Notion vs. Craft — The Race to Reinvent Note-Taking
Notion needs a severe facelift. Craft docs are catching up fast.
Notion has over 30 million users today, with an annual revenue of $43.5 M in 2022 — an increase from $32 M in 2021.
There are many reasons why Notion’s growth strategy is different. Using a large base of people, segmenting their audiences, and harnessing the power of community has been their driving force of growth.
Notion is cross-platform like Evernote; you can use it anywhere — Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and the Web.
This is killer and likely one of the reasons why it’s so popular.
But, Notion has a problem.
Usually, people don’t notice it, but we note-taking aficionados do.
I’m talking about speed.
However, that does come with a small set of drawbacks.
First, how can a small team of developers maintain this quasifree app on every platform? They only preserve one web app and reuse it on Windows and Mac.
It’s not an app specifically crafted from the ground up for your operating system.
Even when using the standalone app, you’re using a Chrome tab with all of the positives and negatives attached to that.
Second Notion is primarily a Web-based service.
This is great because it means you can store gigabytes of data, and it won’t take up any space on your machine.
However, it also means you must rely on your Internet connection for almost everything.
Yes, there is an offline mode, but many features that make Notion appealing don’t work offline.
Third Notion team has been optimizing performance for a while and has made tremendous progress.
But when it comes down to it, browsing Notion is basically like browsing a website, so opening pages, but especially searching your notes.
Well, it’s historically been slow.
And, here comes ‘Craft.’
If you are in the Apple ecosystem, Craft is similar to Notion in many ways and tackles Notion’s problems well.
The main selling point of Craft is that it is a native app for both macOS and iOS and works offline first. So you do have sync between devices. That has been working great for me so far.
But the app was built from the ground up to start offline. This means the search is blazing fast.
The app generally feels fast, and it’s a bit of a generic term, but it’s just pleasant to use.
The design is minimal yet functional. It respects Apple’s design choices, so it feels like a proper Mac and iOS app, and everything is as smooth as butter.
In both macOS and iOS, the app has the same design language, so switching between the two is easy.
Craft Is much similar to Notion.
It’s got many of the things you expect and that you had in Notion.
- First and foremost, it works with the same block system. So you create blocks with text and files and move them around. You have collaboration, so many people can work on the same document.
2. You can link to your notes from other notes. You can connect to individual blocks.
3. A great thing about Notion is that you can quickly share the page you’re working on as a link with others so they can also see it. It’s a neat way to have what a website is without having to build a website. Craft has that, too, for single pages.
4. The people at Craft are also developing a web version of the app. So for people who use Android or Windows, or if you want to access your notes from a browser, you will be able to do that too.
In the future, you’ll be able to enjoy the speed of the native app while enjoying the portability of a web app. So it’s all great.
It’s got everything Notion has, but faster.
The answer is no, not quite.
Craft is on an upward trend, but they need to work on a few areas.
I’ll show you some of the downsides of Craft so you can make an informed decision.
First of all, it’s paid.
The free tier limits you to 10 blocks, which is nice, but that won’t do it for long-term use of the app.
Notion is also a subscription, but you don’t need it. The free plan is more than enough.
Another downside is that it’s almost a meme among Craft users, but there are no databases or tables. Well, they recently launched tables, which is working well for me.
I love using Notion precisely because of this. I can have Kanban boards for ideas and tracking my project progress, but Craft doesn’t have that.
Craft is fast and slick, and UX is excellent.
My final thoughts are:
The purpose of a writing app or a note-taking app is to get you to write more or to take more notes. Therefore, having a writing app you always use is helpful.
It should make you want to open it and use it. Try both for a while and go with your gut. Put them both on your dock and observe.
Which one do you end up reaching for the most? Well, I’m willing to bet they’ll be neck and neck.
