10 Best Notion Alternatives in 2026 (Tested and Priced)
Notion is not going anywhere, but plenty of teams outgrow it or never wanted its price curve in the first place. Short answer: Obsidian if you want a free, local-first app and only pay for the sync add-on; ClickUp Docs at $7/user/mo if docs should live next to your tasks; Confluence if you need a company wiki and are free for up to 10 users.
Notion's own pricing page prices Business, the tier with its AI agent and meeting notes, at $20/member/month billed annually or $24 monthly, and caps the free plan's page history at 7 days and guest count at 10. Dupple data: Toolradar, our software directory, tracks 184 note-taking and personal-knowledge-management tools as of September 2026, on its note-taking ranking. Every price below was read on the vendor's own US pricing page, help center, or in-app FAQ on September 25, 2026.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting paid price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Local-first notes, no account required | $4/mo (Sync, annual) | Full app, forever |
| ClickUp Docs | Docs living inside a project tool | $7/user/mo (Unlimited, annual) | Yes, 60MB storage |
| Confluence | A company wiki for Atlassian teams | $5.42/user/mo (Standard) | Yes, up to 10 users |
| Anytype | Encrypted, block-based, local-first | $4/mo (Plus, annual) | Yes, 100MB storage |
| Capacities | Networked notes organized as objects | $9.99/mo (Pro) | Yes, 5GB media |
| Craft | Design-forward docs on Apple devices | Check current pricing (Plus) | Yes, 1,500 blocks |
| AppFlowy | Open-source, self-hostable workspace | $120/user/yr (Pro, annual) | Yes, 5GB storage |
| Coda, now Superhuman Docs | Doc-as-app trackers and workflows | Check current pricing (Pro) | Yes, limited AI |
| Microsoft Loop | Teams already paying for Microsoft 365 | $9.99/mo (365 Personal) | Yes, with any MS account |
| Evernote | Simple capture, migrating from old Evernote | $14.99/mo (Starter) | Yes, 1 device |
Why people look for a Notion alternative
Notion earns its default status by doing docs, databases, and wikis in one place, so most people who leave are not chasing features, they are reacting to how the bill and the limits grow with the team.
The AI tier costs more than the base plan. Notion's own pricing page reserves Notion Agent, AI Meeting Notes, and Enterprise Search for Business, at $20/member/month billed annually or $24 billed monthly, on top of the $10 or $12 Plus tier that only gets a trial of the AI. A 20-person team buying Business for the AI features pays $4,800 a year at the annual rate, before any Custom Agent usage, which Notion bills separately by the credit.
The free plan chokes once a second person joins. Notion's comparison table lists pages and blocks as unlimited for individuals but limited once a workspace has two or more members, and caps page history at 7 days and external guests at 10 on Free. A team that outgrows those limits is pushed to Plus immediately, not gradually.
Per-seat pricing punishes larger teams fastest. Every member on Business costs $20 to $24 a month whether they write daily or view once a week, which is the same complaint that sends people looking at ClickUp Docs (bundled into a plan you likely already pay for) or Confluence (free until the 11th user).
How we chose
Every tool below replaces the core Notion job: writing, structuring, and sharing notes or docs as a team or solo, not a tangential app. We fetched each vendor's US pricing page, help center, or in-app FAQ on September 25, 2026, and recorded plan names, billing basis, and free-tier limits. No vendor paid for a spot on this list.
Obsidian, the free local-first pick
Obsidian stores every note as a plain Markdown file on your own disk, with no account needed to use the full app, which is the opposite of Notion's cloud-only model. Notes stay yours even if Obsidian the company disappeared tomorrow.
The core app is free without limits. Sync, for cross-device backup and shared vaults, is $4/mo billed annually (higher month to month). Publish, for turning notes into a public website, is $8/mo billed annually (also higher paid monthly). A one-time $25 Catalyst license adds beta access, and a $50/user/year Commercial license is requested (not enforced) for organizational use.
The catch: Obsidian syncs files, it does not offer Notion-style real-time multiplayer editing inside a page. Two people editing the same note at once can create sync conflicts rather than a live cursor.
Pick Obsidian if you want your notes to outlive any single company's servers and you are comfortable paying only for the sync you actually use. Skip it if your team needs to co-edit one document live. See the Obsidian vs Notion comparison for a feature-by-feature breakdown, and the best free note-taking apps for more zero-cost picks.
ClickUp Docs, when docs should sit next to your tasks
ClickUp Docs is the writing surface built into ClickUp's project management suite, so a task, a doc, and a chat thread about both can live in the same workspace instead of three different tabs.
Free Forever includes collaborative Docs with 60MB of storage. Unlimited is $7/user/month billed annually and removes the storage cap. Business is $12/user/month annually and adds unlimited dashboards and message history; both cost more on monthly billing. AI is a separate add-on: Brain AI is $9/user/month and Everything AI is $28/user/month.
The catch: You inherit ClickUp's full task and automation system whether you want it or not. A team that only wants a Notion-style doc tool is buying a much bigger product to get there.
Choose ClickUp Docs if your team already runs projects in ClickUp and wants writing in the same place, not as a standalone notes app. Pair it with the best task management apps if you have not picked the PM layer yet.
Confluence, the wiki for Atlassian teams
Confluence organizes work as spaces and pages built for documentation and knowledge bases, and it is the default choice for any team already running Jira, since permissions and search carry over.
Free is $0 forever for up to 10 users, with 2GB of storage. Standard is $5.42/user/month and adds guest access and 250GB of storage. Premium is $10.44/user/month and adds unlimited pages, spaces, and storage plus a 99.9% uptime SLA. Enterprise is custom-priced.
The catch: The free plan's 10-user cap is a hard wall, not a soft limit. The moment an 11th person needs access, the whole team moves to Standard billing, not just that one seat.
Pick Confluence if your company already lives in Jira and needs a wiki that inherits the same permissions model. Skip it for a small team that just wants quick personal notes. See the best knowledge base software for more wiki-first options.
Anytype, encrypted and local-first
Anytype builds Notion-style blocks and databases on a local-first, end-to-end encrypted foundation, developed by a Swiss association, aimed at people who want Notion's flexibility without a US cloud company holding the data.
Free includes 100MB of remote storage and 10 shared channels. Plus is $4/mo billed annually, with 1GB of storage. Pro is $8/mo annually, with 10GB. Ultra is $16/mo annually, with 100GB. All three cost more on monthly billing. A separate Anytype for Business plan adds SSO, an admin panel, and self-hosting, priced on request.
The catch: 100MB on the free plan disappears fast if you attach images or files to notes, and self-hosting or SSO both require the uncapped Business plan rather than an upgrade path on the consumer tiers.
Choose Anytype if data ownership and encryption matter more than a polished mobile app, and you're fine paying a few dollars a month once storage runs out. For a team plan, the best free note-taking apps covers more no-cost starting points.
Capacities, notes organized as objects
Capacities replaces Notion's page-and-database model with typed "objects" (people, books, projects) that link to each other automatically, which suits anyone building a personal knowledge base rather than a team wiki.
Basic is free with unlimited spaces and objects but caps media at 5GB total, then 100MB a month after that. Pro is $9.99/month or $119.88/year and adds the AI assistant, calendar integrations, and unlimited media uploads. Believer starts at $12.49/month or $149.88/year and adds beta access to new features. A separate AI Power-Up add-on is $8.33/month billed annually.
The catch: The free plan's media cap punishes anyone who saves screenshots or PDFs into notes regularly; you'll hit the 100MB monthly ceiling well before you hit any content limit.
Pick Capacities if you think in linked concepts rather than folders and pages, and you're a solo user or small team. It is not built for company-wide documentation. Compare it against the best AI note-taking tools if AI-assisted capture is the priority.
Craft, design-forward docs for Apple users
Craft leans into visual polish, block-based documents, and native Apple integrations (widgets, Shortcuts, Apple Pencil), which makes it a favorite for people who care how their notes look, not only what they say.
Starter is free with a 1,500-block cap and 1GB storage. Craft's own pricing page showed only euro pricing from our check location on September 25, 2026, with no USD figure published there: Plus removes the content limit, Family bundles 2 to 6 Plus accounts, and Team bundles up to 10 accounts, all cheaper billed annually than monthly. Craft's own pricing FAQ notes prices vary by country, so check current pricing at checkout in your billing region.
The catch: 1,500 blocks sounds generous until you count that most pages use dozens of blocks each; regular note-takers hit the free cap within weeks, not months.
Choose Craft if you're an individual or small team on Apple hardware and want a notes app that looks as good as it works. It's a weaker fit for cross-platform teams on Windows or Android.
AppFlowy, open-source and self-hostable
AppFlowy is an open-source Notion alternative you can run on your own server instead of trusting a vendor's cloud, built for teams that want the block-and-database model with full control over where data lives.
Free is forever, for up to 2 members, 5GB storage, and 10 AI responses a month. Pro is $12.50/user/month billed monthly, or $10/user/month billed annually ($120/year), and removes the storage cap. A separate AI MAX add-on, billed per user monthly, unlocks GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet. Self-hosting the open-source version is free of the per-seat fee entirely.
The catch: Pro is billed per member per workspace, so a five-person Pro team on monthly billing pays $62.50/month ($12.50 times 5), per AppFlowy's own pricing FAQ, not a flat team rate.
Pick AppFlowy if self-hosting or open-source licensing is a requirement, not a nice-to-have. If you just want a cheaper cloud plan, the hosted Pro tier alone won't beat Anytype or Obsidian on price.
Coda, now Superhuman Docs
Coda rebranded in 2026 after Superhuman's acquisition, and its own homepage now reads "Coda is now Superhuman Docs." The product still works as doc-as-app: trackers, forms, and automations built inside a document rather than a separate app.
Free includes collaborative docs, a Docs AI trial, and a free Grammarly trial. Pro and Business are both priced per Doc Maker per month, cheaper billed annually than monthly; the vendor's own page (superhuman.com/plans/docs) showed only euro pricing from our check location on September 25, 2026, with no USD figure published there, so check current pricing before budgeting. Only "Doc Makers," people who create or edit, are billed; viewers and commenters are free.
The catch: The 2026 rename means anyone searching for "Coda pricing" lands on a page now branded Superhuman, mid-transition, which is worth knowing before you commit a team to the migration.
Consider Coda/Superhuman Docs if the tracker-and-automation angle fits your workflow better than plain notes, and confirm the USD price on checkout before buying since the public page did not show one from our check.
Microsoft Loop, if you already pay for Microsoft 365
Microsoft Loop is Microsoft's collaborative canvas, built to sync live components (tables, task lists) across Teams, Outlook, and Word, for organizations already standardized on Microsoft's stack.
The Loop app and its components are free to use with any Microsoft account, work, school, or personal, per Microsoft's own support documentation. Full Microsoft 365 apps and Copilot AI features require a subscription starting at Microsoft 365 Personal, $9.99/month or $99.99/year.
The catch: Loop is not sold as its own product. Adopting it as a Notion swap means buying into the broader Microsoft 365 subscription, not a standalone Loop plan.
Pick Microsoft Loop only if your organization already pays for Microsoft 365; it's effectively free at that point. It is the wrong starting point if you are not already a Microsoft shop.
Evernote, for simple capture
Evernote is the original note-capture app: clip a webpage, scan a document, record a voice memo, and search across all of it. Its core use case has not changed even as pricing has.
Free includes 50 notes, 1 notebook, 1GB of monthly uploads, and 1-device sync. Starter is $14.99/month or $99/year billed annually, per Evernote's own help center. Advanced is $24.99/month or $249.99/year billed annually, with unlimited notes, notebooks, and device sync.
The catch: The 1-device limit on Free is the tightest of any tool here, meaning phone-to-laptop sync alone forces an upgrade. Evernote also retired its older Personal and Professional plans in 2026, so returning users should expect the new Starter and Advanced names and prices, not the ones they remember.
Choose Evernote if capture-and-search (clipping, scanning, voice memos) matters more than structured databases, and you're ready to pay for multi-device sync from day one.
Pricing: what you'll really pay
A year of solo use looks very different depending on whether you pick a free-forever core app or a subscription from day one.
| Tool | Annual cost at entry paid tier | What you get for it |
|---|---|---|
| Obsidian (core) | $0 | Full local app, no sync |
| Confluence (Free) | $0 | Up to 10 users, 2GB storage |
| AppFlowy (self-hosted) | $0 | Full control, own server |
| Anytype (Plus) | $48/yr | 1GB storage, unlimited channels |
| Obsidian (Sync) | $48/yr | Cross-device sync, no publishing |
| Craft (Plus) | Check current pricing | Unlimited blocks, 30-day history |
| ClickUp (Unlimited) | $84/yr per user | Unlimited storage, integrations |
| Confluence (Standard) | $65/yr per user | Guest access, 250GB storage |
| Capacities (Pro) | $119.88/yr | AI assistant, unlimited uploads |
| AppFlowy (Pro) | $120/yr per user | Unlimited storage, up to 50 members |
| Evernote (Starter) | $99/yr | 1,000 notes, 3-device sync |
| Evernote (Advanced) | $249.99/yr | Unlimited notes and devices |
Every figure above is billed annually unless noted; monthly billing on the same plans runs 20 to 40 percent higher across this list, matching the pattern on Notion's own pricing page.
How to choose
You want your notes to outlive any one company. Obsidian or Anytype, both local-first with files or encrypted data you control.
Docs need to live next to tasks and projects. ClickUp Docs, since it's bundled into a tool you may already run for project management.
You're building a company-wide wiki, not personal notes. Confluence, especially if Jira is already in your stack.
You think in linked concepts, not folders. Capacities, for the object-based structure that Notion's flat databases don't quite offer.
Design and Apple integration matter as much as content. Craft, if you're willing to pay for Plus once the free block limit runs out.
Self-hosting or open-source licensing is a hard requirement. AppFlowy, the only tool on this list you can run entirely on your own infrastructure for free.
You're already paying for Microsoft 365. Microsoft Loop costs nothing extra on top of a subscription you likely have.
You just need to capture and search, nothing structured. Evernote, accepting that it now costs more than the version many people remember.
Common mistakes
Assuming every free plan holds up at team size. Craft's free plan caps at 1,500 blocks total, Anytype's free tier caps storage at 100MB, and ClickUp's Free Forever plan caps storage at 60MB. All three fill up fast once more than one person is writing.
Missing the per-seat math on AppFlowy. Pro is priced per member per workspace: a 5-person team on monthly billing pays $62.50/month, not a flat $12.50, per AppFlowy's own pricing FAQ.
Picking Microsoft Loop as a standalone swap. It isn't sold apart from Microsoft 365, so switching means paying for the broader subscription described above, not for Loop alone.
Forgetting Evernote's plan names changed. Anyone quoting old "Personal" or "Professional" prices is off: the current plans are Starter ($14.99/mo) and Advanced ($24.99/mo), introduced in 2026.
Assuming Coda's page shows a USD price. The vendor's own pricing page showed euro pricing from our check location on September 25, 2026, with no dollar figure visible; confirm your local currency at checkout before assuming a number.
Treating Confluence's 10-user free cap as a per-seat allowance. The 11th user does not cost extra on Free, it moves the entire team to Standard billing at $5.42/user/month.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free Notion alternative in 2026?
Obsidian, for solo or personal use: the core app is free without limits and stores notes as local files. For a free team wiki up to 10 users, Confluence's Free plan matches that closest to a no-cost company tool.
What is the cheapest paid Notion alternative?
Obsidian Sync and Anytype Plus are the lowest paid entry points on this list, both billed annually. AppFlowy's self-hosted open-source version has no subscription fee at all if you run your own server.
Is there an open-source Notion alternative?
AppFlowy is the open-source pick here: you can self-host it for free and skip AppFlowy's hosted Pro pricing entirely, trading the convenience of managed hosting for full control of your data.
Which Notion alternative works offline and local-first?
Obsidian and Anytype both store data locally by default rather than requiring a live connection to a vendor's cloud, which is the opposite of Notion's cloud-only model.
What is the best Notion alternative for a team already on Microsoft 365?
Microsoft Loop, since it's included in the Microsoft 365 subscription most of those teams already pay for rather than a separate purchase.
Is Coda still called Coda?
Not exactly. Coda's own homepage states it is now "Superhuman Docs" following Superhuman's 2026 acquisition, though the pricing page URL and Doc Maker billing model carried over.
Which Notion alternative is best for a company wiki?
Confluence, particularly for teams already running Jira: it's free for up to 10 users and scales to 250GB of storage on the $5.42/user/month Standard plan.
Bottom line
If Notion's per-seat AI pricing is the complaint, ClickUp Docs or Confluence both bundle documentation into a tool you may already be paying for elsewhere. If the issue is trusting your notes to one company's cloud, Obsidian and Anytype both keep data local or encrypted by default. Match the switch to what actually bothers you about Notion, not just the first alternative that comes up in a search.
Cite this: Dupple, "10 Best Notion Alternatives in 2026", September 2026.
Start your free 14-day trial of Dupple to build the rest of your content workflow around whichever workspace you land on. For the wider category, see the best note-taking apps, the best free note-taking apps, and the best AI note-taking apps.
Related guides
Across our whole catalogue the median is $24 a month and 33% of tools advertise a free tier. Figures are the lowest recurring monthly price quoted in our own review of each tool, read on 2026-08-19. Full method and every category.
