Airtable, a modular take on Microsoft Excel, is collecting accolades and climbing popularity charts quickly. While Notion and Coda’s unique take on modular productivity managed to attract early adopters and consumers. Both Notion and Coda let you use varieties of templates and keyboard shortcuts. The aim is to organize and manage a note/page with add-ons and come up with a solution based on your needs. You can create notes, build-up wiki, plan upcoming travel, and more. But more importantly, they let you replace your existing to-do and project management apps such as Trello and Asana with built-in templates designed for such requirements. In this post, I will compare both Notion and Coda based on task and project management, UI, pricing, availability, and more.
Availability
Notion is available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Web. To provide a seamless experience across platforms, the company uses the same UI on mobile, PC, and web. Download Notion for iOS Download Notion for Android Notion Web My only gripe is Notion mobile apps. Instead of being native, they are essentially the web wrappers. Coda is available on web, iOS, and Android. Even though both apps are accessible on mobile platforms, the experience is best served on the web. Download Coda for iOS Download Coda for Android Coda Web
User Interface
Coda terms itself as a powerful tool where each section works as a dedicated app on mobile platforms. Here, we will focus on the web version. The interface by default shows the docs created by the users. The left side menu lets you access the starred notes, shared notes, templates, and more. Tap on ‘+ New Doc’ and the white background carrying interface will remind you of Google Docs. The left panel shows the section menu, which works as tabs on the mobile. You can start typing a normal note or add a table, copy docs file, add calendar chart, and use the built-in templates from the below menu. Notion appears like a broad white canvas. You can add templates to it and start organizing the stuff. The major options such as pages and sub-sections are at the left. The thing about Notion is, it won’t throw every detail at the user. The editing options are available as soon as you use the ‘/‘ command. Of course, you must memorize the most useful Notion commands to get the maximum out of it.
Task Management
Both Notion and Coda offer functionality to make to-do lists. That could be a worthy replacement of the existing solutions such as Todoist or TickTick. You will have to use templates to get started. Coda has several to-do templates, and you can choose one according to your requirements. In the example below, I have added several tasks based on priority, due date, and time. You can also add new columns with date, comment, buttons, etc. I have automated daily triggers that push a notification with a message saying ‘check today’s tasks’ at 9 AM. Tap on the small robot icon on the upper-left corner and set the rules with if and that possibility. It’s similar to IFTTT. Check out the above screenshots from the iOS app to get an idea about how it looks on a small device. Notion’s weekly agenda template is my favorite and I humbly recommend it to everyone. You can give it a relevant name, add a cover photo, and icon to get started. Now, add tasks below the weekdays, and as a bonus, you can integrate reminder notifications too. Type ‘/remind’ and add the date and time to get notified on mobile or PC. Unlike Coda, the interface looks the same on mobile as on PC.
Project Management
Notion and Coda are targeting dedicated project management solutions such as Trello, Asana, and Jira with built-in templates. I have selected Kanban-style template from Coda community, and it works great with different table views. The default style resembles a bit with the one in Trello. You can move/rename tabs, move them from one tab to another, assign tasks to team members, and change status based on the task. One can even add relevant images to a certain task. I use it for tackling ongoing issues/bugs with any project. For a project that involves testing a development build of a software, I can undertake quite a lot of actions. For starters, I add the known issues with some details, assign it to relevant team members, integrate the status button, and add images to show the bugs. Notion offers several project management tools, but Roadmap is my favorite one. To me, Roadmap template is like Trello on steroids. You can keep track of ongoing projects, add issues, integrate tags, share it with a team member, and more. Not only that, but one can also tap on the tab and see all the details regarding it. You can add as many suitable table contents as you wish. After that, you need to integrate tags and button to get the maximum out of the template.
Pricing
As of now, Coda is free of cost. The company plans to introduce a pricing model in the future. Notion offers two types of subscription. For personal use, you can opt for $4/month plan or go with a team plan which costs $8/month per member.
Pick One Wisely
Comparing Coda and Notion brings out their salient features clearly. Both apps offer compelling task and project management capabilities with the help of templates. However, both differ when it comes to execution. Coda turns each document and its sections into a dedicated app on mobile while Notion sticks to the original look with minor UI changes. Either way, they are more than project management apps. Now, it’s entirely up to you on how you plan to manage the software with several built-in templates. Next up: Notion comes with several keyboard shortcuts to get things done. Read the post below to see the top Notion shortcuts to improve your productivity. The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.
