Notion vs ClickUp : Which One’s Best for Productivity?
The battle between two Productivity Giants
Over the years, both tools became powerhouses of task management, and their efficiency extended to letting teams manage tasks inside them.
ClickUp and Notion are highly flexible and customizable, allowing you to modify them to fit your unique workflow. However, they have fundamental differences.
Let’s take a closer look at both of them and find out what both have to offer in terms of getting things done, productively.
ClickUp
G2 Rating : 4.7/5
Pricing : Free, $5/user/month
“One app to replace them all” is what ClickUp claims to be, and it certainly lives up to it.
ClickUp zips together to-do lists, documents, wikis, spreadsheets, chat, and a ton more. The interface might feel a bit sophisticated at times, but it’s also fairly straightforward and easy to use.
With features like Whiteboards, Time Management trackers, and Docs, ClickUp allows you to configure virtually anything, including fields, filters, views, dashboards, and more.
Why People Prefer ClickUp over Notion
- ClickUp offers more features compared to Notion which includes time tracking, screen recording, calendars, whiteboards, and much more.
- ClickUp offers more user roles and permissions compared to Notion
- ClickUp has more affordable pricing ($5/user/month) for team members than Notion does. ($8/user/month)
Additionally, ClickUp has an extensive library of templates, like CRM and Content Calendar, which helps you fast-track your task management process.
What Users think about ClickUp :
Click Up has nailed so many features. It’s intuitive use of different views, the dashboarding, the user management, the automation… it’s all there. The product is intuitive to use for new users but has all the features a serious power user would want. Their licensing is also really fair, enabling us to invite externals to collaborate on specific projects without paying through the nose for additional seats. Overall, it makes collaboration a breeze.
Notion
G2 Rating : 4.6/5
Pricing : $8/user/month
Starting as a note-taking tool, Notion has been dominating the productivity software space for the past few years, alongside ClickUp. It even comes with pre-built templates that make it easier to organize your professional and personal life.
Although Notion falls behind ClickUp for lacking major features like time tracking and automations, it has a relatively minimalist interface.
Why People Prefer Notion over ClickUp
- Notion is more straightforward to set up than ClickUp and needs almost zero customizations
- Notion has an intuitive interface which is liked by most users
- Notion is more flexible for single users as they can pursue their hobby projects, effortlessly.
Notion is great for individuals planning to focus on personal projects, fast and simple.
What users think about Notion :
I love the fact that it is easy to use and I can collaborate with my team without the need for emails or any separate communication. The fact that I can insert tables etc to give the document a structure is also great.
In addition to having over 90 features, ClickUp is more robust in comparison to Notion. It has more than 35 integrations, whereas Notion has only about fifteen in its full versions. Both tools have a slight learning curve to be able to unleash their full potential.
How do People use Notion and ClickUp in their Workflow?
Unlike ClickUp, Notion wasn’t built up with task management as a use case. Instead, it was put together as a simple note-taking app that went on to expand its features in the future.
Users primarily use Notion to build personal dashboards, wikis, docs, to-do lists, and to track simple tasks. On the other hand, ClickUp is used for managing heavier tasks, intricate systems, and other project management workflows.
Apparently, ClickUps Docs has been facing issues with its speed, limited permissions, and version history access.
Since there are critical differences between Notion and ClickUp, let’s look at features that majorly affect users and find out how both perform in each aspect.
Overview
Founded by Ivan Zhao, Notion’s mission includes binding functions of tools like Google Docs and Dropbox and blending them all into a single all-in-workspace, which is bound by a user’s imagination.
On the other hand, ClickUp, founded by Zeb Evans, aims to help people stay productive by cutting on using multiple ecosystems for the sake of “Productivity”. Their goal includes helping people stay productive and giving back people at least 20% of their time to work on other tasks, by bringing it all together and making it the “one app to replace them all”.
ClickUp primarily serves large companies and teams by offering multiple features and functionalities, aiming to be an all-in-one platform.
On the other hand, Notion better serves individuals that prefer simple project management systems, making it ideal for freelancers and students.
Interface
When it comes to how users view project management tools, user interface and experience can have a huge influence on how it appeals to users. In other words, a tool’s experience and interface should be as simple and intuitive as possible.
Notion has an intuitive user interface that’s easy to use. ClickUp has a clear interface with vibrant colours, but the learning curve for both takes some time to get comfortable with. Both offer drag-and-drop functionality, making organizing projects and tasks much easier.
The big difference? Notion uses building blocks while ClickUp uses tasks to create any project.
Customizability
Both tools offer an extensive library of templates and board views, however, ClickUp beats Notion in this aspect as it provides a greater number of views and templates, facilitating task management, effortlessly.
Notion lets you add multiple views to a single board, such as gallery, list, kanban, and calendar. But ClickUp offers more views in comparison to Notion, such as mind map, activity, Gantt charts, workload, list, and table.
Team Collaboration
Both tools offer extensive user roles and permissions, however, ClickUp’s custom role feature lets you add custom permissions for each member, including the kind of actions they can take for each task. You can also add unlimited custom fields to any profile.
Notion, on the other hand, restricts you to limited built-in user roles (editor, commenter, and viewer) and requires them to have specific capabilities in order to grant them privileges.
ClickUp is a great tool for small and mid-sized marketing teams to keep all their projects organized. The best and most important feature we use is custom properties.
Automation
Automations make tasks easier and save time. ClickUp offers in-built automations which makes it easier to manage recurring tasks. This is a major upside as users can easily handle all their tasks inside ClickUp without shifting between other tools.
Notion lacks built-in automations and the only way to automate projects inside Notion is by using third-party integrations like Zapier, Automate (now acquired by Notion), or Make. Check out this Automation Hub Template to make the most out of pre-built automations, effortlessly.
Notion has recently launched “Connections”, a feature that helps you integrate your tasks with third-party tools like Tally Forms, IFTTT, Marker, and others, without switching between apps.
Integrations
Integrations are an integral part of project management tools, making it easier for users to transfer, automate and centralize data among several tools, from a single place.
Both tools offer extensive integrations to help streamline task management. However, ClickUp is more robust in comparison to Notion. It has more than 35 native integrations, whereas Notion has only about fifteen, overall.
Major native integrations offered by both tools include Jira, Slack, and GitHub.
Security
Security of user data is of utmost importance to project management tools like Notion and ClickUp.
Both platforms are hosted under AWS (Amazon Web Services) and have met high standards of SOC 1 and SOC 2 reports along with their applications being encrypted by TLS. A similar encryption system is used by the banks.
Apps and Platforms
Both tools support mobile and Desktop applications, for Mac and Windows. However, Notion users have complained regarding its mobile app which is deemed to be slow in terms of page-load speed and functionality. The ClickUp mobile hasn’t been reported to have any such issues recently.
Bottom Line
Clickup has more robust tools and is best for teams that want a powerful and flexible tool. Notion has less complexity, but it still allows you to get organized and stay on top of your tasks without learning complex systems or processes.
Overall, taking “Team Collaboration” into account, ClickUp offers more automation and tracking features compared to Notion, making it ideal for teams that rely on powerful tools.
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