You grow up watching movies about artists who were hunched over in a dimly lit room, scribbling furiously on a notepad, only to crumple the page in frustration and launch it toward an overflowing trash can.
As dramatic as that may seem, in reality—content creators, project managers, and designers fare no better without organized workspaces.
This is where productivity tools like Milanote and Notion step in. Their visual workspaces and real-time collaboration features intuitively integrate tasks, notes, and projects into a centralized knowledge hub that helps improve overall productivity.
But which of Milanote vs. Notion is the better choice for your workflow? In this article, we’ll review and compare their features and pricing.
Summarize this article for me please⏰ 60-Second Summary
Explore the strengths and weaknesses of Milanote and Notion and how ClickUp bridges the gaps found in both tools:
- Creatives and professionals need a workspace that keeps ideas, projects, and notes organized
- Milanote shines for visual thinkers with freeform brainstorming, mood boards, and drag-and-drop organization
- Notion is a powerhouse for structured workflows, offering databases, AI writing tools, and deep integrations
- Both tools have gaps—Milanote lacks deep integrations, while Notion requires manual effort to connect ideas with execution
- ClickUp combines the best of both worlds by integrating whiteboards, mind maps, docs, and AI-powered automation into one platform
- ClickUp Brain enhances productivity by automating repetitive tasks, summarizing updates, and providing AI-driven insights, reducing manual work
Milanote vs. Notion: Which Productivity Tool Is Right for You?
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat is Milanote?
That’s how Jeremy Perez-Cruz, Brand Design Manager at Uber, describes Milanote—and we’re about to break this comment down.
Milanote offers a visual workspace that allows for a 360-degree view of projects. You can refine your ideas by adding references, samples, and creative assets to one canvas. This way, you get a collaborative overview that helps you catch flaws before they become irreversible.
Functionally, Milanote is a note-taking app built for brainstorming, planning, and executing projects. Milanote’s drag-and-drop system lets you arrange everything—from to-do lists and deadlines to media assets and research links—without breaking your flow.
Whether you’re a designer, writer, filmmaker, photographer, entrepreneur, or visual thinker, it’s a powerful visual collaboration software that adapts to your specific needs.
💡 Pro Tip: You can nest Milanote’s boards inside one another, categorizing everything from client work to personal projects in a way that makes sense to you and your team.
Milanote features
Milanote users often highlight one thing: It’s a simple tool with extraordinary features. Here’s what they mean.
1. Visual boards for bringing ideas to life
Think of Milanote’s boards as a mix of Pinterest, a whiteboard, and an artist’s inspired sketchbook. You can drag and drop notes, images, links, sketches, and media assets into a fully customizable layout.
Whether you’re creating a mood board, mapping out mind maps, or planning a project, the flexibility of these boards lets you structure ideas your way—not the way some rigid admin tools force you to.
📖 Also Read: Mind-Blowing Mind Map Examples
2. Intuitive note-taking for visual thinkers
If standard note-taking apps bore you, Milanote is a breath of fresh air.
Instead of a dull, linear text editor, Milanote lets you write notes freely and connect them with arrows, colors, and visual elements. These are the best circumstances for visual brainstorming.
3. Easy team collaboration
Milanote offers real-time collaboration, making sharing boards, leaving feedback, and tracking progress easy.
Need input from your team? Just comment on an idea, and everyone will be in the loop.
4. Drag-and-drop task management
Milanote doubles as a task management tool. With its simple to-do lists, version history tracking, and workflow organization, you can move from brainstorming to execution without switching between other apps.
5. Inspiration on your fingertips
Creative minds are always researching and connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated ideas—but keeping track of images, YouTube videos, articles, and design inspo can be a nightmare. Milanote’s Web Clipper lets you grab anything from the internet and save it straight to your boards, so you never lose that big idea again.
Milanote pricing
- Free
- Pay per person: $9.99/month
- Team plan: $49/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Psst…if Milanote isn’t quite the right fit, don’t stress—plenty of Milanote alternatives offer powerful features for organizing creative projects. Check them out in this blog post!
📮 ClickUp Insight: Your employees are scrambling for information.
The average knowledge worker relies on input from six different people to complete their tasks. That’s six daily touchpoints just to gather context, align priorities, and push projects forward. The challenge? Endless follow-ups, version mix-ups, and gaps in visibility that slow everything down.
ClickUp’s Connected Search and AI Knowledge Management solve this by centralizing information, ensuring instant access to the right context—no chasing required.
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat is Notion?
At its core, Notion is a note-taking app, but it offers an all-in-one workspace, allowing you to connect ideas, organize creative assets, and build a task management system that works for you.
Whether you need a CRM, project management software, or a personal journal, Notion adapts to your specific needs. And with Notion AI, the app even helps you write, brainstorm, and structure content—basically, an extra brain for when yours is fried from too many tabs open.
💡 Pro Tip: Notion is great for notes, but when it comes to multiple projects, there’s a lot to consider—this Notion for project management guide breaks down its strengths, limitations, and smarter alternatives.
Notion features
Notion molds into your workflow, not the other way around. Here’s a quick overview of how Notion’s features can help you:
1. Block-based system for ultimate customization
Forget rigid templates—Notion offers a block-based system where everything is modular.
Want a to-do list next to a knowledge hub? Done. Need Kanban boards, databases, and embedded YouTube videos all in one view? Easy.
Notion lets you build your workspace exactly how you need it, making it perfect for managing teams, workflow management, content creation, and even personal organization.
2. A powerful project management tool
Notion is built for more than just notes—it doubles as a project management tool with features like Kanban boards, timelines, and calendar views. Use it to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress—all in one place.
3. Collaboration that actually works
Team updates are part of the same ecosystem in Notion since the platform enables real-time collaboration. Team members can edit, comment, and track changes on shared tasks, docs, and wikis without drowning in endless Slack messages.
4. Notion AI for smart automation
Notion AI writes summaries, generates action items, and even translates content. Imagine the heightened productivity you can achieve when AI helps cut down brainstorming and drafting efforts!
5. Integrations and third-party tools
Notion plays well with others. From Google Calendar to Zapier, it connects with other apps to sync schedules, automate workflows, and improve productivity. If you need a general-purpose tool that fits seamlessly into your existing workflow, Notion has you covered.
Notion pricing
- Free
- Plus: $10 per seat/month
- Business: $15 per seat/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
📖 Also Read: What in the World is Whiteboard Project Management?
Summarize this article for me pleaseMilanote vs. Notion: Features Compared
The challenge with workspaces is that creatives, designers, and project managers need a tool that thinks the way they do. So does Milanote blend into your everyday workflows better than Notion? Let’s find out.
| Feature | Milanote | Notion |
| User interface | Freeform, drag-and-drop canvas for visual organization | Modular, block-based system for structured workflows |
| Task management | Basic to-do lists, simple workflow organization | Kanban boards, progress tracking, automations, dependencies |
| Collaboration | Real-time collaboration with shared boards and comments | Document-focused collaboration with real-time editing, mentions, and comments |
| AI capabilities | Lacks AI features | Notion AI helps generate summaries, action items, translations |
| Integrations | Limited third-party integrations | Extensive integrations with Google Calendar, Slack, Zapier, and more |
Feature #1: Visual brainstorming vs. structured organization
Imagine dumping every idea, reference, and asset onto a giant whiteboard, then being able to move them around, group them, and connect them visually. That’s Milanote. It’s perfect for brainstorming sessions, mood boards, or mind-mapping ideas naturally rather than force-fitting them into a rigid, templated structure.
Notion, on the other hand, is built for structured organization. Everything is stored in pages, subpages, and databases. If you love creating tables, tags, filters, and templates, Notion will be your best friend. However, it can feel overly structured if you just want to throw ideas onto a page and organize them later.
🏆 Winner: Milanote, for creatives who need a freeform, visual workspace
Feature #2: Task management for creative teams
Milanote and Notion both handle task management but in very different ways.
Notion offers Kanban boards, progress tracking, and automation features. If you’re running a content calendar or managing software development, Notion gives you more control over deadlines, dependencies, and tracking progress.
Milanote keeps things visual. It works great when tasks are part of a larger creative process, like designing a new brand identity, where everything evolves visually over time.
🏆 Winner: Notion, if you need a full-fledged project management tool with detailed task tracking
Feature #3: Collaboration and feedback
Getting client or team feedback is often painful, with endless email chains, misplaced comments, and version control nightmares.
With Milanote, you can share a board with clients, add comments directly to visuals, and track changes without losing the bigger picture. This is what dreams are made of for teams working on brand strategy, ad campaigns, or UX design.
Notion offers great collaboration tools, but it’s mostly document-focused. You can assign tasks, leave comments, track changes, and store shared knowledge, making it great for teams managing reports, SOPs, and databases. However, if you’re working on visual projects, Notion feels limited compared to Milanote.
🏆 Winner: It’s a tie! Milanote for real-time visual collaboration. Notion wins for document-heavy teams needing a centralized knowledge base
Feature #4: Integrations and third-party tools
Milanote is incredibly self-sufficient but doesn’t offer deep integrations with third-party apps. This might be limiting if you rely on Google Calendar, Slack, or automation tools like Zapier.
Notion allows you to automate workflows by integrating with Google Calendar, Slack, Trello, and Zapier. It’s a connected ecosystem that can replace multiple apps in your stack.
🏆 Winner: Notion, for detailed project management
Summarize this article for me pleaseMilanote vs. Notion on Reddit
There is no better way to test a tool’s efficiency than hearing reviews—positive and critical—directly from its users. Reddit users have a lot to say about Milanote vs. Notion, and the debate usually boils down to creativity vs. structure.
Milanote tends to attract designers, writers, and visual thinkers who love its freeform, mood board-like layout. It’s great for brainstorming, organizing ideas, and mapping out concepts without feeling boxed in.
One Reddit user shared their experience with Milanote, saying,
However, some point out its limitations in structured data handling and also pricing tiers:
Notion’s flexibility is a major draw for users who need a balance between writing, planning, and managing workflows. Many Reddit users appreciate its customizable templates, interconnected databases, and collaboration features.
One Reddit user highlighted how Notion lets you personalize your workspace to any degree:
Despite its advanced features, Notion can miss out on supporting users with tasks and follow-ups:
One Reddit user quoted:
💡 Pro Tip: If Notion isn’t quite cutting it for your note-taking needs, this blog rounds up the best Notion alternatives to help you find the perfect fit for capturing and organizing ideas.
Summarize this article for me pleaseMeet ClickUp—The Best Alternative to Milanote and Notion
Milanote is great for visual thinkers and visual representations of your most complex ideas. Notion, with its intuitive interface, is often preferred for project customization. But ClickUp replaces both at once.
As you progress and scale, you will start to realize fragmented information across tools hurts your productivity. Which is why it is never advised to rely on multiple tools.
ClickUp is the everything app for work—it combines project management, knowledge organization, and real-time collaboration in one AI-powered platform.
📮ClickUp Insight: Context-switching is silently eating away at your team’s productivity. Our research shows that 42% of disruptions at work come from juggling platforms, managing emails, and jumping between meetings. What if you could eliminate these costly interruptions?
ClickUp unites your workflows (and chat) under a single, streamlined platform. Launch and manage your tasks from across chat, docs, whiteboards, and more—while AI-powered features keep the context connected, searchable, and manageable!
1. ClickUp’s One Up #1: ClickUp Whiteboards
Take ClickUp Whiteboards, for example. Unlike Milanote, where ideas often stay isolated and disconnected from execution, ClickUp Whiteboards are fully integrated with your tasks, docs, and workflows.
This way, ClickUp Whiteboards allow you to do more than just brainstorm—you build, refine, and execute ideas in one place. Jot down concepts, connect them to real tasks, and assign action items directly within your workspace.
Since ClickUp offers a centralized and structured workspace, you don’t even have to reach for other apps to store and organize your ideas. You get embed docs, link related tasks, and even generate AI-powered visuals without leaving your board.
Need a quick head start? ClickUp Whiteboards lets you choose from 1000+ whiteboard templates for project planning, team collaboration, and strategy mapping.
2. ClickUp’s One Up #2: ClickUp Mind Maps
Translate brainstorming into action quickly using ClickUp Mind Maps—no extra steps, no fragmented workflows. As you map complex, interconnected ideas, convert any node into a trackable task and assign it to the right teammate.
Mind Maps are ideal for charting out project workflows, outlining content strategies, organizing team structures, and even visualizing dependencies between connected tasks.
While ClickUp Whiteboards are open-ended and collaborative, ideal for freeform discussions and visualizing workflows, Mind Maps are structured and hierarchical, perfect for breaking down ideas systematically.
💡 Pro Tip: With the Re-Layout option, messy mind maps automatically realign into structured workflows, making it easy to track priorities and facilitate execution.
3. ClickUp’s One Up #3: ClickUp Docs and ClickUp Brain
For those who rely on Notion for documentation, ClickUp Docs offer a smarter alternative.
ClickUp Docs eliminate the common issue of buried information by allowing users to connect documents directly to tasks, embed action items, and even use AI-powered search to surface the right information instantly.
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re revamping your brand, don’t let scattered documents slow you down. ClickUp’s Knowledge Base Template keeps all branding guidelines, FAQs, and resources in one place—so everyone stays on the same page from day one.
But ClickUp’s AI isn’t just known for its searching prowess—ClickUp Brain contributes heavily to the creative process as well.
Imagine a design team brainstorming a brand refresh. In Milanote, they might create a visually inspiring board with color palettes, typography, and references.
But then what? Someone has to manually translate those ideas into a project plan. Notion could help with structured project documentation, but it still relies on manual input to connect ideas with actual tasks.
But ClickUp Brain automates the whole process:
- It automatically generates tasks, assigns owners, and sets deadlines through simple prompts
- It suggests content improvements, summarizes feedback, and generates polished drafts
- Finally, it gathers insights from past research, generates competitive comparisons, and suggests positioning tweaks
4. ClickUp’s One Up #4: ClickUp Notepad
Then there’s ClickUp Notepad, a simple but powerful tool for jotting down quick thoughts and to-dos.
Unlike standalone note-taking apps, it integrates directly with task management. This means users can convert a quick note into a full-fledged task with deadlines and assignees in seconds.
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re drowning in messy notes, learning how to use AI in note-taking can help you gain instant visual organization, smart summaries, and zero missed details.
5. ClickUp’s One Up #5: ClickUp Tasks
Speaking of task management, ClickUp outshines Notion with its dedicated task views.
While Notion requires users to create task databases manually, ClickUp Tasks can be visualized in Kanban, List, Gantt, and Calendar views out of the box, allowing teams to switch between different perspectives without extra setup time and hassle.
6. ClickUp’s One Up #6: ClickUp AI Notetaker
Notion and Milanote are great for documentation, but when it comes to meetings, ClickUp’s AI Notetaker has no match.
If you spend your day jumping from one call to another, you’re all too familiar with confusion, lost details, and follow-up emails that take up more time than the meeting itself. You may have tried other tools, but they often fall short.
Unlike tools like Otter.ai and Fireflies, ClickUp AI Notetaker doesn’t just record your meetings—it connects your notes to the rest of your work.
With built-in AI, you can search transcripts, extract action items, and sync them directly to projects, keeping your team aligned without the extra legwork. Get:
- Automatic transcriptions and summaries
- Instant task creation
- Seamless integration with Docs
And the best part is that you don’t need to hop between apps—ClickUp integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, allowing you to keep meeting notes, tasks, and discussions in one centralized workspace.
📮 ClickUp Insight: 37% of workers send follow-up notes or meeting minutes to track action items, but 36% still rely on other, fragmented methods. Without a unified system for capturing decisions, key insights you need may get buried in chats, emails, or spreadsheets.
With ClickUp, you can instantly turn conversations into actionable tasks across all your tasks, chats, and docs—ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Summarize this article for me pleaseIdeas Need More Than a Notion—ClickUp Makes Them Real
We’ve extensively explored Milanote’s visual creativity and Notion’s structured organization, but when it comes to blending both seamlessly, ClickUp does it best.
ClickUp combines Whiteboards for brainstorming, Mind Maps for strategic planning, Docs for knowledge sharing, and AI-powered automation to bring ideas to life—all within one unified platform.
Why switch between multiple tools? Sign up for ClickUp for free and experience a smarter way to work!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
