Notion is a popular project management software known for its pages and blocks, representing different types of workflows from weekly to-do lists and product roadmaps to issue trackers and sales pipelines. While many businesses benefit from the app’s robust features, some look for Notion alternatives because it lacks certain capabilities, including activity logs, advanced reporting, real-time communication, and resource management.
Some of Notion’s features, like milestones, aren’t intuitive and require extra fees. Moreover, its artificial intelligence (AI) tools are available as an add-on only. In this article, we’ll explore the best Notion alternatives offering robust functionalities Notion lacks as well as the best use cases for each:
- monday.com: Best for comprehensive project management
- ClickUp: Best for remote collaboration
- Zoho Projects: Best for resource planning
- Trello: Best for Kanban-based workflow management
- Asana: Best for native third-party integrations
- Wrike: Best for artificial intelligence tools
Notion & Best Alternatives at a Glance
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 4.26 out of 5 | Monthly pricing starts at $9.80 per user |
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monday.com: Best for Comprehensive Project Management
What We Like
- Unlimited documents and a maximum of 1,000 board items in the free plan
- Customizable notifications feature is available across all plans, including the free version
- Unlimited guest access
Where It Falls Behind
- Activity log in the free plan is limited to a week
- Uptime service level agreement (SLA) is locked behind the most expensive plan
- Integration and automation actions are not available in the free and entry-level packages
How It Compares to Notion
- While Notion doesn’t offer a standard service level agreement, monday.com provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee in its most expensive plan.
- Notion features over 70 integrations. monday.com connects with 200+ third-party apps.
- Unlike Notion, monday.com has an activity log, which shows all the changes that happened on the board and when they happened.
- monday.com features a map view, while Notion doesn’t.
monday.com is the best overall Notion alternative, offering the robust project management features that Notion lacks, including activity logs, advanced reporting, and resource planning. With its Enterprise plan, you’re able to track all the board changes up to the last five years. Its reporting dashboard features 30 widgets, including charts and a progress battery, to help you better understand your project status and recalibrate team performance.
On top of that, monday.com has built-in workload views and time tracking, enabling managers to allocate resources more strategically. The platform makes for a great collaboration tool, as team members are able to create unlimited boards, assign unlimited tasks, and embed relevant documents for each task.
However, note that monday.com has limited features in the free plan, with only a week of activity log and 500MB of file storage. Asana, another excellent Notion competitor, has more robust capabilities in its free version, including unlimited activity logs and file storage.
monday.com Monthly Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Maximum of two seats, up to three boards and 1,000 items, 500MB of file storage, one week of activity log, and whiteboard collaboration
- Basic: $10 per user for unlimited seats, boards, and items, 5GB of file storage, and 20-plus column types
- Standard: $12 per user for 20GB of file storage, six months of activity log, Zoom integration, guest access (four guests billed as one seat), and 250 integration and automation actions
- Pro: $24 per user for 100GB of file storage, one year of activity log, unlimited guest access, 25,000 integration and automation actions, and dependency column
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for 1,000GB of file storage, five years of activity log, 250,000 integration and automation actions, and compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards
- Free trial: 14 days
*Pricing is for a minimum of three seats. Save 18% by paying annually.
monday.com Features
Organize your project activities in chronological order via monday.com’s timeline. (Source: monday.com)
- Timeline view: See your tasks spread out in a chronological timeline to stay on top of time-sensitive assignments. Customize the colors of task groups for easy reference.
- Portfolio management: See the progress of each project in your workspace to quickly identify which ones are lagging behind. This feature also shows the percentage of tasks by status.
- Zoom integration: Conduct virtual meetings without leaving monday.com. Connect your Zoom account to the app and have Zoom meeting IDs conveniently embedded in task columns. With this, you’re able to jump to virtual sessions easily.
ClickUp: Best for Remote Collaboration
What We Like
- Various project views, namely list, board, calendar, timeline, map, and workload
- Free version offers access to third-party integrations
- Two-factor authentication is available across all plans
Where It Falls Behind
- Free version limits file storage to 500MB
- Entry-level plan only allows 100 uses of timeline view
- May be complicated to navigate for some, given the abundance of features
How It Compares to Notion
- The maximum file attachment on ClickUp is 1GB. Notion only allows 5MB.
- Both Notion and ClickUp feature milestones tracking. However, Notion offers it as a board template for an additional charge.
- ClickUp features Everything view, displaying all tasks from different workspaces. Notion doesn’t have this feature.
- Unlike Notion, ClickUp enables businesses to comply with HIPAA.
When it comes to remote team collaboration, ClickUp is the best among Notion competitors. Aside from various custom project views, it has valuable communication tools, such as instant messaging, in-app video recording, and email.
Its chat feature supports @mentions and rich editing, allowing you to insert bulleted lists, code blocks, and banners right within the messaging thread. The in-app video recording lets you create demos without a hassle, while the email tool enables sending and receiving emails directly within a task.
ClickUp also features image and PDF annotation, which speeds up sharing feedback on company assets. Before choosing ClickUp, note that it can get overwhelming for some users because of too many features. monday.com, our top-recommended Notion alternative, is your best choice for an easily navigable project management solution.
ClickUp Monthly Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Unlimited tasks and custom views, maximum of five spaces, 100MB of file storage, one day of activity log, and 100 automation executions
- Unlimited: $10 per user for unlimited storage and spaces, 100 uses of timeline and workload views, 1,000 automation executions, column calculations, and native time tracking
- Business: $19 per user for pinning custom fields, custom task IDs, 10,000 automation executions, and granular time estimates
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for white labeling, conditional logic on forms, 250,000 automation executions, and custom Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) single sign-on
*Save up to 37% by paying annually.
ClickUp Features
Create actionable tasks in ClickUp’s comments section. (Source: ClickUp)
- List view: Organize tasks in a list format, grouped according to status or label. In the default list view, you’ll see the assignee and due date for each task.
- Bulk action toolbar: Apply changes to several tasks without going through them one by one. Some bulk actions allowed are moving tasks to a new list or folder, setting statuses, and adding tags.
- Assigned comments: Turn comments into actionable tasks. Mention colleagues responsible for such assignments and let them tick off the Resolve box when they’re finished with the to-do’s.
Zoho Projects: Best for Resource Planning
What We Like
- Seamlessly integrates with other Zoho products, like CRM and Meeting
- Custom views and time tracking are available in the entry-level plan
- Free version features document sharing
Where It Falls Behind
- Maximum storage space is 120GB
- Only offers two paid subscription plans, unlike other providers with more options
- Limited third-party integrations
How It Compares to Notion
- Zoho Projects’ monthly entry-level plan is priced at $5 per user, while Notion costs $10 per user.
- Both providers feature an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, but Notion offers it as an optional add-on priced at $8 per user, monthly.
- Unlike Notion, Zoho Projects allows businesses to manage service level agreements (SLAs) and automate related actions, such as assigning unresolved issues to the most skilled team members.
- Zoho Projects allows up to 500MB of file attachments. Notion is limited to 5MB.
If you want a project management app with robust resource planning tools, Zoho Project is the best alternative to Notion. Its resource utilization chart helps managers identify unallocated and over-allocated resources. The not-allocated appears in gray, while the over-allocated is in red. Meanwhile, the greens in the chart represent the optimally allocated resources. With one glance, you’ll be able to know how to redistribute workload among team members.
Zoho Projects features a budget tool as well, which displays the expenses for different tasks. It helps managers set a realistic budget and adjust strategies when the funds run short. Meanwhile, the platform’s earned value management (EVM) uses metrics that compare the finished work and the planned work, enabling teams to control costs and forecast the project’s completion date.
While Zoho Projects is a great tool for resource planning, it falls short on storage space, offering only a maximum of 120GB. Other alternatives to Notion, like Asana and Trello, offer unlimited file storage in all their plans.
Zoho Projects Monthly Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Maximum of two projects, 5GB of storage space, read-only Gantt chart, project and task custom status, and task dependency (finish-to-start)
- Premium: $5 per user for unlimited projects, 100GB of file storage, 20 project templates, Gantt charts that are editable within the project, task duration, and reminders
- Enterprise: $10 per user for 120GB of file storage, 30 project templates, Gantt charts that are editable across projects, workflow rules, critical path, and baseline
- Free trial: 10 days
*Save $12 per user when you pay annually.
Zoho Projects Features
Create easy-to-read Gantt charts on Zoho Projects. (Source: Zoho Projects)
- Gantt chart: Place project activities in a schedule format and see the chronological order of tasks. Zoho Projects allows users to set different types of dependencies among assignments.
- Time tracking: Measure the time it takes for team members to finish assignments. This helps increase accountability among team members, especially those in a remote work setup.
- Recurring tasks: Remove the manual work of assigning continuing tasks repetitively. At Zoho Projects, you’ll be able to set a recurring task and configure its frequency.
Trello: Best for Kanban-based Workflow Management
What We Like
- Mobile device management support for iOS and Android
- Free plan features two-factor authentication
- Integrates with 200+ third-party apps
Where It Falls Behind
- Entry-level plan doesn't have table and calendar views
- Lacks built-in Gantt chart tool
- Not ideal for complex projects as it lacks advanced features like robust reporting
How It Compares to Notion
- Trello is more affordable than Notion. Its base-level plan is priced at $5 per user monthly, while Notion costs $10.
- Unlike Notion, Trello allows free plan users to create custom automations.
- Trello features unlimited activity logs, whereas Notion doesn’t have this feature.
- Both providers feature unlimited storage across all plans, but Trello offers a bigger file upload limit, with 100MB at the free plan vs Notion’s 5MB.
Among the best Notion alternatives, Trello is our top-recommended solution for teams preferring the Kanban approach to project management. Its defining feature is a clean, simple Kanban board with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality. Add as many cards as you need and set up custom fields on cards to display details unique to your project or business. Create advanced checklists within task cards to break down complex assignments.
Unfortunately, Trello isn’t a good Notion alternative for big projects because it doesn’t have advanced features like native resource management tools. Zoho Projects is the better solution for resource planning and monitoring.
Trello Monthly Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Unlimited cards, built-in automation, unlimited activity logs, and third-party integrations
- Standard: $6 per user for unlimited boards, custom fields, and advanced checklists
- Premium: $12.50 per user for dashboard and timeline views, board collections, workspace-level templates, and domain-restricted invites
- Enterprise**: $17.50 per user for unlimited workspaces, administration of third-party integrations, and public board management
- Free trial: 14 days
*Pay $5 and $10 only for Standard and Premium plans if you choose annual billing.
**Pricing is the estimated cost for 50 users. The plan is available for annual billing only.
Trello Features
Automate workflows with Trello’s Butler (Source: Trello)
- Butler: This is Trello’s automation tool, allowing users to set actions for specific triggers and conditions. It connects with integrated apps, sending messages to Slack channels and generating new tickets on Jira.
- Observers: If you have external project stakeholders who need to see the progress of tasks without necessarily being involved in the actual work, invite them as observers. These Trello users are able to view boards, download files on cards, and comment on tasks. They won’t be able to move or edit cards, upload files, and change board settings.
- Activity log: See all the changes that happened on your board. Track who made the changes and when they were applied.
Asana: Best for Native Third-party Integrations
What We Like
- Unlimited projects, tasks, and activity logs in the free version
- Enables team members to be quickly aligned on responsibilities with the project overview and brief
- Multi-factor authentication is available in all plans
Where It Falls Behind
- Slightly more expensive than other providers
- Users must upgrade to the most expensive plan to unlock native time tracking feature
- Steep learning curve for some users
How It Compares to Notion
- Both vendors provide unlimited file storage in all plans, but Asana has a bigger attachment size limit with 100MB. Notion only allows 5MB.
- Notion only allows up to two users on the free plan, while Asana supports 15 users.
- Asana features activity logs, while Notion doesn’t have this feature.
- Asana has a built-in approval tool, while Notion offers a template priced at $4.
Asana is the best Notion competitor when you need to connect your project management app with third-party apps. While Notion works with only 70-plus platforms, Asana integrates with over 300 platforms, including the ones most used by businesses, such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Docs, Miro, and Webex. It also connects with niche apps for product management, like Jira and Kissflow.
Aside from being the ideal app for third-party integrations, Asana is a great free alternative to Notion because of the robust tools it offers without a paid subscription. Its free version includes unlimited tasks, projects, messages, activity logs, and file storage.
However, one downside of choosing Asana is that when you do upgrade to a paid plan, the rates are slightly more expensive than other providers. Try other solutions like Zoho Projects and Trello, as their monthly entry-level plans only cost $5 and $6 per user, respectively. Both of these providers also make for excellent free Notion alternatives.
Asana Monthly Pricing at a Glance*
- Basic: Free for unlimited tasks, projects, and messages, project overview and brief, and third-party integrations
- Premium: $13.49 per user for task dependencies, timeline, custom templates, workflow builder, and milestones
- Business: $30.49 per user for approvals, proofing, time tracking, formulas, and workload
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for custom branding, SAML, audit log, and cross-regional backups
*Pay $10.99 and $24.99 only for Premium and Business plans when you choose annual billing.
Asana Features
Mark documents as approved on Asana (Source: Asana)
- Workflow builder: Automate your workflow to free your team members from the menial task of updating your project board. Generate a form that turns submissions into tasks.
- Project overview: This is the first tab in Asana’s main menu, offering a bird’s-eye view of the project. It details team members’ project roles, key resources, and milestones, among other important project elements.
- Approvals: If your project involves giving a green light on different assets, use Asana’s approvals tool. It displays “Approve,” “Request changes,” and “Reject” buttons and makes it easier to mark documents appropriately.
Wrike: Best for Artificial Intelligence Tools
What We Like
- Custom project views are available in the base-level subscription package
- Free version comes with almost all AI tools
- Offers the branded workspace option
Where It Falls Behind
- Doesn’t offer unlimited storage like other providers
- Entry-level plan caps the number of users to 25
- Advanced analytics is locked behind the most expensive package
How It Compares to Notion
- Unlike Notion, Wrike features budgeting and resource booking tools.
- Both providers feature highly secure workspaces: locked spaces on Wrike and private teamspaces on Notion.
- Wrike and Notion offer access to application programming interfaces (APIs) in all subscription plans, including their free versions.
- Wrike’s free plan features AI tools, whereas Notion doesn’t.
Wrike is one of the best project management apps like Notion, especially for those wanting to simplify and streamline workflows through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Notion’s AI tool is a paid add-on, while Wrike offers intelligent features as standard tools in all its subscription plans, including the free version. Its Generative AI automatically creates briefs and plans, speeding up the project initiation process for teams.
Similarly, it improves different types of content, spotting errors, enhancing the tone, and translating languages. On top of these, Wrike’s AI suggests a list of tasks based on urgency and importance, ensuring you don’t miss critical to-do’s. Its project risk prediction uses machine learning to forecast potential delays. This allows managers to make real-time adjustments to prevent these costly setbacks.
Although Wrike is among the best free alternatives to Notion, especially in the use of AI, its entry-level plan only allows up to 25 users. This is a deal-breaker for some budget-conscious businesses with more team members. In this case, it’s best to explore other solutions with no cap on the number of seats, like ClickUp, Trello, and Asana.
Wrike Monthly Pricing at a Glance
- Free: Unlimited users, 2GB of storage space per account, table and Kanban views, smart search, and generative AI
- Team: $9.80 per user for two to 25 users, 2GB of file storage per user, custom fields and statuses, dynamic Gantt chart, dashboards, and analytics view
- Business: $24.80 per user for five to 200 users, 5GB of file storage per user, project portfolio management, real-time reports, and AI-recommended tasks
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for five to unlimited users, 10GB of file storage per user, and business intelligence API
- Pinnacle: Custom pricing for 15GB of file storage per user, advanced analytics and data visualizations, budgeting, and resource bookings
Wrike Features
Get to work immediately after meetings with Wrike’s AI subtask creation. (Source: Wrike)
- Smart search: Find specific tasks easily with Wrike’s robust search engine. The search results can be sorted by relevance according to the importance of keyword location, time of the latest activity, and exact search phrase.
- Smart replies: Respond quickly to messages by using AI-recommended replies. The machine learning technology generates these responses, as it analyzes statements in conversations.
- AI subtask creation: There’s no need to revisit meeting notes to remember the agreed-upon action steps. Work on the tasks immediately after the sessions as Wrike’s AI automatically combs through meeting notes and generates tasks from them.
How We Evaluated the Best Notion Alternatives
To come up with an objective assessment of the best Notion substitutes, we listed criteria points that businesses prioritize when looking for project management platforms. These include accessible pricing points, project planning and coordination features, easy-to-use software, and customer service.
Learn more about these factors we used by clicking on the tabs below:
20% of Overall Score
The cost of each provider’s entry-level subscription plan was part of our pricing evaluation, favoring those costing less than $15 per user. We looked at the number of available packages and gave more points to vendors with more than three, as they are able to accommodate different business sizes. Those with annual billing and volume discounts received higher points.
25% of Overall Score
Time tracking and task reminders were included in assessing the project management app’s general features. Since security and mobility are small business priorities, we considered two-factor authentication and mobile apps in our evaluation.
20% of Overall Score
The niche features we checked were calendar management, milestone tracking, and comma-separated values (CSV) and Excel data export. We gave higher points to vendors with robust integrations.
10% of Overall Score
Since not all project management app users are tech-savvy, we took into account the required level of technical skill to set up and operate each software solution. We checked how intuitive each vendor’s interface is.
10% of Overall Score
The providers with various channels for assistance earned more points. We specifically looked for live chat, phone, and email support. Those with 24/7 customer service hours earned higher points.
15% of Overall Score
We considered the provider’s standout features, ease of use, and value for money. We determined how popular they are among business circles by referring to third-party review websites.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Notion’s free version only allows up to 5MB of file uploads, seven days of page history, and basic page analytics. While it features unlimited use of pages and blocks for individuals, you only get a limited block trial if you have more than one user. Guest collaborators are restricted to 10 individuals only. You won’t have access to private team spaces, custom database automations, and SAML single sign-on.
An excellent alternative app to Notion AI is Wrike AI, available in all of Wrike’s subscription plans, including the free package. Similar to Notion AI, Wrike AI speeds up content creation and improves writing. However, it’s better than Notion AI because it offers powerful insights for managing projects better, such as identifying potential causes of delays and converting printed documents to digital files.
The software solutions mentioned in this article are excellent free apps similar to Notion. If your priority is an easy-to-use platform, go for monday.com. If you’re after robust capabilities without the additional cost, consider Asana, as it features unlimited projects, tasks, and messages in its free plan.
Bottom Line
Although Notion is a great project management tool, it lacks important features like activity logs and resource management. Thus, it makes sense to explore other software solutions to oversee workflows and team performance more efficiently.
Among the platforms reviewed, monday.com stood out as the best option, providing advanced reporting and resource planning tools, up to five years of activity logs, and robust collaboration features, like embedded documents and Zoom integration. Sign up for its 14-day free trial today.
