These are the key points that I explored during the Notion vs NotebookLM clash:

• NotebookLM is a research and learning rather than a note-taking tool.
• NotebookLM’s podcast tool is a very unique feature, and no other tools are similar on the market.
• Both productivity apps have simple user interfaces.
• NotebookLM is a completely free app, but Notion has a generous free plan as well.
• Notion is a better app for writing, note-taking, and creating your second brain.

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

Verdict

Here’s the quick verdict if you don’t want to read the full Notion vs NotebookLM review:

Tested with our review & scoring methodology Real-world testing Unbiased evaluation

My ratings: Notion vs NotebookLM

How We Test Note-Taking Apps

To keep our reviews & final score for each note-taking app fair and transparent, we evaluate every tool using the same testing framework based on real-world usage, feature depth, and overall value.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 10+ note-taking apps:

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Key differences between Notion and NotebookLM

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

Comparison: Notion vs NotebookLM

First, I will show you both productivity apps’ features 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 NotebookLM and their alternatives and reveal my pick.

Key features

Notion’s features

Let’s start with Notion’s features!

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Notion

Note-taking

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.

Project management tool

Notion also works as a 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.

Notion’s task management features have everything that you need. You can break your projects into manageable tasks and add status, assignee, or due dates.

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.

Customizable templates

Notion currently has more than20,000 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 almost a thousand templates.

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

AI writing assistant

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

Team members often struggle to find the information they need. Using Notion, you can create your own 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.

AI meeting notes

Notion recently released its AI note-taker for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet calls. Basically, it joins your calls without a bot and transcribes & summarizes them.

So, you can turn your conversations into insights and action items in your Notion workspace.

NotebookLM’s features

Let’s see Google NotebookLM’s AI features!

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of NotebookLM

Notebook Guide

When you upload a source, you will see the Notebook guide instantly. In short, the Notebook guide offers a platform where you can interact with your sources in different ways.

On the left side of the screen, you will see the uploaded sources. If all of them are selected, NotebookLM will use all the uploaded information for your questions and interactions.

Let’s pause at the sources!

NotebookLM utilizes source-grounded AI. This means that it only uses the sources you upload to answer your questions, create quick summaries, or complete your requests. You can upload numerous types of documents, from Google Docs and web pages to PDFs or YouTube videos, with a few clicks.

You are able to upload video blog posts from the entire internet by copying only the URL. Regarding other files, you can easily upload documents by dragging and dropping them, and NotebookLM will use the uploaded data to answer your questions accurately.

In the middle, NoteBookLM automatically creates a summary of the source. Also, you can use FAQs, study guides, table of contents, timelines, and briefing docs to help you understand the document faster.

I especially loved here the study guide. You can create a briefing doc about the uploaded information, and in 5 seconds, NotebookLM will provide you with the fundamentals of this topic. So, summarizing the key points can accelerate the learning process of a topic.

On the right side, you can see the suggested questions and the option to create a podcast from the document. I will talk about this later. Below, you can ask questions about the uploaded sources, and NotebookLM will answer you instantly.

Notebooks and notes

You use notebooks to organize your stuff in NotebookLM. They are similar to how folders organize the files on your computer. Each notebook is totally separate, so NotebookLM accesses information from one notebook at a time. You have to understand that the notebooks are not connected to each other, and they work like different folders, even if they are about the same topics.

In your notebooks, there are notes, right? And this is where the fun part comes in. You can have notes for different stuff. If you close the Notebook Guide’s window, you will see your notes in a specific notebook.

NotebookLM will automatically add the created briefs, study guides, etc., to your notes. However, you can add your text notes as well.

When accessing your notes, you can interact with that specific note differently if you click on the checkboxes. You can ask questions about only one note or ask NotebookLM to describe it in another way to help you understand it easily.

There are also other options, like creating an outline about that note or critiquing the selected note. Nevertheless, if you do not select one of your notes, you interact with all your sources in your notebook.

Asking questions

You can ask questions from NotebookLM at the bottom of the page if you are browsing among your notes or using the Notebook Guide. NotebookLM will always show some recommended questions based on the data you provided.

When answering questions, Notebook LM will use citations so you can see which source it uses to provide you with the answers. Seeing the citations ensures that you will always know the original source that NotebookLM uses to answer your questions.

If you click on the save to note tab, NotebookLM will save this answer as a note, and you can access it when you go into your notebook. There is also something that people tend to overlook, and this is the selection of sources.

For example, if you want to ask a question from only a subset of data, that is not a problem. You can easily select only that specific source you want to work with, and NotebookLM will disregard the other sources.

In the chat feature below, NotebookLM always shows you how many sources are selected. Therefore, you have the full power to decide which source you want to work with.

Turning documents into a podcast

During my NotebookLM review, I experienced something special when I tried the podcast feature. You see, I tested and reviewed many AI tools in the past two years. I encountered several fascinating artificial intelligence tools, as well as some that were disappointing.

But when I heard the two AI hosts talking about the sources I uploaded, I felt like Google’s AI tool crossed a line. It is a game-changer.

It was way more realistic than I could have imagined previously. Do not believe me? Check my NotebookLM tutorial video, and you will see it as well.

These AI-generated discussions are very impressive, and I feel like they set a new standard for AI-powered tools.

To create a podcast from your notes, just click on the notebook guide; you can see the audio overview in the top right corner. If you click on the customize tab, you can ask AI to focus on specific parts when creating the podcast.

Once you have your instructions, you only need to click on the generate, and that’s it. It takes around 5 minutes, and NotebookLM will generate the audio summaries for you. I recommend you try this feature!

User interface

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

Notion’s 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.

When working in Notion, you will quickly realize that it uses 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.

NotebookLM’s user interface

NotebookLM offers a simple and intuitive interface. Once you understand how this AI-powered note-taking tool works, it will be easy to navigate its pages.

However, you need to keep in mind that it is not a regular note-taking app. So, when getting started with NotebookLM, you can not just simply start a blank notebook like with other note-taking apps. NotebookLM only works if you upload sources related to a topic.

Ultimately, NotebookLM offers an intuitive interface, and it does not take much time to learn how to use its features.

Integrations

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

Notion’s integrations

Notion offers many third-party integrations. First of all, you can connect it with Zapier, which will give you access to more than 8000 apps.

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

NotebookLM’s integrations

NotebookLM is connected with other Google Workspace tools. Besides being part of the Google ecosystem, there are no integrations right now. Honestly, I do not think there will be since NotebookLM does not really need them for its features.

Pricing

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

Notion’s pricing

Notion has a free plan and three paid plans.

The free plan includes a collaborative workspace, basic forms and sites, Notion Calendar and Mail. It also supports databases with subtasks, dependencies, and custom properties. Based on my experience, Notion’s free version is totally sufficient for individuals to organize their notes and projects.

The plus plan is $10 per seat per month. It has unlimited collaborative blocks, unlimited file uploads, charts, custom forms and sites, and basic integrations. The plus plan is ideal for small teams and individuals who work a lot with others.

The business plan costs you $20 per seat monthly. It offers features like granular database permissions, private teamspaces, domain verification, conditional forms logic, and premium integrations. Business users also get access to Notion AI features. 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 the enterprise plan, you will receive a dedicated success manager, advanced integrations, and advanced security and control features, among other things.

Keep in mind that, while Notion AI is included in the price of Notion’s Business and Enterprise plans, there is only a trial usage on Free and Plus plans.

For users who rely heavily on documentation and structured workflows, the pricing still makes sense, especially if Notion replaces several other tools.

NotebookLM’s pricing

Google’s NotebooKLM is a completely free note-taking app. It is a pretty new project, and during my NotebookLM review, I did not find any information on whether they want to introduce paid plans in the future.

So, for now, you can enjoy all the features of NotebookLM for free!

Notion’s pros and cons

Considering all the factors, let’s summarize Notion’s pros and cons!

Pros of Notion

Cons of Notion

NotebookLM’s pros and cons

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

NotebookLM’s pros

First, NotebookLM provides you with reliable outputs, as it utilizes only the sources you upload. It also gives you citations when answering your questions, so you can always double-check where the answer is coming from.

Secondly, NotebookLM’s audio overview feature is fantastic. It is a powerful tool to turn documents, videos, and webpages into a high-quality podcast.

Thirdly, NotebookLM has solid features to help you understand and learn complex subjects faster. Using the briefs and study guides, you can digest documents pretty fast.

Lastly, NotebookLM is a completely free note-taking app.

NotebookLM’s cons

What is missing for me is the customization options. For example, you can not personalize or connect the notes in your notebooks. Compared to other note-taking apps, you have zero opportunity to structure your notes.

Furthermore, you can not connect your notebooks, as they work like different folders. So, each notebook is a separate entity, and you can not organize and connect them.

Alternatives to Notion and NotebookLM

Here are some alternatives to NotebookLM and Notion:

Related articles:

• Xtiles Vs Notion: All Features Compared (2026)
• Notion Vs Obsidian: Which Note-Taking App Is Better For You?
• NotebookLM Review: A Promising AI Tool For Note-Taking (2026)
• My Honest Notion Review After Using It For +2 Years (2026)
• Best 6 Notion Alternatives In 2026 | 100+ Personally Tested Tools

My pick: Notion vs NotebookLM

After my Notion vs NotebookLM review, I quickly realized that these note-taking tools have totally different purposes, considering their functionalities and use cases.

NotebookLM created a separate space in the note-taking apps industry. It is a great tool to understand complex documents, create high-quality podcasts from uploaded sources, and maximize productivity.

On the other hand, its note-taking capabilities are limited compared to Notion. Considering the fact that the notebooks are not connected in NotebookLM and lack customization options.

Based on this, I think Notion is a more versatile note-taking app, but for education and learning purposes, NotebookLM is exceptional.

So, my recommendation is to use both of them. Personally, I utilize Notion for note-taking, however I use NotebookLM for learning.

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Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

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Frequently asked questions

What is better than Notion AI?

Notion AI is a fantastic productivity app. However, you can try Miro, Obsidian, Xtiles, or Anytype if you are not satisfied with Notion AI. They all offer generous free plans packed with many valuable features.

What is NotebookLM used for?

Google NotebookLM is an AI-powered note-taking and research tool. It is a very efficient solution to find relevant information from complex documents and enhance productivity.

Can I upload a Google Doc to NotebookLM?

NotebookLM is compatible with Google Workspace tools, so you can easily upload a Google Doc as a source. Also, you can upload other sources like web pages, PDFs, or YouTube videos.

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, I may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

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