Notion VS Coda: Who wins in 2022? (Honest Comparison)

Coda

Just in case someone is stopping by here in 2023 and beyond, Coda just released 4.0, which, among expected feature and AI updates, changes the pricing structure to be more personal-use friendly. They removed size limits for docs and added two-way database syncing which are probably the biggest factors to kick them up a notch.

I still like notion and trying to evaluate which would work best for my use case, but thought that would be good to add if you end up here! Cheers!

one of the best comparisons I've seen, as a 5 year Notion user I'm beginning to experiment with Coda in smaller groups.

bro, turn on dark mode holy fuck...

How about security? I assume Coda wins that?

Coda is a note taker?

Nois

Thanks for this. Seems like 'learning curve' and 'ease of use' are the same thing

Hey could I put in a request for a beginner’s tutorial for Coda? Or a comprehensive guide? I’ll take anything.

Thank you!

Thanks for this comparison video! I'm currently searching for a way of managing schedules for large groups and multiple events and was wondering what tool and you'd think of this specific topic. I estimate the tables to become as large as thousands and I'd like to have a mobile use as well. Perhaps have you already come into contact in such a problem and solution? Thanks!

Very useful, thank you!

Hey Carter... another interesting video.

Chances Notion buys out Coda soon?

Agree with the other commenters here, good job. I would have liked you to also address the concepts of Packs that Coda has. Maybe as a subset of integration, but preferably as a standalone topic. It is just a major distinguishing feature.

The trophies awarded seem rather arbitrary, but this does seem a good overview. How about an updated video with the current state of play (features) between them?

Mann, Listen!
I had just started using Notion about 3-weeks ago based on my timeless goal of "finding the perfect note taking app" - I'm coming from Evernote, OneNote, TreeDBNotes, WinOrganizer etc...

Using notion I was able to actually prototype an application I've been meaning to write for myself for over a year now (I'm a .NET developer by profession), and was absolutely satisfied, with seeing my idea coming to fruition (in Notion), so I've been pretty impressed and happy using Notion.

My brother-in-law came over for Thanksgivings, and as always we were talking about (his passion), stock trading. He was showing me his method of researching stocks, and he had pulled out a batch of hand written notes.

I immediately mentioned he should be using Notion for working with his data!
We sat down and I started teaching him how to translate his written tables into Notion databases.
We got down to a requirement of his where he uses 3-financial pages to study a stock's performance - I created an additional linked table that would hold the 3-related URL fields.

Since he was using 3-related pages for his research, it began to become a chore to copy/paste in 3 separate URLs for each stock symbol - he started asking if there as a way to generate those URLs based on the stock symbol.

Ultimately within Notion, the short answer was NO, Notion doesn't allow formulas to generate URLs, AND there also isn't a way for the formula generated URL text to be placed into the URL fields...

Then just TODAY, this video came across my dashboard - again MANN, LISTEN!

I immediately text my brother-in-law "There's a NEW Sheriff in town - CODA!.."

I'm working with Coda now, and it FEELS AND LOOKS SO MUCH MORE PROFESSIONAL, when comparing the two applications side-by-side!

Also looking at all the available, FREE add-ons - including __retrieving Stock information based on stock symbols__, and, additionally watching some of the training videos, my socks were blown off!


TLDR, I will be immediately switching from Notion to Coda - it has the power I need, and as a software developer by profession, Coda - has the additional abilities and features I absolutely appreciate - I will be going Pro pronto!

I've used Notion for some time now and I just discovered Coda with your video so I'm not able to make as thorough a comparaison as you did but I'm excited to give a try to coda to see if I can do what I unfortunately can't with Notion. Thank you for the amazing video

Great, in-depth comparison, but I don't agree with you on pricing. The pricing forces the function of the app to be more static and top down, rather than a collective wiki. Coda comes off more like Confluence, which has more hurdles to create and publish documents, where Notion feels like a much more open system, such as Google Docs, but with much better organization.

Just asking Productive Dude, is this video sponsered from Coda?

Outstanding comparison!

call me with either of them split time from dates. Unusable until then. Excellent review. Its a swift changing landscape. For me coda tech support was non-existent which is why I quit it.

Excellent comparison. I've made some of those myself comparing Coda and Notion to other great applications.

I never in my entire life thought I’d ever pay a subscription for a note taking app, then I discovered Notion.

Great! Useful, thoughtful, condensed, organized. Bravo 👏 .

What do you recommend as a resource to learn Coda? I’m looking for a comprehensive logical (hierarchical) map of all of the parts/objects in Coda and how they interrelate. Thx.

This is a very good overview! I actually prefer Coda in almost all aspects, it is far superior to Notion. But there are 2 major differences:
1. Notion's mobile app is significantly better than Coda's.
2. Coda is very limited in the free version regarding the number of formulas, buttons or views. It happens very quickly that you reach the limit of 50 objects in the document, which has never happened to me with Notion.

Introducing a new application into an organization is a big step for a small company (60 employees), so this review was gold for me. Especially making me understand the pricing model is a crucial aspect, in addition to understanding what product that will be the more flexible so that I don't have to introduce yet another application. Coda is your winner and I agree with you.

Notioooon! 🙂🙃🙂

Thanks so much for this informative video. I just stumbled across Coda and signed up for it. Being in academia I'm eligible for an 80% discount. I've played with Notion for a bit and then with Taskade. What's your verdict when it comes to Taskade and Coda? Bearing in mind that I find all them with a learning curve but I'll figure it out eventually.

Do you know if we must pay a plan for each workspace created?

What about Synced Blocks. Extremely useful feature of Notion that Coda does not provide. Possibly puts Notion well in front on document creation.

Hey Carter, great video. Thank you for sharing.

I was researching Coda and stumbled upon it.

On thing that's interesting for my personal use case is "permissions". I'll dig into Coda to see what that looks like but Notion is still a little behind when you need to hide certain information from clients to give an example. Not sure how coda handles this, but I'll be checking it out.

Keep up the good work mate, cheers.

CODA Seems better for techies who want precise control over more details. The notion app. seems better for starters who just want to take notes, store, and retrieve information. Based on everything that I have seen heard and read so far, the difference is like piloting the airplane vs. being a passenger on the airplane who can do various things as they travel. It simply depends on how you prefer to travel to your destination. For me, I DON'T want to pilot the plane. I just want to get there in one piece as painlessly as possible.

Such a valuable review. Thank you for this.

I just tried to switch from Notion to Coda a couple weeks ago after using Notion for over a year and I found that Coda was unusably slow for all of my larger databases (e.g., my tasks database has several hundred pages in it). In Notion every database has always been speedy. It's unfortunate because I think Coda does many other things far better than Coda.

Wonderful job summing up the comparison. I've been drawn more to Coda, especially after spending some time in both. The styles in Coda just feel so much better, especially with the Large Serif font.

Really good video. I’ve used notion daily for a couple of yrs for everything. If I had a time machine i def would’ve spent that time in coda. The constant need for workarounds to do what other platforms do natively, lack of development, etc for a company “worth billions” has been frustrating to say the least. There’s tons of notion individual devs now to make up for the lack of native development. At first I was excited about the community but now that I know how to use the platform, I don’t need the hype.
A big thing I would’ve talked about in this review are the coda packs. Makes s big difference..

Is any of both good to keep critical data? say receipts or sensitive info?

Nice video. I would be interested to see comparisons between security, backup, offline, mobile apps and speed too.

Hi, I want to know in your opinion, I have a company of 50 people, and I want to build a knowledge base, and build some SOP and guidelines for staff to browse, which is the better option , CODA or NOTION. I am not that tech savvy

coda

This video sponsored by Coda.

Great video. I'd like to add that although Notion is easier to pick up, if you know you want to use coda eventually then start with Coda as the skills do not transfer.

I'm about to start using either Notion or Coda, so your videos are very helpful, especially being able to follow the building of an example live (the Meal Planner)! Thanks for that.
So, starting from scratch, would you advise using Coda rather than Notion? I'm torn ! ;)
The Notion Community is a real plus (to learn, to exchange, ...).
And I have the impression that the structuring of documents is better in Notion (for the ease to move elements or to nest them)?
I think I'll try to build some test documents (docs and databases) in both Notion and Coda, to see by myself the differences in use.

Thank you very much for this video! It's super helpful. I have a concern with all of these apps that nobody is talking about. Is the data secure or can it be hacked? Is there a way to set up a double-step verification or something like that? I understand none of them has end-to-end encryption, so why aren't we all worried about cyber security? I would appreciate any insight or video on this topic

I was researching Coda this evening as I’m a Notion user, like yourself I was looking for an easier way to create input forms which I understand from your review is available in Coda… and loads more, thank you 🙏 for your effort creating and sharing this comparison video extremely helpful… here I go opening a Coda account 🏃‍♂️

Thank you dude! Been on the fence of restarting a life wiki wishing notion but coda sounds great! btw… youre eyebrows are on point 🤩🙏