BookStack vs. Notion

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BookStack
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Notion
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Notion aims to present users with an all-in-one workspace — for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, from Notion Labs in San Francisco.
$0
Pricing
BookStackNotion
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
Plus
$12
per month per user
Business
$24
per month per user
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BookStackNotion
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BookStackNotion
Features
BookStackNotion
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
BookStack
-
Ratings
Notion
9.9
Ratings
25% above category average
Task Management00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Search00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
BookStack
-
Ratings
Notion
9.6
Ratings
19% above category average
Chat00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
BookStack
-
Ratings
Notion
9.9
Ratings
23% above category average
Versioning00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings9.90 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BookStackNotion
Small Businesses
Front
Front
Score 7.2 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Guru
Guru
Score 9.5 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Guru
Guru
Score 9.5 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BookStackNotion
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BookStackNotion
Likelihood to Recommend
BookStack is fantastic for having business users and not-so-technically-savvy IT users. It enables them to create a documentation they like in a visual way while still forcing them to adhere to logical structure of a document. It works fine even for more technical matters such as integration guidelines, especially when these concern some of the more obscure technologies. The exported docs are presentable but lack any interactivity. Where it lacks is generating heavily technical documentations. Heavier REST or GraphQL integrations should for example be documented through other means. As for developer documentations, there are definitely more suitable alternatives, also.
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At the company I work for, we use Notion as an organizational base for all sectors and projects. For example, we use it for the marketing team, customer support team, among others. And for each one, we can create pipelines, tasks, due dates, execution time, tags with different colors. It's something very versatile that helps with everything around here. We've even created a sales funnel in Notion.
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Pros
  • Documentation
  • Guides
  • Knowledge-base
  • Version control
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  • I love that you can create nested pages, allowing for separate sections to organize information as needed.
  • I appreciate the convenience of effortlessly uploading images to any section.
  • I appreciate that when adding links, you can embed them so the website displays directly on the page.
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Cons
  • Continuity in backward compatibility
  • Dark mode
  • Absent tree view
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  • I use Notion on my personal tablet, and unlike on the computer, I have a lot of difficulty editing backgrounds, GIFs, and page dividers. It's not as user-friendly, and often the elements end up cut off or misaligned, which is frustrating.
  • While the current calendar feature is helpful, I'd love to see more customization options. The Google Calendar style isn't always ideal, especially for tasks without specific times or for ongoing projects that require daily maintenance.
  • It would be fantastic to have more flexibility in customizing Notion pages. For example, I'd love to create planners with the freedom to add illustration boxes, stickers, or GIFs without being restricted to a fixed layout.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We're too settled in the ecosystem and we have no major complaints with it. No reason to move unless you have a burning pain point
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Notion addresses most of our needs and help teams to organize their tasks, track their progresses and then archive for future reference. The company uses Notion to share announcement, holiday schedules, employee contact information and organizational structures. Everyone finds it useful and helpful. The notifications are instant. Reminders are on time.
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Alternatives Considered
Confluence, having only a slight advantage in terms of features compared to BookStack, really only makes sense to procure as a part of the Jira bundle. It requires much more maintenance from my experience and does not really deliver any extra value aside from the very strict certifications like HIPAA. DokuWiki and MediaWiki both provided way too much in terms of customizability, not really focusing on the business need. Of course, MediaWiki was conceived for a whole different purpose but is very often seen being used for both internal and public documentation delivery. DokuWiki did not provide the authors with the user-friendly environment that BookStack has and integrated most poorly with LDAP. As for OneNote, which was used for support docs prior to BookStack, it provided the authors with too much of a user-friendly environment, rendering the product of their work very inconsistent. Also, the sharing model was either peer-to-peer or within Teams, neither of which made it easy to audit and supervise.
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Notion is much more robust than Google Tasks, which I find very limited. Notion is far more customizable and affordable than Asana, which is more of a turnkey solution for teams that want to work within a pre-defined structure. Notion and ClickUp are comparable, in my opinion, in terms of task management and affordability, however Notion is the more customizable and expansive option whereas ClickUp is mostly just for task management.
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Return on Investment
  • Spillover within Business IT staff up, nearly double substitutability. This is through the ability of a support technician servicing a different product to find a guide describing how to solve the more frequent issues the way a product lead would do it.
  • Time to draft and publish a documentation down some 20% compared to previous solution.
  • OpenSource that integrates fine with enterprise-grade software and somehow even passes security audit. 20 times cheaper to implement compared to Confluence, almost free to maintain.
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  • It has streamlined our processes across various teams to all work from a signle source of truth
  • Maintaining this source of truth is a full time job
  • It has reduced our overall tool set by completely eliminating two other softwares we were paying for
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ScreenShots