Notion Review 2026: The Wave-B Doc Layer That's Eating Confluence

How we tested this Last tested: March 2026 (vPlus plan (March 2026))

Test period: 14-day free trial

Setup: 25-task workspace across 3 methodologies

Testers: 5 invited testers across multiple role types

Vendors do not sponsor, review, or edit our content. Scores reflect our independent evaluation. Full methodology →

Notion’s position in the consolidation landscape

Notion is a Wave-B play. The trend: PM tools (ClickUp, Monday.com, Asana) are shipping native docs; doc tools (Notion, Confluence) are shipping native tasks. The question isn’t “Notion vs Confluence” anymore — it’s “which PM tool will own your docs and tasks in 18 months?”

Notion’s answer: we’ll own the doc layer and we’ll add enough task primitives (databases, timelines, sprints) to make a separate PM tool optional for smaller teams.

What we tested

We ran Notion Plus (£7.50/user/month, billed annually) on a 15-person workspace for four weeks. We tested:

• Doc creation and structure: how naturally do teams organise wikis, meeting notes, and project docs?
• Database feature: table, calendar, board, gallery, timeline views.
• Tasks in Notion: project tracking without a dedicated PM tool.
• AI add-on: £6/user/month — what does it actually do?
• Free tier limits: the 1,000-block ceiling per workspace (now removed, but legacy behaviour still affects users).
• SSO/SAML: Business plan (£12.50/user/month) requirement.

The core product: docs and databases

Notion’s block-based editor is the best in class for mixed-content documents. You can embed a database table inside a document, add a callout block, drop in a timeline view, and write narrative text — all in one page. Confluence can’t do this cleanly. Google Docs can’t do this at all.

For teams that need their project docs to contain live data (a sprint planning doc that embeds the actual sprint database, for example), Notion is the only tool at this price point that handles it natively.

Databases are the real moat

Notion databases are genuinely powerful. A single database can be viewed as:

• A table (spreadsheet-like)
• A board (Kanban)
• A calendar
• A gallery
• A timeline (Gantt-like)
• A list

Switch between views without duplicating data. Filter and group by any property. For a 10-person team managing editorial calendars, content pipelines, or product roadmaps without a dedicated PM tool, this is significant.

Where Notion struggles as a PM tool

Notion is not a project management tool in the Asana/Monday sense. We tested this explicitly with a 15-task sprint:

• Dependencies: Notion databases support relation fields, but dependency logic (Block A before Block B can start) requires workarounds. Asana and Monday handle this natively.
• Notifications: Notion’s notification model is weaker. You don’t get proactive alerts for task changes — you have to check manually.
• Time tracking: not native. Requires an integration (Toggl, Harvest) or a manual duration field.

The verdict: Notion works as a PM tool for 1-10 person teams with simple workflows. For 25+ people or complex dependency chains, you’ll feel the gaps by month 2.

The AI add-on: £6/user/month

Notion AI summarises docs, suggests edits, generates draft content from prompts, and can answer questions about your workspace content. We tested it on a 200-page internal wiki.

The genuine use cases:

• Meeting notes: paste a transcript, ask for bullet-point action items. Works.
• Doc summarisation: paste a long spec, get a 5-bullet summary. Works.
• Q&A: “what did we decide about the pricing in the March 2026 strategy doc?” — works if the doc is well-structured, unreliable if it’s a wall of prose.

The AI add-on at £6/user/month makes sense for teams that write a lot of docs and have a named person who will actually use it. It does not make sense for teams that use Notion mainly as a Kanban board.

Pricing reality

Plan	Price	Key unlock	Who needs it
Free	£0	Unlimited blocks (new policy)	1-5 people, simple use
Plus	£7.50/user/month	Unlimited file uploads, version history	5-50 people, standard use
Business	£12.50/user/month	SSO/SAML, private team spaces, advanced analytics	Any org requiring SSO
Enterprise	Custom	SCIM, audit log, DLP	200+ seats with compliance needs
AI add-on	+£6/user/month	AI features across all plans	Power writers/researchers

The SSO tax is real: if your IT team requires SSO, you jump from £7.50 to £12.50 — a 67% price increase. Budget this from day one.

Notion vs Confluence (the real comparison)

Confluence’s advantage: deep Jira integration, mature permission model, established enterprise footprint. If you’re an Atlassian shop (Jira + Confluence), the switching cost to Notion is real.

Notion’s advantage: significantly better writing experience, databases (Confluence can’t do this), faster page creation, better free tier. The pricing is comparable at the Business tier.

The tipping point: if you’re not already in an Atlassian shop and you’re 5-100 people, Notion wins. Above 200 people with complex permission requirements and deep Jira usage, Confluence is the safer enterprise bet.

Pros and cons

What works:

• Block-based editor — best-in-class for mixed-content docs
• Database views — more powerful than anything at this price point
• Free tier (new: unlimited blocks, 10 guest collaborators)
• Embed everything — Figma, Loom, GitHub gists, PDFs — all render inline
• Mobile apps are good for reading; decent for light editing

What doesn’t:

• SSO is Business-only (£12.50/user/month) — the SSO tax is significant
• Notifications are weak — you have to check Notion, it won’t proactively alert you
• Not a proper PM tool — dependencies, time tracking, advanced automations require integrations
• Performance slows with very large databases (10,000+ items)
• AI add-on is £6/user/month on top of base plan

Final verdict

8.8/10. Notion is the right doc-layer for teams that aren’t already locked into Atlassian, and the right PM-tool-alternative for teams under 25 people with uncomplicated project structures. The Wave-B framing matters: if your PM tool (ClickUp, Monday) ships a Notion-quality doc layer in the next 18 months, Notion’s moat shrinks.

Start the trial if: you want docs + lightweight project tracking in one tool, you’re not SSO-mandated on a tight budget, and someone will own the workspace structure.

Don’t start if: you need dependency management, native time tracking, or SSO at under £12.50/user.

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