system is free but not the fastest. You might experience long wait times for responses, which can be problematic and frustrating when dealing with critical issues.
- Frequent bugs: Some users have reported encountering bugs, particularly with new updates.
Pricing
The following plans are only about Zoho Workplace. Be careful, if you want to benefit from the sales automation features for instance, you’ll have to subscribe to other plans.
- Standard : $3/month/user with 30 GB Mail storage, 10 GB WorkDrive storage per user, attachments up to 500 MB, 1 GB File upload limit.
- Professional : $6/month/user with 100 GB Mail storage, 100 GB WorkDrive storage per user, attachments up to 1 GB.
Slite: the best alternative for AI automation
Even though Notion and other alternatives I introduced, like Claap, have strong AI capabilities, they are not the best options if you’re looking for more automation. In this case, I think you should have a look at Slite. So let’s explore the pros and cons of this tool.
Pros
- Workspace environment: In terms of general capabilities, Slite is close to Notion. Slite is organized in workspaces in which you can add information, pictures to collaborate easily.
- AI general capabilities: Slite comes with classic AI capabilities, similar to Notion’s. For instance, you can ask the chatbot to look for information in your databases instead of doing it yourself.
- AI writing assistant: Slite is equipped with AI advanced capabilities. It helps you take notes and share information with different people as it’s able to translate text, fix spelling and grammar, but also rewrite your text by summarizing or changing the tone.
- Knowledge management: Slite facilitates knowledge management. You can set up automated verifications to make sure your docs are still up to date. You can also manually change the owner or status of your projects/notes if you’d rather do it this way !
Cons
- Limited upload formats: Slite is limited in terms of document formats it can handle. It’s also quite difficult to use spreadsheets on the tool, which can be an issue.
- Some bugs: Some users have reported encountering bugs while using Slite, but the support team seems to be very reactive to help users.
Pricing
- Standard: $10/month/user, with almost every feature mentioned previously, but limited (max 200 MB per file uploaded, max 30 questions per user to the AI Assistant)
- Premium: $15/month/user, with no limit for file upload or AI Assistant
- Enterprise: Custom
Google Keep: the best free alternative
Google Keep is a good alternative to Notion if you’re on a budget. If you have basic needs, this could be the most interesting option for you.
Pros
- Ease of use : Google Keep is known for its very intuitive and streamlined interface, so you won’t need much time to master the tool.
- Basic note management: Google Keep allows you to manage your notes in different formats (text, checklists …). It can even handle handwritten notes and voice notes (it automatically transcribes them).
- Label and categorize notes: Google Keep allows you to label and categorize notes to have a better overview of your tasks.
- Sharing features: Google Keep allows you to share notes with other users like the other apps of Google Drive.
- Mobile app: Google Keep is available on mobile so you can write notes at any moment of the day, even when you aren’t at home or at the office.
Cons
- Limited capabilities overall: Google Keep is quite limited in terms of features. For instance, you can’t create folders for your notes. You also can’t use more than simple bullet points for your lists…
- Not adapted to large documents
Pricing
Google Keep is totally free and available with a simple Google account.
Conclusion
Notion is a great tool, no doubt about that. But is it really the best tool for you? I’m not sure. I’m a bit biased but I’d recommend testing Claap if you’re looking for a comprehensive tool that will improve the collaboration and the efficiency of your teams. There is a free version of Claap and you can even test the paid features for 14 days without spending a dime! So, why not give it a test?
