An open-source alternative to Notion
Pages on a block editor, databases with twenty column types and six views over the same rows, and an infinite canvas those records can sit on.
| Feature | Tuval | Notion |
|---|---|---|
| Licence and hosting | AGPL-3.0. Run it on your own Postgres and bucket; a setting marks the install self-hosted and the limits stop applying. | Proprietary, hosted only. |
| Price | Free for up to 3 people with 1 GB of files. Hosted plan ₺249 per member per month, VAT included, about $7. | Per-user subscription. We do not print a figure we cannot keep current; see their pricing page. |
| Database column types | Twenty. Thirteen you fill in and seven worked out, including formula, rollup, created by and edited by. | A comparable set, including several Tuval has no equivalent for. |
| Views over one database | Six: table, board, gallery, calendar, timeline, list. Filters, one sort at a time, grouping, per-column footers. | A comparable set and more view types than Tuval offers. |
| Page blocks | Headings, toggle headings, lists, callouts, quotes, highlighted code, tables, multi-column layouts, LaTeX equations, mermaid diagrams, bookmarks, embeds, table of contents. | A wider block set. Synced blocks and links to a specific block are things Tuval has not built. |
| Importing from Notion | Reads the export as it arrives: the zip of Markdown pages and CSV databases, including the multi-part zips a large export comes as. Folder nesting becomes page nesting. | Not applicable. |
| Getting your work out | Per page: Markdown, HTML and a real text PDF. Whole workspace: one JSON file that restores into another install. Uploaded files are not in it, and the screen says so. | Markdown, HTML, PDF and CSV export. |
| Two people in the same page | No. A page is a CRDT that saves every two seconds and merges on open, so two people converge rather than overwrite, but you do not see each other type. | Live co-editing with presence. |
| Comments | Threads live inside the page document, so they cannot drift from the text they mark. The cost: the server cannot read them, so there is no workspace-wide list of comments waiting on you. | Comments the workspace can query, with an inbox. |
| Size it is built for | Loads up to five hundred records per kind and filters them in the browser. Right for hundreds of rows. | Databases far larger than that, queried server-side. |
| Beyond pages | The same records open as an issue with a key, cycle and estimate, or as a card on an infinite canvas. Forms drop answers into a database; booking pages and published pages are included. | Pages, databases and forms, with no infinite canvas of its own. |
| Mobile and AI | Neither. No phone layout, by decision, and no AI assistant in the product. | Native iOS and Android apps and built-in AI features. |
Checked 1 August 2026. Notion is a trademark of its owner; Tuval is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by them.
Why you might not
Because your workspace is bigger than a few hundred rows, or your team writes in the same page at the same second; we merge, we do not co-edit.
What we do better
A page here is a record, and so is an issue, and so is a card on a canvas: one row seen from three screens. A decision written up in a page can be the same object as the ticket that implements it, and a database of projects can be dropped onto a whiteboard as cards without being copied. The export is real: one JSON file holds every page, board, issue, database, tag and link and restores into an install you run yourself, under a licence that cannot be withdrawn.
What Notion does better
Live co-editing, which we do not have. Scale, which we do not pretend to have: five hundred records per kind, filtered in your browser, is a small-team ceiling. A comment system the server can see, so there is an inbox of what is waiting on you. A richer block set, synced blocks and links to individual blocks. Mobile apps. AI. And an ecosystem that took years and a company to build.
Who should not switch
Anyone with a wiki of thousands of pages or a database of tens of thousands of rows: the in-browser filtering will not hold, and we would rather say so now. Anyone whose team drafts documents together in real time. Anyone who reads and edits on a phone. Anyone who has built a workflow on AI writing, synced blocks or an integration directory.