Ask HN: Do you like Notion? Isn't it overrated?

I will never use Notion because all the data are locked in. It&#x27;s very obvious for me to <i>not</i> use Notion. If I don&#x27;t have control over my notes, I can&#x27;t use that product.<p>I use Obsidian. All the files are on my computer, and even if the company goes under, the notes are still with me in markdown. I can choose to buy sync option. Or sync with something like Dropbox.

Notion is the only note taking app I managed to stick with. I’ve previously used EverNote, OneNote, org-mode, BearNotes (most overrated note app ever), plain text notes, Obsidian and Apple Notes, in this order.<p>I love Notion because:<p>- the block system is top notch. It’s a great way to fix a common issue with WYSIWYG: impossibility to add a new line after a block (often after a table, a picture, etc. you can’t place a cursor for some reason)<p>- very easy to make pretty pages: an icon, a banner, drag and drop to make multi column layouts, colors<p>- table support is great, unlike BearNotes<p>- code support is great, unlike Apple Notes<p>- search works fine and sharing works great, unlike Obsidian<p>- databases are cool<p>Basically I’ve never had something I wanted to do that I couldn’t.

We use notion. I never found it difficult to use, but I don&#x27;t really see how it&#x27;s a household name. We use it as a hierarchical wysiwyg wiki. It&#x27;s the kind of thing that could pretty easily be replaced with a free open source version. I also don&#x27;t see what the crossover with LLMs is

I don&#x27;t get the hype between Notion, Airtable, Asana...<p>Sometimes they feel like glorified Microsoft Office!

Are there any really good Notion alternatives? Preferably Open Source?

Did notion add Find and Replace?<p>Last time I used it, about a year ago, it did not have this feature and notion had been out for years at that point.<p>I stopped using it because it lacked this basic feature.

It&#x27;s easy to create content, but it&#x27;s terrible finding content. Even alternatives like Coda suck at this.<p>No startup in this space has solved this problem yet.

I use it for real estate investing: templates for common guest messages (check in, check out, thank you for booking), links to insurance&#x2F;mortgage&#x2F;utilities, contractor logs, lease templates and completed contracts, etc.<p>It’s been immensely helpful; I’m sure there other ones that work well too but this one does everything I need.

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I can&#x27;t stand Notion but love Coda. Pivoted my team to using it and they seem to love it as well.

I use it daily, it works for me but honestly it still feels weird. But so do all note taking apps.

Not my cup-of-tea

Well its hard to see the point of building a knowledge base that&#x27;s entirely at the whims of a company and needs me to be online. I prefer to use something like Obsidian that I can control synching behavior.

I like it a lot. Strikes a good balance between number of features and usability. My team at my job all love it, the rest of the company prefers Microsoft Office tools.

I also find it annoying. My whole company uses Craft now.

It was too pretty and fancy for me. I wasted hours customising it instead of getting things done.<p>Pen and paper works best for me. At most, I use Google Docs.

I can&#x27;t use Notion, they don&#x27;t allow me to change the hotkeys, they interfere with my keyboard layout.

Yes, I feel like their interface design is pretty awesome. Relational databases for everyone, I&#x27;d say.