I've been using both Notion and Google for sorting out life and work and have even actively used their AI solutions.

God, they're both close and they both have features I want from each other.

<aside> ⚠️

This article has a lot of yapping since it’s mostly my own undistllled thoughts in writing. And as such, it’s barely edited for clarity.

You have been warned.

</aside>

This document is a personal reflection and comparison between Notion and Google Workspace, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

Key Points

• Notion's Strengths:
  • Acts as a knowledge base with clear formatting tools.
  • Offers powerful databases and intuitive document organization.
  • Provides a seamless user experience across devices.
• Google Workspace's Strengths:
  • Cloud-first rethinking of office productivity software.
  • Integrates well within Google's ecosystem and is cross-platform.
  • Offers advanced tools and APIs for power users.
• Struggles with Notion:
  • Concerns about data being disorganized and hard to retrieve.
  • Pricing is considered high, especially for AI features and potential future costs.
• Struggles with Google:
  • Google Workspace features often lag behind public and enterprise offerings.
  • Perceived as a second-class tier for individual professionals and small businesses despite being paid users.
• Desires for Improvement:
  • Notion should provide better data management tools and reasonable pricing.
  • Google should offer more timely and equitable feature access for all Workspace tiers.

Context

I’ve been using both solutions for several years. Paid customer for both, and have used it both on and off while trying all sorts of stuff.

This entire post is honestly a checkpoint for myself between these two, and I’ve always been trying to not just figure out which solution is better, but I’d also like to get rid of one or the other if possible.

Where Notion Shines

• It's meant as a knowledge base first rather than a document processor for paper, all the way to document formatting with the basics similar to Markdown but mostly clear and clean formatting tools similar to Confluence.
• Databases are powerful and work wonderfully well.
• The way documents are organized is similar to most modern tools — it's centric to workspaces and a two-pane layout of the folder structure and page preview in one screen.
• User experience and ease of use are king for Notion — it's all meant to be easily worked on, and things move very nicely between mobile and browser with seamless results.

Where Google Workspaces Shines

• It’s a cloud-first rethinking of what office productivity software should be. You have familiar tools that used to be the mainstays in desktop computers, but made for the cloud and much more “Google”.
• The software and Google’s ecosystem plays wonderfully well with each other, and is cross-platform and does not discriminate.
• Power users have a lot more with Google’s suite, since you can go all the way to well-documented and reliable APIs, and other niche but powerful tools like Apps Script and Looker Studio and AppSheet and Colaboratory which gives you tremendous potential for augmenting what’s already out there thanks to a bit of Python programming and advanced tooling.