Notion review: The most customizable productivity app around

Price When Reviewed

From $10 a month

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If you’re in or around the tech space (like a discerning Macworld reader would be), then you may have heard of Notion. What originally appears to be a (very capable) note-taking app is actually much more, but ask anyone who uses it regularly what they use it for and you can expect more than one use.

That’s because Notion, while it initially feels like a handy document editor, is a powerful database creation suite that features a whole host of features, and now has integrations with standalone Mail and Calendar apps developed by the same team, too.

I’ve been using Notion for a couple of years to manage my small business, but also to log books and movies I want to watch, cards I want to collect, and much more. In that time, I’ve consulted dozens of tutorials in an effort to turn it into the productivity tool I wanted it to be, and while there’s satisfaction in that process, others will undoubtedly be turned off by the idea of spending that time building the tool before using it.

And yet, with a very generous free plan and more features being added pretty regularly, there’s never been a better time to try out Notion.

First Impressions

It’s worth noting that while Notion has a Mac (and Windows) app, it is, in many ways, a wrapper of sorts for the web interface, right down to being able to refresh it with CMD + R.

On the left-hand side, you’ll have your sidebar, and Notion has a whole host of templates available to download to help you get started. Or, you can start with one blank page and see where that takes you, linking to other pages and web links, and even allowing collaboration on paid plans (which start at $10/£8.50 per month, per user if you sign up for a year).

The app’s free plan will sync across all platforms, allows for the creation of basic sites and forms, as well as database tools. In fact, I’ve used the app for years without paying for the extra tier which includes integrations with the likes of Slack, Google Drive, and Gmail, as well as the AI features (which we’ll come to soon).

Notion can be a simple place to do some writing, sure, but once you start experimenting with databases, though, you’ll see just how malleable it can be.

Notion features

It’s hard to classify Notion as a note-taking app, because that really does feel like such a small part of the overall package. You can use it to create websites (like my own very simple offering here), and it can be a powerful tool for collaboration, like project management and wiki creation.

It all starts with content blocks, the likes of which you may have seen if you’ve used something like WordPress. These can turn your text into lists, tables, charts and more in just a few clicks, but it’s worth noting that it’s not always easy.

After plenty of trial and error, I was able to build my database just the way I want it, offering a Kanban board (Trello style) that moves along as projects are worked in, even factoring in some light automation. For example, when I note a draft has been sent, the item in question moves from my ‘In Progress’ column to ‘Done’, and adding an invoice date then moves it along accordingly.

While there is a tutorial that includes tickboxes and some recommended templates, there’s an awful lot of customisation that feels overwhelming at first. Thankfully, a whole cottage industry of Notion enthusiasts and YouTubers are always happy to help, and in recent months, the developers have worked to integrate a storefront for premium templates within the app itself (something handled by third-party sites previously).

Notion annoyances

Notion calls itself (among other things) an AI workspace that works for you, and the veracity of that statement will change depending on your use case.

If you’re a paid member, you can use tools like AI Meeting Notes which works across any video platform and turns your meeting into a document, or the Enterprise Search which offers search across not just Notion but Slack, Jira, Github and more.

While having a chatbot handy might be useful for some, however, I’ve found it to be less than ideal for my own use case. As part of being a freelance writer, I need to generate my own invoices and assign them a number. If I ask Notion AI to find the highest invoice number on my database, it simply can’t do it, often pulling them out of thin air. It may improve, but if you need to check the AI’s work for a simple task like counting upward, it may not be ideal for that situation.

That said, if I ask it when I submitted a draft of a story, it’s more than capable of finding that information.

It’s also worth pointing out that you need to be online to use Notion. While the company has teased an offline mode is coming, at the time of writing it’s not here yet. No Wi-FI, no Notion, and if you come to depend on it, that could be a dealbreaker.

Thankfully, the mobile app for iOS and iPadOS is pretty great, even on LTE.

Should you buy Notion?

Notion is a powerful tool that takes some dedication to get the most out of, but it really does feel like the most customizable productivity app around. Its AI could do with some sharpening up for relatively simple tasks, and an offline mode would be fantastic, but there’s a reason it’s held in such high regard by so many tech enthusiasts.