Clickup and Notion are two of the most popular project management software teams rely on in organizing their workflows.
Both applications help team members track progress, make work more collaborative, and increase productivity across their respective organizations. But which is best for you and your team members?
In this Clickup vs. Notion review, we explore both applications and consider their strengths, weaknesses, user experience, and fees.
Clickup Overview
Launched in 2017, Clickup is a cloud-based project management (PM) tool designed for individuals and small, medium, and large businesses. With the platform, teams can collaborate better in an environment that can be customized to their needs. Despite Clickup’s relative youth, it has already succeeded in becoming the premier task management company in the world. It offers a wider range of products and solutions, such as:
Pros
- Multiple PM tools for optimized performance across the board
- Offers 1,000+ integrations of popular apps
- Offers direct email services online
- Helps in automating tasks
- Suitable for both small and large teams
- The free version offers 100MB of storage
Cons
- The platform can be difficult to navigate features for beginners
- Clickup can be slow
- Mobile app is not as intuitive as the web platform
- Higher paid plans
Notion Overview
Like Clickup, Notion is another popular project management software. It is geared towards teams and helps them organize, collaborate, track tasks, and increase their productivity.
Notion is also customizable, making it easy for teams to share files, upload databases and tasks, and it offers kanban boards. Of the two, Notion is a much older PM solution, as it was launched in 2013. Over the years, the platform has created more streamlined task-executing tools to help users collaborate and manage workflows better.
Below, we highlight Notion’s pros and cons:
Pros
- Clean user interface
- Offers task management for multiple use cases based on user profession
- Offers enterprise-focused functions like wiki and new hire on-boarding
- Offers a template gallery for automatic task setups
- Lower paid plans
Cons
- Mobile app often crashes
- More suited for businesses
- Personal version offers only 5MB in storage
Clickup vs Notion: Top Features
The core mission of both project management platforms is to help individuals and teams alike organize their workflow. In spite of this, they approach this in innately different ways. Below, we quickly explore the different features both Clickup and Notion offer in this review.
Clickup Features
Clickup’s mission is to become the one app that replaces them all, and in this, the task-making software has been efficient in doing. In a short period of time, the PM software has exploded into one of the most prominent solutions in the productivity sector. Below, we explore some of the powerful features that has lent its credence in a hyper-competitive marketplace.
1,000+ Integrations
Starting with Clickup, the database management tool is filled to the brim with features. On its homepage, the platform offers integrations with more than 1,000 top-ranking apps and platforms including Calendly, Slack, Zapier and Notion itself.
Time-tracking & Estimates
Another Clickup feature is the Time-tracking & Estimates function which helps teams monitor the amount of time they spend on tasks. This is quite valuable for teams who are time-bound on product releases. With the time-tracking feature, users can calculate the average and actual time spent on each task. This increases accountability across board and allows teams to better reevaluate their roadmap based on the timeframe.
Built-in Automation
For everyday tasks, Clickup allows users to automate the process through the Automations function. This allows users to assign tasks, state priorities, and even assign dates for task completion with minimal efforts on their part. This exponentially increases productivity as users can focus on what matters most.
MindMaps
There is also the MindMap which allows users to create visually appealing diagrams of their tasks. Teams can easily map out their workflows, create, edit, and even delete asynchronously.
Everything View
The Clickup Everything View functionality makes it super-easy for users to locate whatever they are searching for. Found in the ‘Spaces’ section above the dashboard, the Everything View gives users a birds-eye view of all their tasks by filtering, sorting, and saving relevant data for future use.
Project Hierarchy
For organizing large amount of data, Clickup offers the Project Hierarchy organizes teams and departments into spaces, projects and initiatives into folders. It also breaks down tasks into lists to give a more comprehensive visual hierarchy of the team’s progress. With this, teams are able to get the bigger picture of their progress without forgetting the little details.
Integrated Email Service
Clickup also offers an email service for teams to reach out to one another easily. This way, project teams can collaborate more extensively in one platform and can send and receive needed details in fast-tracking their workflows.
Real-time Comments on Tasks
Another amazing feature of Clickup is its real-time comments. Users can easily tag each other to specific tasks and comment on ongoing projects concurrently. As a result, project teams can identify potential problems quickly and resolve them as soon as possible.
Notion Features
Notion comes with a decent library of features. The PM software has built a strong reputation for its highly intuitive and easy-to-use task-organising tool. Below, we highlight some of its key features:
Management and Planning
Notion offers kanban boards, task lists, calendars, and sprint organizers for managing, project tracking, and completing tasks. In its management and planning portfolio, is the shared calendar which allows team members to view one-off and ongoing tasks the team is currently working on.
Document Storage
Notion offers an asset upload feature that allows users to store images, documents, PDFs, and even spreadsheets. Users also have access to a file upload feature that allows direct upload images, documents, PDFs, and excel sheets from their computers.
However, the amount of data that can be uploaded depends on each user’s plan. For the Personal or freemium plan, Notion offers a maximum storage capacity of 5MB.
File Sharing
Users can directly share files and resources with their team members all on the Notion platform. This way, relevant info is distributed and everyone has the right context to execute their tasks with.
Account Permissions
To block unauthorized users, Notion offers an account permission feature. This allows users to retain control over the task, team, and project others have.
Clickup vs Notion: User Experience
In terms of user experience, both platforms are quite intuitive. It would take new users quite some time to become accustomed to Clickup’s PM tool. This is largely due to its multiple platform features and tools. This is a major challenge of using the Clickup platform as users need to undergo a steep learning curve to unlock its full potential.
On the other hand, Notion is the sharp opposite. The older PM solution is easier to use and comes with a clean design layout. Users can easily get tasks created, sorted, and filtered with minimal platform tools serving as obstacles.
Both platforms offer drag-and-drop functionality and Clickup’s Project Hierarchy provides a more researchable task management system for teams of all sizes.
Clickup vs Notion: Pricing
Pricing is a major area of concern for remote teams. In this Clickup vs Notion review, we discovered that both platforms try to keep their costs relatively cheap. But there is a world of difference between both.
Clickup Pricing Plans
Currently, Clickup offers 5 pricing plans:
- Free Forever
- Unlimited
- Business
- Business Plus
- Enterprise
With the Free version, users have access to 100MB of storage and many other features. Users who choose the Unlimited subscription plan are offered a pricing plan at $5 per member, however, its monthly plan cost $9 per member and supports up to 5 users in a small team. The Business Plus plan has the highest stated amount at $19 per member on an annual basis, and a monthly plan costs $29 for each registered member. Its Enterprise plan is custom-made and users need to contact customer support.
Notion’s pricing plans is split into four categories:
- Personal/ Free
- Personal Pro
- Team
- Enterprise
Notion’s pricing is a little bit more retail-friendly. Like Clickup, it offers a fee-less version under its Personal plan but this comes with a 5MB storage support. It only supports one user and five other guests. Its paid plan starts with the Personal Pro and this goes for $4 per annum. When done on a monthly basis, this is charged at $5.
At $8 per member, Notion offers an annual plan called Team. This is the highest plan and it is double the cost of the Personal Pro. While it is billed $10 per month for each user. Like Clickup, Notion offers Enterprise solution which combine all the features of Team with more functionalities like admin tools, sharing permissions, and collaborative workspace. Teams looking to use this plan would have to contact the Notion sales team for more streamlined pricing.
Which is Better, Notion or Clickup?
The choice largely depends on the user. For individuals and companies seeking for more customizations, Clickup ticks the box. It offers more features than its direct rival, Notion.
Clickup’s 1,000+ platform integrations, mean that users do not need to hop from one platform to another to keep in touch with what is happening across their teams. Instead, Clickup brings all these solutions under one umbrella to further streamline workflow and task completion. Since Clickup offers much more, it is best suited for companies.
On the other hand, Notion is a sharp contrast to it. It offers a decent lineup of features but it is quite limited in its offering. For fee-conscious users, Notion would be the way to go. It offers a lower pricing bar and its user interface is less clunky. Notion does not require a steep learning curve for beginners which makes it a more viable option for individuals to complete tasks and meet deadlines with.
Clickup vs Notion Alternatives
While Clickup and Notion make workflow much easier for teams, they are not the only project management tools in the market. Below, we review some alternatives users can turn to other than Clickup and Notion.
Trello
Trello is a web and mobile-based Kanban-style, project management application launched in 2011. The platform allows users to create tasks, ideate, collaborate, organize workflows, and track progress all at once. The tool comes with lists and cards and allows teams to customize and expand their features as their teams grow.
Trello allows users to manage their projects and organize their work as well. More so, Trello comes with an automation tool to help users sort through the most difficult tasks with minimal effort.
Asana
Another Clickup and Notion alternative is Asana. It is a web and mobile work management platforms that help distributed teams organise, track, and manage their tasks. The company launched officially in 2012 and alows users to distinctly work asynchronously, ideate and brainstorm. The platform features boards and in line with its peers, Asana offers an automation service.
Asana offers 50+ automated templates and work request forms. It comes with a modest 200+ platform integrations that allow team members to communicate, collaborate, and grow together.
nTask
Third alternative to Clickup and Notion is nTask — a powerful project planning software launched in 2015. The platform features a drag-and-drop Kanban board, interactive Gantt charts, collaboration tools, and time tracking utility.
Much like Clickup, nTask features a whole beehive of integrations. The platform supports 1,000+ platform partnerships which better streamline the workflow process for teams.
Evernote
Rounding up our list of Clickup & Notion alternatives is Evernote. Launched in 2008, Evernote is a note-taking web and app platform that allows users to manage their tasks. Although it is not as sophisticated as the other alternatives, Evernote allows users to organize, archive, and create notes. Evernote allows users to embed photos, audio, and web content.
These notes are kept in virtual notebooks that can be tagged, annotated, edited, searched, and directly exported. Evernote also features a document scanner, notes synchronization, and seven platform integrations.
The Verdict
Both platforms offer an easy-to-use project management system for teams to collaborate on. Their fees are also relatively cheap, and the number of features gives users value for their money.
Clickup is a very advanced task automation and collaboration tool with a higher fee. Notion is more user-friendly and does not require a steep learning curve to get started.
In our Clickup vs. Notion review, Clickup is the better solution for project management teams.
FAQs
Can ClickUp replace Notion?
This is hard to determine easily. However, Clickup stands a great chance of usurping the older project management service. To become the premier task management tool, Clickup would need to reduce its excessive features and make the platform more beginner-friendly.
Does Notion integrate with ClickUp?
Yes, Notion can easily be integrated with Clickup using platforms like Zapier and Automate.io. Users can create and upload tasks and databases across both platforms.
Is Trello or Notion better?
Trello is a super-convenient way of managing tasks and workflows. However, the user largely determines which one better suits their specific needs. Notion also makes teams collaborate better and boosts productivity but Trello charges more for its services. Notion charges an annual package of $4 per member on an annual basis and Trello charges $5 for the same service. This can be a deciding factor for a lot of users in picking a project management solution.
Is Asana easier than ClickUp?
Yes, Asana is much easier to use than Clickup. The platform allows users to prioritize and execute projects with two clicks. Clickup, however, requires a steep learning curve due to its more elaborate platform features.
