Has anyone experimented with Notion.so?

Jimmy Rogers April 11, 2019

We're in the process of re-evaluating our collaboration tools. We've been long-time Trello users, but much of that functionality is now going to be moving to Jira.

With Trello's move to change out free teams works, we're also looking to see if the non-deployment related work we do could better fit into another tool. Trello has always restricted us a little bit with its one format and export limitations. Cost is a big driver for us.

Has anyone experimented with Notion.so? It's very "I'm a database with many views" oriented, has a nice mobile experience, and seems to scale well for a small company.

Anybody tried using it and also tried to make it play nice with teams who work in Jira? Confluence is an obvious contender, but the price may keep us away.

8 comments

Steven April 15, 2019

Hey Jimmy - Yes, i've moved my personal platforms into this tool, it requires a large amount of effort upfront to establish, but for me its removed Dropbox, GDrive, OneNote/MS Office, Evernote, Portion of Slack, Trello.

The company says it's built for teams, but it's not nearly as GUI friendly as atlassian tools. Know you audience I suppose.

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Jimmy Rogers April 15, 2019

@Steven Zachary Wow, I'm surprised to hear you say the UI isn't friendly? Maybe I'm just biased by being a digital native, but it seems much easier to navigate than, say, Jira...

 

I'm also surprised to hear you mention Dropbox as being replaced. Doesn't Notion have a 5mb file size limit?

 

I'm glad to hear you've had luck moving into it though!

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Steven April 16, 2019

Good points. I signed up to Notion Premium, unclear if that changes the file size limit?  The problem with notion is that if you scale it, it requires at least basic understanding of relational databases. The UI isn't simplified to such an extent that a basic user can navigate, and I wouldn't ask my users to use it at any scale. However, if you do have the time to learn it or the understanding of how linking works in notion there is a big payoff.

 

For a corporate application, we are looking for (a) security,  (b) Stability (load time of the Notion app) (c) ease of use. I find atlassian products are restrictive so you can customize the experience and guide the user through the business process with workflows and integrations.

 

Just my two cents. I use Notion exclusively for myself.

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Rodrigo Nascimento August 1, 2019

As a consultant, I would say that portability and offline support are also important. I usually use my time on planes/trains to write and poor (or inexistent) internet connection is a big deal for me. I even have Confluence on my laptop but the sync process is not smooth as it supposed to be.

I've been trying Notion for the past week and have to say that I'm really impressed. Time for Atlassian guys to review their capabilities.

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Peter Leclercq August 14, 2019

We just started evaluating Notion.so as well, although we are avid users of Confluence as well. We are particularly looking for a platform that enables collaboration and shared documentation with specific customers (shielded, not publicly). Possibly integrating communication with that customer as well. 

Any thoughts on this? 

Pietro Casella October 8, 2019

I'm seriously considering replacing Confluence with Notion:

Why?
Overall it creates more structure and incentivises editing/curation

Also:
* better support for lists and relational integrity (not the metadata based on confluence)
* multiple users editing at the same time (no more draft / publish metafor)
* multiple views per list (e.g. you can see a list as a kanban board or as a list or as a gallery)
* Tons of cool features that make content pop (amazing editor, built in unsplash integrations, etc)
* More cool features comming up (ex. grouping by attribute on tables, apis, etc)


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Atlassian user March 17, 2020

Hi Pietro, 

I'm also considering it too.   Thanks for your thoughts.

Pietro Casella March 18, 2020

Its done :-)

CL_Brandon March 26, 2020

A problem we have with Confluence is the ability of external / client users to see the full directory of users. Is this something you can limit in Notion? I'd like to limit users to only see other users in their space or pages they can access.

Ashlyn Baum March 31, 2020

Confluence offers:
- draft status, 
- restrictions on page access and editing,
- and page history

Notion offers:

- faster typing editing, and building of a wiki

- better template processes

- many 3rd party addons that cost money in confluence, are included in the UI of notion,

- Encourages collaboration and sharing

- Has a better design, to make content more accessible

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Atlassian user April 1, 2020

Hi @Ashlyn Baum  

 

Thanks for sharing.  For me, it was simply boredom from using Confluence for many years.  Yes, I totally agree that I have to at least $10/mo for each third-party add-on I'm using.  

Brittany Sudlow
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
July 14, 2020

@Steven Zachary @Ashlyn Baum @CL_Brandon @Pietro Casella @Peter Leclercq @Rodrigo Nascimento @Jimmy Rogers Are any of you still using Notion and/or Confluence? I'd be interested in learning more about your experience to help inform us how to make Confluence better! If you're willing to chat, please email me: bsudlow@atlassian.com Thanks!

Maxim Kolesnichenko August 12, 2020

Notion is much better. Airtable is an interesting tool too. 
Confluence great only if you add a lot of additional paid addons or develop addons yourself. 

Anna Gregor October 8, 2020

Our teams are also using notion atm, but i recently started looking into AirTable as well. For a free version of AirTable i just found out about SeaTable. It looks a lot like AirTable though, but as mentioned for the amount of our data (small business) it's free without any restrictions in functionality. 

Joncreative October 15, 2020

A year later replies still coming in. I would say that is a good topic.

A workflow have been using between Enterprise, and Startup/Small Projects:

Enterprise:
Jira + Confluence - Standard.


Evernote- quick personal notes. Not needed. But it is very old school and feels good for consumer research and user-testing. IDK maybe the elephant logo reminds me of a chill night in Africa 😎

 

Startups/Small Projects:
Notion - Would recommend Notion for small companies that do not need epics, As the many beautiful people here mentioned, notion is super light but has a crm that is quickly maturing with logic .

2021 sneak-sauce hot tool of the month : MIRO
You all, I have been messing with Miro as well. Keep your eyes on this tool.

Miro- https://miro.com/index/

Notion - https://www.notion.so 

Evernote - https://evernote.com/ 

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