What is the best note taking tool?

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized note-taking, making it smarter, faster and more intuitive than ever before. Two outstanding competitors in this space are Notion and NotebookLM – both are packed with advanced AI features designed to increase your productivity. But when it comes down to it, which one is really the best?

AI performance

NotebookLM uses Google Gemini as its big language model, and while it’s still in beta at the time of writing, its potential is huge. You can use Gemini in many other applications, and we’ve already tested whether Gemini in Google Sheets is more than just a gimmick.

Notion claims to currently use various large language models (LLMs) hosted by Notion as well as organizations such as Anthropic and OpenAI. This diversity gives Notion AI access to a large amount of knowledge, making it quite robust in terms of functionality.

While both tools offer impressive AI, Notion gets a point for its broader AI integration without undermining the power of Google Gemini — which still shines in the Google ecosystem.

Winner: Concept

User experience

User-friendliness was one of the reasons I was initially drawn to Notion. Almost three years later, my thoughts on this matter have only solidified. While I’ve had issues using other note-taking apps on different devices, my experience with Notion has been seamless on mobile, desktop, and tablet. The web application also works very well in most browsers.

NotebookLM was fine once I got used to it, but to be honest I found navigating the app a challenge at first. This is perhaps an unfair comparison as Notion is more of a finished product and NotebookLM is in beta with a long way to go. However, the sidebar navigation could be simplified and the responsiveness – especially in the settings menu – needs improvement.

Winner: Concept

Summarizing skills

NotebookLM had no problems summarizing documents somewhat accurately. I tried asking different questions hoping to get some more tips but unfortunately the app didn’t give me any. So if you want detailed summaries, you’ll need to provide the software with a more comprehensive document to draw from.

One thing I liked was that NotebookLM made it very clear what the most important topics were in my document. It summarized it well and made them clearly visible on the toolbar, allowing me to jot down some notes if needed. Another thing I liked was that NotebookLM quickly summarized my documents.

The Notion AI summarization tool disappointed me with how buggy it was. The software took longer than necessary to load the summary, no matter what medium I tried it on. It redeemed itself (somewhat) in how everything was arranged. I liked that Notion AI not only gave me a list of points but also showed me some expandable ones. So it’s easy to see what my next steps should be and what not.

While I liked Notion AI’s summarization, NotebookLM did well here as well. And because the app was more stable, it had to learn.

Winner: NotebookLM

Note Customization

NotebookLM and Notion differed significantly in the customization of notes. While I was able to change the name of the NotebookLM notes, I was unable to make any other adjustments.

On the other hand, Notion is one of the best note taking apps that allows customization. In Notion, you can add comments, highlight text, insert multiple elements, and format your notes however you want—like tables and embedding external documents. Notion also makes it easy to mention other people in your notes if you need to collaborate with them.

Another nice thing about Notion is that you can customize your notes by choosing from a handful of fonts. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Notion is by far the more impressive app of the two in this regard. Beyond the notes themselves, you can also use Notion more efficiently by customizing the entire workspace.

Winner: Concept

Third Party Integration

Notion integrates with many apps, including Google Drive, Asana, and GitHub. If you don’t want to pay for Notion AI (and then get unlimited access to this feature), you can also integrate a number of AI tools. These include Nightfall AI and cloudeagle.ai.

What I especially like about Notion is how easy it is to access the apps you’ve already integrated. For example, when I insert a Google Doc, it immediately appears on my site. You can also integrate Notion with Miro, ClickUp, Trello, and other collaboration tools to supplement your notes.

NotebookLM integrates with other Google Workspace tools. So if you already use Google Workspace, using NotebookLM might make sense. However, it lacks integration with non-Google apps. If you want to use them, Notion is the perfect choice, and it gets an extra point for that.

Winner: Concept

Features without AI

Notion and NotebookLM also differ significantly in their non-AI features. NotebookLM is completely focused on AI features, so you’ll be frustrated if you try to do anything else. You also need to upload the resource, whether it’s a document, website or something else; you can’t use the app without it.

On the other hand, Notion is not built exclusively on Notion AI. The feature itself is a relatively new addition (arriving in early 2023). As such, the app has a lot of non-AI features that I’ve used for several years and thoroughly enjoyed.

When you use Notion, you can start notes from scratch and create multiple workspaces. You also have the option to use Notion templates to create Gantt charts, calendars and more. Once again, the Notion’s versatility makes it a stronger contender.

Winner: Concept

Even if Notion wins overall, NotebookLM is still a great tool. However, the term has several other uses; if you plan to write notes from scratch, you should use this tool and then summarize them in NotebookLM.

I also recommend using Notion if you need to collaborate with others. Features like comments, highlighting, and mentions make it much easier to work as part of a team on your work or study. Additionally, Notion’s full list of integrations is much better compared to NotebookLM – especially if you don’t use Google Workspace.

If you just need to summarize notes, I recommend NotebookLM over Notion. It doesn’t lag that far anywhere, and they are quite similar in their summarizing properties. Just make sure you give him enough information to work with!