Notion vs ClickUp: which project management app is better

In this Notion vs ClickUp comparison, I will show you the key differences between these two project management software. I will compare ClickUp to Notion based on features, pricing, user interfaces, my experience, and pros and cons.

I spent numerous hours with both project management tools, and I am here to share the benefits and limitations of each tool to ensure you make the right choice.

Now, let’s dive into the side-by-side comparison of Notion vs ClickUp!

My ratings: Notion Vs ClickUp

Notion

Review

Project management tools
Collaboration tools
Other tools
AI capabilities
Free plan
Pricing
Integrations
User interface
My experience
Customer support
4
pros
Easy-to-use
All-in-one app
Collaboration features
Extensive tutorials
Feature-rich free plan
cons
No offline version
No password protection
Basic project management tools

ClickUp

Review

Project management tools
Collaboration tools
Automation
AI capabilities
Free plan
Pricing
Integrations
User interface
My experience
Customer support
4.1
pros
Generous free plan
Advanced project management tools
Wide range of integrations
Customized dashboards
Great collaboration tools
cons
It was slow sometimes
The mobile app has some bugs
Poor customer service

Key differences between Notion and ClickUp

Here is a short overview of the key differences I found in the Notion vs ClickUp showdown:

Notion

ClickUp

What is it?

Notion provides a centralized workspace where you can organize your thoughts, notes, tasks, projects, and documents in one place

ClickUp is a project management software designed for teams to help them organize tasks, collaborate effectively, and manage multiple projects.

Features

Project management tools, Task management, Note-taking, Calendar, Notion AI, Wikis

Project management tools, Task management, Permissions, Whiteboard, Chat, Collaborative Docs, Automation, ClickUp Brain, Time tracking

User interface

Simple user interface

Simple user interface

Integrations

Extensive integrations (+7,000)

Extensive integrations (+7,000)

Pricing

Free plan: Available
Plus plan: €9.5 per month per user
Business plan: €14 per month per user
Enterprise plan: Custom pricing

Free plan: Available
Unlimited plan: $7 per month/user
Business plan: $12 per month/user
Enterprise plan: Custom pricing

Mobile app

Available

Available

Offline version

No

Yes

G2 ratings

4.7

4.7

What is Notion?

Notion vs ClickUp what is Notion

Notion is an all-in-one app that offers a centralized workspace where you can organize your thoughts, notes, tasks, projects, and documents in one place. Personally, I use my Notion workspace to write scripts for my videos, track projects, and organize learning materials.

Using Notion, you can create pages for every purpose, such as reading lists, meeting summaries, goals, etc. Every item on a page is customizable; you can easily drag and drop items and insert pictures or videos.

It is also a great tool with numerous collaboration features for teams. You can invite your team members to work on pages in real-time, create and assign tasks and projects to others, and much more.

What is ClickUp?

Notion vs ClickUp

ClickUp is one of the most popular apps in the project management space. It is a project management software designed for teams to help them organize tasks, collaborate effectively, and manage multiple projects.

It offers a range of features, including task assignments, goal tracking, time tracking, document sharing, and integrations with other tools, making it suitable for various workflows. ClickUp allows users to customize their workspace with numerous views, such as lists, boards, or calendars, to effectively track projects and tasks.

Overall, ClickUp is a popular option for project management and to streamline work processes and improve team productivity.

Comparison: Notion vs ClickUp

First, I will show you the features of both project management tools one by one. Second, I will guide you through their user interfaces, integration options, and pricing. Lastly, I will show you the pros and cons of Notion and ClickUp and their alternatives and reveal my pick.

Key features

Let’s start with Notion’s features!

Notion’s key features

Project management tool
Notions project management feature

Notion is an easy to use lightweight task and project management software where you can plan and execute your projects with your team. Let’s start with the project management features.

With Notion, you can visualize your projects’ workflows in different formats, from calendars to boards. Depending on the format you choose, Notion allows you to use progress bars to show how your project is moving forward. You can also create charts or visualize dependencies to see when one task is blocking another and avoid bottlenecks.

When checking your projects, you can utilize filters to show only the tasks assigned to you or the urgent ones. It is ideal for managing team and personal projects as well.

While Notion has the essential features for task and project management, it can be an excellent choice for individuals and small teams that need a single platform to manage their workflows.

Task management
Notions task managment feature

Notion has basic task management features which help you in task tracking within your team. With this project management tool, you can break your projects into manageable tasks and add status, assignee, or due dates. You can easily create task lists with Notion and distribute them effectively to your team.

Whether you want to use Notion for project or task management, you do not have to spend hours creating the proper form for you or your team. This is where you can use the templates.

Notion templates
Notions templates feature

Notion currently has more than 20,000 free templates from which you can browse. This is an insane number. Just to give you an example: if you want to create a to-do list, you can choose from 460 templates.

Utilizing the templates, you do not have to go through the time-consuming process of creating pages to track your projects and tasks or creating a page for meeting notes. With a few clicks, you can insert a template you like, and you just need to add the databases.

You have numerous options; for example, project workflow templates could be quite useful to track task progress.

Note-taking
Notion's note-taking feature

Notion is one of the most popular note-taking apps, and it is not an accident. Just to give you a background on how this app works: You can have multiple workspaces in which you structure your notes and create your second brain. For example, you can have a workspace for personal or work-related items. The workspaces include your pages.

The pages are the fundamentals of your workspaces. You can use them for notes, projects, tasks, and so on. There are no strict rules on how you structure your pages or what information you want to include in them. For instance, in my Notion’s workspace, there are pages dedicated to self-development, money plans, YT scripts, admin info, and notes. Now, let’s go back to note-taking!

Notion is a sophisticated text editor that allows you to easily add and organize different types of content called blocks. When writing your notes, you can add headings, sub-pages, bullet points, and tables without touching your mouse.

In your notes, you can insert images, bookmarks, videos, code, kanban board, and more by simply hitting the “/” button on your keyboard. I especially love the embedded functions. Notion offers multiple embedded forms like YouTube videos, Google Docs, Google Maps, Miro, and more.

Notion is incredibly useful for note organization and management. You can tag notes with custom keywords, add teammates, set due dates, etc. You can access all your notes with your sidebar on the left.

Notion AI
Notions AI writing assistant feature

Notion’s AI writing assistant can greatly improve your writing by detecting errors and correcting misspelled words and incorrect grammar. But it can do much more.

On the bottom left corner of Notion, you can access the AI assistant feature that answers your questions, gives you summaries, translates your page, finds action items, and helps you improve your writing. Basically, it works like a built-in ChatGPT.

But it can do more than just work with text. The AI writing assistant’s feature can help you gather information from various file types, including PDFs and images.

Overall, these tools help you to become more efficient when taking notes.

Wikis
Notion's wiki feature

Team members often struggle to find the information they need. Using Notion, you can create your own Notion database and knowledge library. These hubs can help your team members find and understand the information they need to do their jobs.

Imagine how powerful it could be when onboarding new employees or just wanting to have organized databases where your team members can access the information they need to do their jobs.

Calendar

You can connect your Google Calendar with your existing Notion workspace, so you will be able to see your meetings and appointments in your Notion calendar. Notion’s calendar is synced with your workspace, so you can make references to specific pages in the meeting invite.

Notion Calendar is available for iPhone and Android devices, and soon, it will be compatible with Outlook and iCloud.

Ultimately, Notion’s calendar helps you to centralize your calendar management, notes, and project management tasks in a centralized app.

ClickUp’s key features

Let’s check ClickUp’s features now!

Central hub
ClickUp project management software features

Whenever you enter into your ClickUp account, it will take you to the homepage that serves as a central hub and includes your custom dashboards. Here, you can manage your cards, which allows you to customize what you want to see in your central hub.

For example, I have a calendar view, a card showing the task assigned to me, my recent activities in ClickUp, and more. You can easily drag and drop these cards, leaving the most crucial stuff at the top of your homepage.

It’s time to look at the key project and task management tools!

Project management tools
ClickUp project management tools

During my ClickUp review, I put a huge emphasis on how it works both as a project management software and a task management app. Let’s start with the project management tools!

Similarly to your home page, you can move, add, and remove cards, so your dashboard view will only concentrate on the workflows that matter the most to you. Personally, I used the default setup for my cards, as it shows all the key information about my tasks.

Since I work alone, there is not much of a breakdown in terms of assignees. However, it still shows the information I need to track the project’s progress.

clickup has many view for managing projects

I discovered that during my ClickUp review, there are many other project view options from which you can choose. Just click on the “+ View” icon, and you will see numerous other view options like list, Kanban board, calendar, or Gantt chart views.

Each view has its advantages. For example, when using the list view, you can filter on status, assignees, priorities, tasks, due dates, or task types. Or, with a Gantt chart, you can filter on periods.

ClickUp is ideal to manage multiple projects

I know that resource management tools are critical for many of you managing teams. To access the relevant metrics, you can select the workload, box, and team views. With these views, you can get a quick understanding of who has free capacity and who is overcommitted.

Based on my experience, ClickUp has easy-to-use work management tools that cover all the information you need for efficient resource management.

ClickUp project customization options

Moreover, if you click on the customize tab, you can further personalize your views and choose from layout options, filters, permissions, and more.

But let’s face the truth – putting together complex projects takes time. Fortunately, ClickUp offers some templates that you can access even in the free plan.

Overall, I was satisfied with the project management tools during my ClickUp review. Now, it is time to check the task management tools!

Task management tools
ClickUp task management tools

No matter if you are in your projects or space, you can create new tasks with a click. If you click on the add task on the right side, you can add a new task.

When creating a task, you can add descriptions and sub-tasks and select priority levels, assignees, due dates, tags, and reminders. It is super easy.

CLickUp templates for task management

Similarly to the projects, you can use templates for your tasks. When it comes to task templates, ClickUp offers different templates for different teams. Once you have added a template, you can make the changes you want and use it later.

clickup tasks feature

After you create a task, there are other options that you can use for efficient task management. ClickUp allows you to attach files, write comments, add relationships, and more.

To summarize the task management features, I think ClickUp has all the tools you need to track task progess.

ClickUp permissions
clickup permissions for team members

You can easily share your workspaces or projects with others. If using the free plan, you can not access permission levels. This means that if people join, they can edit and create elements.

If choosing the paid plans, you can choose permission levels for your team members. With the view-only permission, users can only read the content. However, you can give them comment-level permission, which allows them to post and reply to comments.

If you add them to the edit level of permission, they can share and make changes, but it is not possible to delete items. Giving them full access, they can create, edit, delete, and share items with others.

Collaboration tools
clickup's collaboration tools

In addition to assigning tasks and sharing projects and workspaces with others, ClickUp has some powerful collaboration tools for teams.

Whiteboards
Clickup collaboration features - whiteboards

The whiteboard is a useful tool, particularly for remote teams. On the right side, you see who is currently working on the same project and show the cursor movements.

ClickUp allows you to drag and drop all parts of the elements and move them around. On the button, you can choose from numerous options depending on what you want to insert on the whiteboard.

clickup whiteboard tool for remote teams

For instance, you can insert items like tasks and documents, but you can draw and add sticky notes, images, shapes, and more.

Ultimately, I enjoyed using the whiteboard during my ClickUp review. There was only one issue I experienced: ClickUp was quite slow sometimes when I opened the whiteboard. It is an easy-to-use tool designed for agile teams, and also useful to brainstorm ideas.

Chat

ClickUp offers a chat feature as well to enhance team communication. It helps to centralize their communication, project management, task management, and other workflows into one single place.

Utilizing ClickUp’s chat tool, you can create tasks directly from messages and easily share documents. So, it could be a useful tool for small teams, such as those that do not want to invest in project management software and team communication apps at the same time.

Collaborative Docs
Clickup's collaboration features for teams

Docs offer a great way to take notes, create company wikis, knowledge bases, and more. So, it works like a note-taking app and information management tool.

You can share documents with your team members so you can edit those in real time. This is one of the most helpful collaboration features of ClickUp, as you can build numerous types of documents together.

ClickUp's note taking tools

Its writing system works similarly to Notion. When you hit the splash, you can add different types of items to your document, such as tables, buttons, embed bookmarks, etc.

Furthermore, ClickUp offers templates for your documents, which makes it easy to create new ones quickly. Similarly to other templates for projects or tasks, you can find the templates categorized and personalized for each team.

It is also great that you can smoothly move and organize your documents. If you drag one of your pages and drop it on another page, ClickUp will create a sub-page.

Automation features
ClickUp's automation feature

It was not easy to find the automation options, but after a short research, I managed to find them. If you go to your spaces on the left and hit on it, there will be a tab that says space settings, and you can check the automation there.

clickup's templates for automation

ClickUp uses “when” and “then” logic when creating automations. You can create automation for actions related to task management, communication, dates, and more.

I was pleased during my ClickUp review that it also has templates for automation. Honestly, I just do not like setting up rules and testing, so the templates make it easier for people like me.

For example, you can create an automation to move the the parent task to the next phase once all the sub-tasks are completed, but there are great automations for Calendly or Google Calendar as well.

You can set rules for nearly anything, and ultimately, ClikcUp’s feature helps you to automate repetitive tasks related to your projects.

AI assistant
ClickUp's AI tool (ClickUp Brain)

If choosing the paid plans of ClickUp, you can access its AI feature called ClickUp Brain. You can ask questions about your projects, tasks, and documents, and it will give you answers pretty fast.

Moreover, there are many other use cases on how you can implement ClickUp Brain into your daily workflows. It can help you to automatically transcribe meetings recorded by ClickUp, check your spelling, and accelerate other workflows like creating tables or content.

All in all, ClickUp’s AI tool is a good addition to this project management software and helps team members further improve their effectiveness and productivity.

Time tracking tools
ClickUp's advanced time tracking tools

ClickUp has some simple time-tracking tools to track how much time you spend on your tasks. You can record your time from your desktop, mobile, or web browser as well.

Using time tracking with the timesheet tool, you can get some insights about your time management and that of your team members. It is also cool that you can filter on specific projects and workflows and build customized reports.

Overall, ClickUp has quite advanced time-tracking tools compared to many other project management software. These time-tracking features help you to improve your team management, and by utilizing these tools with the resource management features, you can get a full overview of your team’s workload.

User interface

Now, let’s take a look at both ClickUp and Notion’s user interfaces!

Notion’s user interface

Notion user interface

Notion’s user interface is simple. It has a minimalist aesthetics with white space, clear typography, and subtle colors are the focus. Even if you are a first-time Notion user, you will be able to quickly navigate the pages, as you will find every important information on the sidebar.

As you can see, Notion has many features. This is the only thing that might feel overwhelming at first. Even though I have used Notion for more than 2 years, I have not explored all its features and potential.

Nevertheless, it still has a shorter learning curve compared to ClickUp.

When working in Notion, you will quickly realize that Notion relies on a block system that works like Lego. It transforms all the content into movable, customizable pieces, which gives you the flexibility to move these blocks around.

Thanks to the block system and extensive customization options, you have the flexibility to create databases, notes, and projects that 100% suit your needs.

ClickUp’s user interface

ClickUp's user interface

ClickUp has a clean user interface. You can access your projects, documents, and whiteboards on the left with a few clicks. On the right top, you can see some additional tools like reminders, recording, and notepad.

Since ClickUp has numerous additional tools compared to many other project management software, it might have a slightly longer learning curve. For me, it was a great help that it has a search bar, so every time I did not find a feature like the time tracking tools, it just helped me to locate them.

Integrations

It is time to check the integration options in the ClickUp vs Notion battle!

Notion’s integrations

Notion's integration

Notion offers native integrations with numerous third-party apps. Most importantly, you can connect it with Zapier, which will give you access to more than 7000 apps.

Besides the Zapier integration, you can integrate Notion with more than 100 other apps, including Asana, ClickUp, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Jira.

ClickUp’s integrations

ClickUp's integrations

ClickUp is quite massive in terms of integration options. Thanks to its Zapier integration, you can connect ClickUp with over 7,000 third-party apps, including Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Calendar.

Pricing

Here, I will show you both productivity apps’ pricing models to see which one is better in the ClickUp vs Notion comparison.

Notion’s pricing

Notion pricing

Notion offers four pricing plans.

The free plan includes a collaborative workspace, integrations, basic page analytics, and a 7-day page history, and you can invite 10 guests. Based on my experience, Notion’s free version is totally sufficient for individuals to organize their notes and projects.

The plus plan is €9.50 per seat per month. It has unlimited blocks for teams, unlimited file uploads, 30-day page history, custom websites, automation, charts, and dashboards, and you can invite a maximum of 100 guests. The plus plan is ideal for small teams and individuals who work a lot with others.

The business plan costs you €14 per seat monthly. It offers private teamspaces, bulk PDF export, advanced page analytics, 90-day page history, and you can invite 250 guests. I recommend the business plan for bigger teams who want to utilize more advanced features.

Finally, Notion has an enterprise plan as well with custom pricing. By choosing this plan, you will receive a dedicated success manager, workspace analytics features, unlimited page history, security, and compliance integrations, and you can invite 250 guests.

ClickUp’s pricing

ClickUp offers free and three paid plans. Let’s check them closer!

ClickUp's pricing plans
Free Forever Plan

ClickUp has a robust free plan. The free version covers 100MB storage, unlimited tasks, unlimited free plan members, two-factor authentication, and numerous project views. However, the list of features you see in the picture is not full.

With the free plan, you can also use time-tracking tools, automation, and many collaboration tools. Basically, you can access all the features I show you in this ClickUp review, except for its AI tool.

Considering the features included in the free plan, it is ideal for professionals or personal use.

Unlimited Plan

The Unlimited plan covers all the features in the free version, plus you will access unlimited storage, integrations, dashboards, chat messages, and others. This plan costs you $7 monthly if choosing the yearly billing. However, if you choose the monthly billing, it is $10 per user per month.

The Unlimited plan is an excellent choice for small teams. If we compare it with other project management software’s pricing, I would say they offer a fair price.

Business Plan

ClickUp’s Business plan is $12 per user if you opt for the yearly plan. Alternatively, if you choose the monthly billing, it is $19 per user.

This plan includes all the advanced tools that even larger businesses need. For example, timesheets, workload management features, advanced time tracking, and automation.

ClickUp designed this plan for mid-sized businesses.

Enterprise Plan

Lastly, ClickUp offers an Enterprise plan for large businesses as well. Nevertheless, they apply customized pricing here.

My experience with Notion

In the past years, Notion has become a must-have tool for me to keep my notes and projects organized. While I think there are tools with more features for note-taking or project management, Notion is still the best or one of the best all-around productivity tools.

It is about centralizing my ideas, databases, and stuff in one app. With its calendar feature and soon email capabilities (Notion Mail), Notion is on its way to becoming an all-in-one app.

Overall, Notion has helped me to boost productivity in the past years and take my organization to the next level.

My experience with ClickUp

Overall, I had a pleasant experience during my ClickUp review. Although I found some glitches and encountered some performance issues, I think it is a great project management app.

It is great that they have a generous free plan, and you can access numerous features, even collaboration tools, for free.

At first, ClickUp might be overwhelming since it has many features. However, there is a lot of content and tutorials on the web, such as ClickUp University, that can help you master this productivity app quickly.

Notion’s pros and cons

Considering all the factors, let’s summarize the pros and cons I discovered during my Notion vs ClickUp review!

Notion pros and cons (Notion vs ClickUp)

Notion’s pros

First, Notion is an easy-to-use project management tool. Using its sidebar, you can access all your notes with one click.

Secondly, Notion is an all-in-one app that you can use to manage your notes, calendars, projects, tasks, knowledge hubs, and soon your emails. Notion users can replace many other apps only by using Notion’s free version.

Moreover, Notion has advanced collaboration features. You can share your workspaces, leave comments, work on projects in real-time, mention others, assign tasks and due dates, and so on.

Furthermore, Notion has extensive tutorials on its webpage. No matter whether you want to check the basic functions or create a wiki for your company, you will find everything on Notion’s webpage.

Finally, Notion’s free plan offers enough features for individuals. Basically, I have used Notion’s free plan for more than two years, and I can access all the important features. Also, you can utilize the templates for completely free.

Notion’s cons

The biggest cons I found during my Notion review is that this note-taking app has no offline mode. It would be great if I could reach my notes without an internet connection.

Also, you can not protect your pages with passwords. As many of our notes could include sensitive data, it would be awesome if we could protect them with passwords.

Notion has basic project management tools as it is more like an all-in-one workspace rather than a dedicated project management tool.

Clickup’s pros and cons

Now, let’s check the pros and cons I explored during my ClickUp review!

Pros and cons I found after my ClickUp review

ClickUp’s pros

First, I appreciate that ClickUp has a generous free plan. It is great that you can invite your team members and access numerous tools for free, so you have a chance to see whether this is the right project management platform for you.

Furthermore, ClickUp offers numerous features to manage projects and tasks. I think ClickUp is very solid in terms of features. It has many advanced tools for time tracking, visualizing projects, and, ultimately, managing projects with high efficiency.

It is also awesome that you can integrate ClickUp with many third-party apps. And this support is more valuable when you implement automation.

I love that you can create customized dashboards so you can track key projects and tasks more easily.

Lastly, ClickUp has really good collaboration tools. Its whiteboards, collaborative docs, and other collaboration features make ClickUp an ideal project management software for teams.

ClickUp’s cons

When it comes to the cons of ClickUp, the first issue I encountered was that this project management platform was slow sometimes. I particularly had this issue more time when using the whiteboards.

Second, its mobile app still has bugs and is slow many times. Don’t get me wrong – it is great that ClickUp has a mobile version as well, but it would still be great if it worked smoothly.

Finally, I read numerous complaints about ClickUp’s customer support team. Personally, I did not have a chance to experience it during my ClickUp review, but this is definitely something you should be aware of.

Alternatives to Notion and ClickUp

If you are still unsure about your pick after this Notion vs ClickUp battle, here are some great alternatives:

  • Taskade: An AI-powered workflow and lightweight project management app.
  • Wrike: A more robust project management software with advanced features.
  • Monday.com: An online collaboration and work-management app.
  • Coda: An all-in-one app that is similar to Notion, however, with more massive project management tools
  • Motion: It is an AI calendar app, but also works as a project management software.
  • Asana: A popular and easy-to-use project management tool.

My pick: ClickUp vs Notion

After my Notion vs ClickUp review, I discovered that both apps are great. While I have used Notion for more than 2 years, even for managing my projects, it only has the essentials for project management.

So, here is what I can say to you: If you want a project management app solely, ClickUp is a better choice. While it has a longer learning curve, ClickUp has all the features you need to manage your projects and tasks.

Nevertheless, if you want an all-in-one app and do not need advanced project management tools, give it a try to Notion. With this app, you can integrate numerous workflows into one single platform.

I hope I was able to help you guys. As always, I will update this ClickUp vs Notion article over time so you guys have up-to-date information about these project management tools.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Notion better than ClickUp?

It depends on your preferences. ClickUp and Notion are both great productivity tools. If you need a project management tool, I recommend ClickUp since it has a more robust feature set for organizing projects.

Nevertheless, if you want to have an app that you can use for more purposes, Notion might be a better pick for you.

What is better than ClickUp?

ClickUp is one of the most popular apps in the project management space, and it’s not an accident. However, if you want to give a chance to other project management tools, give a try to SmartSuite, Wrike, Teamwork.com, Coda, Taskade, and more.

Why not use ClickUp?

During my Notion vs ClickUp review, I discovered that ClickUp is slow sometimes. Also, I found many negative user reports regarding their customer service.

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

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