Ask HN: Do you like Notion? Isn't it overrated? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you like Notion? Isn't it overrated?

14 pointspenaazv33 comments

Notion is clean and minimal aesthetically but using it is somehow quite annoying. If you're a Notion user, have you always found it easy to use?

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I will never use Notion because all the data are locked in. It's very obvious for me to not use Notion. If I don't have control over my notes, I can't use that product.

I use Obsidian. All the files are on my computer, and even if the company goes under, the notes are still with me in markdown. I can choose to buy sync option. Or sync with something like Dropbox.

It at least exports to Markdown and CSV. It requires quite a bit of tweaking to migrate the exported data to anything resembling a 1:1 representation of its “databases”, but I imagine there will be something akin to an ORM eventually (if there’s not already) to better facilitate such tasks.

That said, I absolutely understand your concerns, and I really don’t think its export ability is a meaningful answer for them. It’s enough for me and my needs, but I wouldn’t presume to suggest it would be the same for anyone else. I would absolutely say that anyone considering Notion for their business should aware of these potential issues.

Notion is the only note taking app I managed to stick with. I’ve previously used EverNote, OneNote, org-mode, BearNotes (most overrated note app ever), plain text notes, Obsidian and Apple Notes, in this order.

I love Notion because:

- the block system is top notch. It’s a great way to fix a common issue with WYSIWYG: impossibility to add a new line after a block (often after a table, a picture, etc. you can’t place a cursor for some reason)

- very easy to make pretty pages: an icon, a banner, drag and drop to make multi column layouts, colors

- table support is great, unlike BearNotes

- code support is great, unlike Apple Notes

- search works fine and sharing works great, unlike Obsidian

- databases are cool

Basically I’ve never had something I wanted to do that I couldn’t.

We use notion. I never found it difficult to use, but I don't really see how it's a household name. We use it as a hierarchical wysiwyg wiki. It's the kind of thing that could pretty easily be replaced with a free open source version. I also don't see what the crossover with LLMs is

I don't get the hype between Notion, Airtable, Asana...

Sometimes they feel like glorified Microsoft Office!

Haha, yes!

You’re not entirely wrong, although I don’t personally know of anyone who would use Notion for any kind of serious document authoring. Notion isn’t terribly original, it’s quite opinionated, and it’s hardly a panacea of productivity—but it manages to find an acceptable middle ground in several key software categories in a way that its competitors never have that, when combined effectively, add up to something more than the sum of its parts. For a lot of people who have been longing for such a product, it can feel special even if there’s not anything particularly special about any one thing it does.

I think the thing that Notion managed to do that truly sets it apart from Office, as well as a lot of its note-taking/productivity app peers, is to make a very simple and intuitive method for anyone at any skill level to create and utilize a “relational database” (I realize there are oceans of meaningful distinctions between Notion’s databases and proper ones). For me, Notion became something of a phenomenon because after years of getting excited about things like Evernote and Asana (or anything in Google Docs) only to be sorely disappointed to find that all of them could do a lot of general things fairly well, not one of them could adapt to my specific workflow in a way that made them essential. Notion’s paradigm of combining Airtable’s customizable database-lite functionality with Evernote’s note-taking/knowledge gathering wasn’t the most original recipe, but they executed it pretty well, and maintain a good pace of improvement, and it’s become the only note/task/productivity app that I have ever used consistently enough to experience value from it.

I started using it during their initial public beta, and my workspace currently has over half a million blocks of information inside, with some of my early original databases for things like contacts serving continuously to this day. As a freelance IT consultant, Notion’s functionality along with years of my data makes it easily the most useful and powerful application I use today. I’m sure that probably sounds horrifying to many of HN’s users, and I 100% understand and share the concerns. I have tried dozens of alternatives, from Access to more direct OSS clones like Focalboard, and even a few attempts to roll-my-own using traditional relational databases and a variety of frontends, but none of these have come close to meeting my needs with the ease and efficacy that Notion does, and does well.

All that said, there does seem to be an over-abundance of hype surrounding it in the last year or two, and it’s certainly got plenty of problem areas that are ripe for legitimate criticism (cross-compatibility/vendor lock-in, lack of data backups, questionable data security, performance issues, bloat, monumental feature creep, etc., etc.).

Are there any really good Notion alternatives? Preferably Open Source?

Maybe obsidian.md?

Great!

Any thoughts on Appflowy or Focalboard? (Source: https://atlas.scoutflo.com/?q=notion)

Obsidian is very different from Notion, I wouldn't call it an alternative. And all the plugins which try to replicate some Notion-features, are not really on pair in terms of quality, and seem to be mostly dead anyway.

Coda is the better alternative, pretty much on the same level, but with a different focus and polished at other parts I would say.

Appflowy (open source) might become some day an alternative, but it's still in development, and somewhat lacking. I would give it another 1-2 years.

There are also many other direct alternatives, in the sense to be a 1:1 clone, like Microsofts Loop or Zenkit Hypernotes(?), and a bunch of Open Source-Projects, but they all are very early in their development, or just lacking here an there, so I would more call them future alternatives.

Anytype's the big one I'm aware of

Have a look at FSNotes, I use it on Mac and iOS and it works well for me, I previously used notational velocity and loved it, have also a liking for Joplin but it doesn’t synch as easily as I would like, FSNotes does all really well! I tried Notion, it was not for me in so many ways!

I've started using Trilium notes and so far it's decent. Haven't used notion much though, it's very possible power users will miss many features - i'm just casually taking notes in it. love having a self-hosted sync server, and it also comes with a decent "export to text files" option in case i want to switch again.

Did notion add Find and Replace?

Last time I used it, about a year ago, it did not have this feature and notion had been out for years at that point.

I stopped using it because it lacked this basic feature.

It's easy to create content, but it's terrible finding content. Even alternatives like Coda suck at this.

No startup in this space has solved this problem yet.

It seems way too layered. And too many things happening in one place at once :/

I use it for real estate investing: templates for common guest messages (check in, check out, thank you for booking), links to insurance/mortgage/utilities, contractor logs, lease templates and completed contracts, etc.

It’s been immensely helpful; I’m sure there other ones that work well too but this one does everything I need.

https://twitter.com/businessbarista/status/16843813180946595...

I can't stand Notion but love Coda. Pivoted my team to using it and they seem to love it as well.

I use it daily, it works for me but honestly it still feels weird. But so do all note taking apps.

Not my cup-of-tea

Likewise. I've never really understood the hype around it. If something needs full-fledged tutorials - it sure isn't the easiest thing to navigate.

People out there are calling it their second brain and whatnot.

I started using it just as a markdown dumping ground and over time refined my use. It came naturally to me. If your team is using some complicated system that nobody explained to you, then I can't blame you. Notion can definitely be as complicated or as simple as you want it.

This echoes my experience. None of it was complicated enough in practice to cause me to seek out documentation, let alone a tutorial, and over time its more complex utilities became apparent organically through my own needs, which it met on most occasions.

This is pretty interesting.

Well its hard to see the point of building a knowledge base that's entirely at the whims of a company and needs me to be online. I prefer to use something like Obsidian that I can control synching behavior.

I like it a lot. Strikes a good balance between number of features and usability. My team at my job all love it, the rest of the company prefers Microsoft Office tools.

I also find it annoying. My whole company uses Craft now.

It was too pretty and fancy for me. I wasted hours customising it instead of getting things done.

Pen and paper works best for me. At most, I use Google Docs.

I can't use Notion, they don't allow me to change the hotkeys, they interfere with my keyboard layout.

Yes, I feel like their interface design is pretty awesome. Relational databases for everyone, I'd say.

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