Comparing Notion & Trello: key features, pricing, ease of use to find your best project management tool.
Notion and Trello are two of the most popular project management and productivity tools available today.
Notion is an all-in-one workspace that allows users to write, plan, collaborate, and get organized within a single application. It offers a flexible canvas for notes, databases, wikis, and more. Notion is designed to be an infinitely customizable workspace that can be tailored to suit teams and individuals across different industries.
Trello is a visual collaboration tool that uses boards, lists, and cards to help organize projects and tasks. It utilizes a kanban-style workflow that is intuitive and easy-to-use. Trello enables teams to collaborate effectively and get more done by keeping tasks organized and improving productivity.
Both tools have grown significantly in popularity over the last few years as remote work has become more common. They each offer capabilities to enhance productivity and teamwork. This article compares Notion and Trello across several categories to help determine which platform is best for different use cases.
Notion is packed with a huge variety of features that make it an incredibly versatile workspace. Here are some of the core features that set Notion apart:
One of Notion's most powerful features is its databases. You can create a database to track anything - from projects and tasks to recipes and books to read. Databases allow you to view your data in different ways like a table, calendar, kanban board, or gallery. You can filter and sort your views to see just what you need.
Notion has a built-in wiki system that makes it easy to create internal wikis and knowledge bases. Wikis are great for documentation, onboarding new employees, tracking policies and procedures, and more. You can nest pages, link between them, and quickly access everything in one place.
Simple text notes are one of the basic building blocks in Notion. Jot down meeting notes, drafts, ideas, or any other text content. Notion's formatting options allow you to add headings, bulleted lists, embeds, and more to make your notes easy to read.
Notion's web clipper lets you save content from around the web. Clip articles, tweets, recipes,Amazon products, and more to build a knowledge base. Web clips retain the original link so you can view the source at any time.
Notion supports dozens of other content blocks like to-do lists, calendars, images, videos, and more. You can mix and match all these blocks to create any kind of page you need.
The combination of databases, wikis, notes, and other blocks in one unified workspace makes Notion incredibly flexible. It's like having a knowledge base, project manager, and document editor all rolled into one.
Trello's main features revolve around boards, lists, and cards. A board is a place to organize projects and tasks. Within a board, you can create multiple lists to categorize cards. Cards represent individual tasks or items of work, and can include attachments, due dates, members assigned, labels, checklists, and more.
Trello's boards provide an easy way to visualize your workflow and break down projects into manageable chunks. The ability to create multiple boards for different projects or teams keeps everything neatly separated. Within a board, the lists let you organize cards into statuses like "To Do," "In Progress," and "Complete." Cards can be easily dragged and dropped between lists to update status. Trello's cards allow you to house all the details, conversations, attachments, and checklists for an individual task together in one place.
Overall, Trello's strength lies in its simple yet flexible boards, lists, and cards system for managing and collaborating on projects and tasks. The visual interface makes it easy to get organized and maintain oversight on the status of work.
Both Notion and Trello have integration options to connect with other popular apps and services. This allows you to incorporate features from other tools directly within the platforms.
Notion offers integrations with dozens of apps including Google services like Drive, Calendar, and Sheets, Salesforce, Slack, GitHub, and more. You can embed content or pull in data to create dynamic pages. Notion also has an API and public SDK to allow for even more custom integrations.
On the Trello side, there are also plenty of integrations available. You can connect Google services, Slack, Jira, GitHub, and many more. The Trello API also allows building custom integrations that suit your team's needs.
Some key differences:
Overall both provide ample integration capabilities to connect your favorite tools. Notion makes it easier to view external content within its workspace, while Trello links out to other apps for deeper workflows. The right option comes down to which specific integrations suit your use case the best.
Both Notion and Trello allow for collaboration, but take different approaches.
Notion is designed as a collaborative workspace, where multiple people can edit and comment on pages in real-time. You can @mention colleagues to notify them of comments or changes. There is also a timeline view to see the full editing history. Notion makes it easy to grant editing access and permissions at a workspace, page, or block level. Overall, Notion provides a more intuitive collaboration system natively built into the tool.
In contrast, Trello uses boards, lists, and cards as its collaboration system. Multiple people can be assigned to cards, comment on them, and edit them. Trello also has @mentions and activity notifications. However, the permissions are more complex to manage, as you need to control access at the board, list, card, and notification levels separately. Trello teams often rely more heavily on integrations with messaging apps like Slack for notifications and discussions. The card-based system is simple but not as deeply integrated for collaboration as Notion's page system.
So in summary, Notion collaboration works well out of the box, while Trello may require more configuration and integration to facilitate teamwork. Notion's real-time editing and permissions make it a bit smoother for collaboration. But for simple task management, Trello's card assignments and comments can get the job done.
Both Notion and Trello offer a good amount of flexibility and customization options, but they differ in their approaches.
Notion takes a freeform, building block approach that allows you to create nearly any type of content database or wiki from scratch. You can customize everything from fonts and colors to page layouts. Notion makes it easy to drag and drop content blocks anywhere you want. Relationships between pages are flexible as well. With some CSS knowledge you can even customize Notion further. While it has templates and creation tools, Notion gives you the freedom to build things how you want without many restrictions.
Trello uses a more structured, card-based system focused around boards and lists. You can customize cards with labels, members, due dates, attachments and more. Boards can have multiple lists with cards placed in any order. The ability to create boards for any project or need allows flexibility. However, Trello has a more standardized layout compared to Notion's freeform nature. Trello offers templates, backgrounds, stickers and other customizations but not the ability to modify the underlying structure.
So in summary, Notion provides more open-ended customization for advanced users, while Trello offers customization within its existing framework of boards and lists. Notion is better if you want to build completely custom and complex systems, while Trello gives flexible project management without having to build databases from scratch.
When it comes to user experience, both Notion and Trello are designed to be easy to use. However, they take slightly different approaches.
Trello has a very simple and intuitive interface. The board view allows you to easily see all your boards, lists, and cards in one glance. Trello uses a kanban-style system that many people are already familiar with from physical boards. Dragging and dropping cards is very straightforward. The commands are easy to find and Trello has a shallow learning curve - new users can get started right away.
Notion has a more flexible interface that takes some adjustment if you're used to other apps. It uses a system of workspaces, pages, and blocks that allow you to customize your setup. You can add different content blocks like text, images, tables, calendars, and more on a page. While this enables you to build complex systems, it also means Notion has a steeper learning curve. It may take some time to learn how databases, linked pages, etc. work and build an effective workflow.
Overall, Trello likely has simpler user experience for basic kanban boards and lists. Notion has more complexity but enables much more customization once you learn how to use it effectively. It comes down to which style you prefer - simple and intuitive vs. powerful but more to learn. Both have help centers and active user communities to help you get started.
Both Notion and Trello offer mobile apps for iOS and Android so you can access your work on the go.
Notion's mobile apps provide a seamless experience that mirrors the web version. Everything syncs instantly across devices. The apps are fast, intuitive, and make it easy to capture notes, check tasks, or collaborate with others. One benefit is Notion's powerful mobile search that lets you instantly find what you need. The mobile apps have excellent ratings on the App Store and Google Play.
Trello also provides full-featured iOS and Android apps. The apps make it simple to update boards, make changes to cards, and collaborate with teammates. Offline access allows you to keep working even without an internet connection. Trello's mobile apps are reliable, polished, and have consistently high ratings. However, some users report the mobile experience is not quite as smooth as the web interface.
Overall, both services excel at mobile productivity and offer robust apps. Notion may have a slight edge in terms of mobile experience, but Trello also performs well. For most use cases, the mobile apps should not be a deciding factor between the two platforms.
When it comes to pricing, both Notion and Trello offer free versions as well as paid plans that add more functionality.
Notion has a free personal plan that includes unlimited blocks, pages, and collaborators. The free plan is very robust and allows teams of any size to get started with Notion at no cost.
Notion also offers paid plans:
Trello's free plan allows unlimited personal boards, lists, cards, and collaborators. Free teams are limited to only 10 team boards.
Trello's paid plans include:
So both services offer generous free plans, with paid tiers that provide additional features for teams. Notion may provide better overall value with its free plan, while Trello offers more affordable paid team plans.
When comparing Notion and Trello, both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses depending on your needs.
Notion shines when it comes to its flexibility, breadth of features like databases and wikis, and exceptional mobile experience. It's great for teams that need an all-in-one productivity and collaboration workspace. However, Notion can feel overwhelming initially and its open-ended nature requires more work to organize complex projects.
In contrast, Trello excels at kanban-style project management with its simple card-based interface. It's beginner-friendly and better suited for linear workflows. However, Trello lacks many of Notion's advanced features and customization options. Trello's functionality is also limited on mobile.
Ultimately, Notion is the best choice if you want a versatile platform that can handle varied use cases like project management, note-taking, documentation, and more. Though it has a steeper learning curve, its flexibility and power make it worth investing time to master. Notion is especially ideal for teams juggling lots of interconnected information.
For strictly linear projects that just need a basic kanban board, Trello's simplicity and card-based UI makes it easy for anyone to jump in and contribute. However, Trello lacks depth for more complex workflows.
In summary, Notion is the best all-around platform for productivity and collaboration, albeit with a higher barrier to entry. Trello still shines for basic kanban project management. Consider your specific use case and team needs to determine if Notion's advanced capabilities justify its learning curve.
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