I think with big, expansive tools like notetakers and process management tools one-person comparison videos just fall flat - you have one person using some tool in depth as a daily driver and surface-level fiddling for the comparison on for the other tool. (as one chronic example, find me a productivity blogger or youtuber who knows what OneNote can actually do - you won't). Proper comparisons with two tools probably just plain need two people who use the tool as a daily driver, going through use cases and idiosyncrasies of their respective apps. Sometimes it's the small things, like how eg. Roam and Obsidian would encourage the user to structure their notes differently due to outline vs. heading-driven Markdown file as the main format, etc.
I agree to a certain extent. In my day job I built my own ticketing system on SharePoint three years ago, which led to a 60% increase in performance of the team with same headcount. This tool is still in use cross-department wise. Today I am a teamleader in my day job in manufacturing IT where I implemented Asana cross-department wise for 160+ people increasing overall performance by 40%. In this company we also use OneNote... So don’t worry about my experience there. 😁 In addition I am a CEO of my Tom Solid Consulting business since three years and have my own team where we switched from Asana to ClickUp and tested tools such as Notion and Monday and have a good idea what could work in team work and what doesn’t. In addition I worked with several clients as a Business Analyst finding and implementing the best team management tools. Before my work in big industry and UA-cam I made my PhD where I was managing my own laboratory and improved efficiency there in order to save costs and increase output. At the same time I was always looking for tools that help me with my personal task and knowledge management. I agree, we have a lot of students on UA-cam explaining us how to be productive. All the do is reading books and summarizing the content. In my opinion there is a lack of real life experience. It is inspirational but should be consumed with care especially when they have a lot of sponsored video. The only sponsor I have is my community, so I can stay unbiased in my opinion and reviews. I hope I was able to explain here that I look at those tools and methods from a different perspective. 😏
@@paperlessmove My point wasn't to call you out for lacking MS chops - the productivity content creator crowd was just an easy, unrelated example we all know. They don't know OneNote because they've never used it. The point was less specific: If I use Complex Powerful System X, and have a look at Complex Powerful System Y, I'm near certain to misevaluate it because actually understanding a complex system takes time. That's why two people using it as a daily driver would be a better format. Lack of familiarity, not bias.
@@Komatik_ aaaah! Got it! Well, this is a good point indeed and this is why I have my interviews on this channel with Inner Circle members and other unbiased guests who are using different tools. I learn a lot about, let's say ClickUp, although I am using it daily, just by learning more about the other people's use cases and workflows. Thanks for the clarification. Appreciate it!
@@paperlessmove Tom FYI... ClickUp recently announced that they will be moving to a database framework/paradigm. This is really exciting and will put the heat on Notion/Coda. I used Notion and Coda for the past 2 years and dumped both for ClickUp. ClickUp docs are not as powerful as Notion/Coda yet, but with their new database structure coming (they say Q1) I would assume the databases will become part of their docs. At that point ClickUp will be the king!
@@josephshields317 I agree! ClickUp is a good bet right now using! With the new relations, they go in the right direction already. And the way DOCs work is the reason why I am still in Notion. Looking forward to Q1! 🚀
On your next dive into Coda, suggest checking out the ability to edit custom “detail” views of a row, which can accommodate embedded tables, bar, pie and Gantt charts, conditional formatting, large text fields, and UI elements like multi-select buttons that can help in managing params, driving notifications or other. Not quite the same as a page (or a canvas,) in that it appears as a modal- but given that these detail “view” layouts are nameable, manageable and can be invoked from other tables or on a canvas, it becomes a very, very robust feature covering many of the same parameters as a page. Same should apply with formulas- if you have a complex function on a finance table, for example, you can name it, manage it, and call it up wherever you need it.
Coda closed the gap with big improvements with boards in the last months and they added a lot of other stuff. I switched from Notion to Coda and will not look back, its a lot more powerful with formulas and tables
I took the test I found on Coda itself determining whether Notion or Coda was more suited to my personal use case and it suggested I stayed in Notion, so that's where I'm at ❤️
Great comparison. I'm in the process of switching from Notion to Coda. I'm about 90% onboard. The only things I would like to see is dark mode for Coda and bit better formatting for tables.I agree about the relational databases strength of Notion. Coda is like Excel but fun. The power of the buttons in Coda is amazing. I kept spinning and spinning with Notion but never could do that until I stumbled on Coda. I also like how Coda work your files and images. Not as restrictive. For $6 a month with Coda, I signed up right away. With Notion, I never upgraded because all of the paid features seemed to be related to teams. I'm just using this for my daily productivity and keeping my self organized. It's a new year, so I'm going to take the plunge to Coda for this year.
Good video. I too went back and forth between both products many times. But Coda's power is right with databases, something you had only scratched on the video.
Beware this is not a fair comparison. Seems to be biased towards Notion, not intentionally but because the author have a deep understanding of Notion while lacking experience in Coda. The video therefore focuses on mostly minor details such as automated icon picker while misses to mention what I believe are the fundamental engines where Coda is better than Notion, such as in its more advanced database management, intelligent plugins, interactive features, etc, etc.
Thanks for your Feedback, Max. I am continously looking deeper into Coda as I really think it is a great alternative for Notion. And I can say that I am one of the few on UA-cam NOT sponsored by Notion :D I will have an interview with Coda representatives that will be published on my channel soon, in which we will dive into exactly those differences and what Coda might make the better tool. Stay tuned! :)
Maybe it's just because I'm so used to Notion, but Coda seems like confusing crap. Even using synonymous terms like 'page' and 'doc' to represent different things is a bad decision, imo.
But are the words “page” and “doc” really synonymous? Even in a word processor, a document can have multiple pages., so Coda's implementation seems logical to me
The structure of Coda is for newcomers indeed not so easy to understand. But it is as follows: - The topmost element is a workspace. The workspace is the place where your team „lives“. Basically team members can see everything within a workspace (in a Team plan you can control that more fine grained). The workspace is also the unit of billing. I.e. it can be free or you pay for it according to the different pricing plans. - Within a workspace you can create docs. A doc is sort of a document which can be a small note but also as large as a complete book. For the latter case, Coda offers elements to give the doc more structure. - A (large) doc may contain pages which may contain sub-pages. Thus you can structure a large doc more or less like a book into chapters and (traditional) pages.
Tom, I feel the database automation possibilities in Coda are far more advanced. Seems like you focused mainly on the docs/pages structure. In my opinion the main aim of using Coda is functionality that is not available in Notion. You should not evaluate Coda with Notion as your reference. Both tools exist on their own merit. This is just "my two cents"
I also used both products and I think Jeroen is absolutely right. The main difference lies in the database functionality and there Coda is better. E.g. you cannot change the key column in a Notion-table; that’s fixed forever. You also have more possibilities to format columns and the different data types within in Coda.
Thanks, Jeroen! This is the feedback I was looking for! I will get back to Coda and deep dive into the possibilities of automation, an area that I actually love! So thanks for sharing 🙋🏻♂️
Another handy feature of Coda is the possibility to make all headings collapsable (not only items in a list as in Notion). In this way also quite long docs remain quite manageable.
What really annoys me about Coda is the almost nonexistent possibility to move content between docs. It’s quite easy to move content within the different parts of a doc, but not between docs. I think this has to do with their pricing model. But it can really be a show stopper.
Can you please clarify which feature you are referring to so I can relate to your question and answer properly? Also, did you watch my chat with Head of Product & Design, Lane from Coda? ua-cam.com/video/ZGARa3mFkaQ/v-deo.html
Coda is a US only program. You can only use US dates. That is a no-go for international teams. It's no application for wiki-fans. You can't link to documents outside a "doc" (dumb Coda terminology). They entirely focus on table functionality. For personal use, why not just use excel?
Oh, I also forgot to mention charts, forms, conditional formatting, publishing, **buttons** ;)
I think with big, expansive tools like notetakers and process management tools one-person comparison videos just fall flat - you have one person using some tool in depth as a daily driver and surface-level fiddling for the comparison on for the other tool. (as one chronic example, find me a productivity blogger or youtuber who knows what OneNote can actually do - you won't). Proper comparisons with two tools probably just plain need two people who use the tool as a daily driver, going through use cases and idiosyncrasies of their respective apps.
Sometimes it's the small things, like how eg. Roam and Obsidian would encourage the user to structure their notes differently due to outline vs. heading-driven Markdown file as the main format, etc.
I agree to a certain extent. In my day job I built my own ticketing system on SharePoint three years ago, which led to a 60% increase in performance of the team with same headcount. This tool is still in use cross-department wise. Today I am a teamleader in my day job in manufacturing IT where I implemented Asana cross-department wise for 160+ people increasing overall performance by 40%. In this company we also use OneNote... So don’t worry about my experience there. 😁 In addition I am a CEO of my Tom Solid Consulting business since three years and have my own team where we switched from Asana to ClickUp and tested tools such as Notion and Monday and have a good idea what could work in team work and what doesn’t. In addition I worked with several clients as a Business Analyst finding and implementing the best team management tools. Before my work in big industry and UA-cam I made my PhD where I was managing my own laboratory and improved efficiency there in order to save costs and increase output. At the same time I was always looking for tools that help me with my personal task and knowledge management. I agree, we have a lot of students on UA-cam explaining us how to be productive. All the do is reading books and summarizing the content. In my opinion there is a lack of real life experience. It is inspirational but should be consumed with care especially when they have a lot of sponsored video. The only sponsor I have is my community, so I can stay unbiased in my opinion and reviews. I hope I was able to explain here that I look at those tools and methods from a different perspective. 😏
@@paperlessmove My point wasn't to call you out for lacking MS chops - the productivity content creator crowd was just an easy, unrelated example we all know. They don't know OneNote because they've never used it. The point was less specific: If I use Complex Powerful System X, and have a look at Complex Powerful System Y, I'm near certain to misevaluate it because actually understanding a complex system takes time. That's why two people using it as a daily driver would be a better format. Lack of familiarity, not bias.
@@Komatik_ aaaah! Got it! Well, this is a good point indeed and this is why I have my interviews on this channel with Inner Circle members and other unbiased guests who are using different tools. I learn a lot about, let's say ClickUp, although I am using it daily, just by learning more about the other people's use cases and workflows. Thanks for the clarification. Appreciate it!
@@paperlessmove Tom FYI... ClickUp recently announced that they will be moving to a database framework/paradigm. This is really exciting and will put the heat on Notion/Coda. I used Notion and Coda for the past 2 years and dumped both for ClickUp. ClickUp docs are not as powerful as Notion/Coda yet, but with their new database structure coming (they say Q1) I would assume the databases will become part of their docs. At that point ClickUp will be the king!
@@josephshields317 I agree! ClickUp is a good bet right now using! With the new relations, they go in the right direction already. And the way DOCs work is the reason why I am still in Notion. Looking forward to Q1! 🚀
On your next dive into Coda, suggest checking out the ability to edit custom “detail” views of a row, which can accommodate embedded tables, bar, pie and Gantt charts, conditional formatting, large text fields, and UI elements like multi-select buttons that can help in managing params, driving notifications or other. Not quite the same as a page (or a canvas,) in that it appears as a modal-
but given that these detail “view” layouts are nameable, manageable and can be invoked from other tables or on a canvas, it becomes a very, very robust feature covering many of the same parameters as a page. Same should apply with formulas- if you have a complex function on a finance table, for example, you can name it, manage it, and call it up wherever you need it.
Coda closed the gap with big improvements with boards in the last months and they added a lot of other stuff. I switched from Notion to Coda and will not look back, its a lot more powerful with formulas and tables
I took the test I found on Coda itself determining whether Notion or Coda was more suited to my personal use case and it suggested I stayed in Notion, so that's where I'm at ❤️
Great comparison. I'm in the process of switching from Notion to Coda. I'm about 90% onboard. The only things I would like to see is dark mode for Coda and bit better formatting for tables.I agree about the relational databases strength of Notion. Coda is like Excel but fun. The power of the buttons in Coda is amazing. I kept spinning and spinning with Notion but never could do that until I stumbled on Coda. I also like how Coda work your files and images. Not as restrictive. For $6 a month with Coda, I signed up right away. With Notion, I never upgraded because all of the paid features seemed to be related to teams. I'm just using this for my daily productivity and keeping my self organized. It's a new year, so I'm going to take the plunge to Coda for this year.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, Glenn! I will also dive deeper into Coda for the reasons you mentioned 👍
You just got your dark mode.
Notion went down again on Feb 13. No offline mode. Deal breaker for many.
Agree
Notion is known for not being very safe because of its privacy issues with API.
Anything to comment on the privacy of Coda, please?
Good review btw.
Good video. I too went back and forth between both products many times. But Coda's power is right with databases, something you had only scratched on the video.
I am torn between notion and coda, what to do? :DD
Do you have any advice for me, since the publication of this excellent and so informed video?
Beware this is not a fair comparison. Seems to be biased towards Notion, not intentionally but because the author have a deep understanding of Notion while lacking experience in Coda. The video therefore focuses on mostly minor details such as automated icon picker while misses to mention what I believe are the fundamental engines where Coda is better than Notion, such as in its more advanced database management, intelligent plugins, interactive features, etc, etc.
Thanks for your Feedback, Max. I am continously looking deeper into Coda as I really think it is a great alternative for Notion. And I can say that I am one of the few on UA-cam NOT sponsored by Notion :D I will have an interview with Coda representatives that will be published on my channel soon, in which we will dive into exactly those differences and what Coda might make the better tool. Stay tuned! :)
Coda is way better than notion
also lot more expensive. The free version is very limited compared to notion.
👉 Get Coda here for FREE + $10 OFF if you sign up: pplmvm.com/Coda
Maybe it's just because I'm so used to Notion, but Coda seems like confusing crap. Even using synonymous terms like 'page' and 'doc' to represent different things is a bad decision, imo.
But are the words “page” and “doc” really synonymous? Even in a word processor, a document can have multiple pages., so Coda's implementation seems logical to me
The structure of Coda is for newcomers indeed not so easy to understand. But it is as follows:
- The topmost element is a workspace. The workspace is the place where your team „lives“. Basically team members can see everything within a workspace (in a Team plan you can control that more fine grained). The workspace is also the unit of billing. I.e. it can be free or you pay for it according to the different pricing plans.
- Within a workspace you can create docs. A doc is sort of a document which can be a small note but also as large as a complete book. For the latter case, Coda offers elements to give the doc more structure.
- A (large) doc may contain pages which may contain sub-pages. Thus you can structure a large doc more or less like a book into chapters and (traditional) pages.
What are your thoughts about Coda? Let us know in the comments below!
Tom, I feel the database automation possibilities in Coda are far more advanced. Seems like you focused mainly on the docs/pages structure. In my opinion the main aim of using Coda is functionality that is not available in Notion. You should not evaluate Coda with Notion as your reference. Both tools exist on their own merit. This is just "my two cents"
I also used both products and I think Jeroen is absolutely right. The main difference lies in the database functionality and there Coda is better. E.g. you cannot change the key column in a Notion-table; that’s fixed forever. You also have more possibilities to format columns and the different data types within in Coda.
Thanks, Jeroen! This is the feedback I was looking for! I will get back to Coda and deep dive into the possibilities of automation, an area that I actually love! So thanks for sharing 🙋🏻♂️
Another handy feature of Coda is the possibility to make all headings collapsable (not only items in a list as in Notion). In this way also quite long docs remain quite manageable.
What really annoys me about Coda is the almost nonexistent possibility to move content between docs. It’s quite easy to move content within the different parts of a doc, but not between docs. I think this has to do with their pricing model. But it can really be a show stopper.
mentions great coda feature, but finds it a plus for notion..... This review is dripping in bias
Can you please clarify which feature you are referring to so I can relate to your question and answer properly? Also, did you watch my chat with Head of Product & Design, Lane from Coda? ua-cam.com/video/ZGARa3mFkaQ/v-deo.html
Coda is a US only program. You can only use US dates. That is a no-go for international teams.
It's no application for wiki-fans. You can't link to documents outside a "doc" (dumb Coda terminology).
They entirely focus on table functionality. For personal use, why not just use excel?