Notion Review 2025: The Honest Truth About Notion (Pros, Cons & Alternatives)
Honest Notion review with real pros and cons. See where Notion excels, where it falls short, and how it compares to AI-powered alternatives like Taskade for team productivity.
TL;DR: Notion is a powerful documentation tool with beautiful databases. But it lacks native AI agents, real-time video, and app-building capabilities. If you want a workspace that does work instead of just storing information, Taskade offers AI agents and Genesis app building that Notion doesn't match.
What is Notion?
Notion is a connected workspace for docs, databases, and wikis. Founded in 2016, it became the go-to tool for startups and knowledge workers who wanted flexibility beyond traditional tools like Google Docs or Confluence.
Notion's core value: Replace multiple tools with one flexible workspace where everything is a page or database.
Notion Pricing (2025)
| Plan | Price | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Single user, limited blocks |
| Plus | $10/user/month | Unlimited blocks, 30-day history |
| Business | $15/user/month | SAML SSO, advanced permissions |
| Enterprise | Custom | Audit log, dedicated support |
Notion AI Add-on: +$10/user/month for AI features (writing, summaries, Q&A).
What Notion Does Well
1. Flexible Databases
Notion's databases are powerful. Tables, boards, calendars, galleries — all views of the same data. Relations and rollups let you build sophisticated systems.
2. Beautiful Documentation
Notion pages look good. The block-based editor makes formatting easy, and templates help teams get started fast.
3. Team Wikis
For internal documentation, Notion excels. Nested pages, search, and permissions make it easy to organize knowledge.
4. Third-Party Integrations
Notion connects to Slack, GitHub, Figma, and more. The API enables custom integrations.
5. Large Community
Templates, tutorials, and consultants everywhere. Whatever you want to build, someone's probably done it.
Where Notion Falls Short
1. No Real AI Agents
Notion AI is a writing assistant, not an autonomous agent. It can summarize and draft, but it can't:
- Execute multi-step workflows
- Update your projects automatically
- Work while you sleep
- Coordinate with other agents
Notion AI is reactive. You prompt, it responds. That's fundamentally different from AI agents that take action.
2. No Built-in Video or Chat
Notion is async-first. No native video calls, no real-time chat. You still need Slack or Zoom alongside Notion.
3. Can't Build Apps
Notion stores information. It doesn't create customer-facing applications. You can't:
- Build a client portal from a prompt
- Create a booking system
- Generate a dashboard with live metrics
- Publish a website
4. Performance at Scale
Large Notion workspaces get slow. Page load times increase as databases grow. This is a consistent complaint from enterprise users.
5. Expensive AI
Notion AI costs $10/user/month on top of your plan. For a team of 20, that's $200/month just for AI features that are less capable than what competitors include for free.
Notion vs Taskade
| Feature | Notion | Taskade |
|---|---|---|
| Databases | Excellent | Good with flexible views |
| AI Capabilities | Writing assistant only | Autonomous AI agents |
| App Building | No | Genesis builds apps from prompts |
| Video/Chat | No | Built-in video and chat |
| Real-time Editing | Yes | Yes |
| Mind Maps | No | Native mind mapping |
| Automations | Basic | 100+ integrations |
| Pricing | $10+$10 AI/user | $8/user (AI included) |
The Core Difference
Notion is a repository. It stores your team's information beautifully.
Taskade is an operating system. It stores information, but also acts on it. AI agents execute workflows. Genesis builds applications. Automations move work forward without manual intervention.
If your goal is documentation, Notion is excellent. If your goal is getting work done, Taskade's agentic approach is more powerful.
Who Should Use Notion?
Notion is ideal for:
- Teams focused on documentation and wikis
- Organizations that need beautiful, shareable docs
- Users who prefer async-first collaboration
- Power users who enjoy building complex database systems
Choose Taskade if:
- You want AI that takes action, not just writes
- Real-time collaboration with video matters
- You need to build apps without code
- Mind mapping and visual thinking are important
- You want AI included, not as an expensive add-on
The Verdict
Notion earned its place as the default workspace for startups and knowledge workers. The flexibility is real, the community is strong, and the product is polished.
But Notion was designed for the pre-AI era. It's a tool for storing information, not acting on it. As AI becomes central to productivity, this limitation becomes more apparent.
Taskade was built for the AI era. AI agents don't just answer questions — they execute work. Genesis doesn't just store data — it creates applications. The workspace isn't just a repository — it's alive.
The question isn't whether Notion is good (it is). It's whether good enough is enough for where work is heading.
Try Both
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Explore the Taskade Alternative
- AI App Builder — Build apps Notion can't
- AI Agents — Beyond writing assistance
- Real-time Collaboration — Video, chat, and editing
- Workflow Automation — 100+ integrations
- Community Apps — Clone and customize