xotes vs Notion for a commonplace book
One tool you build yourself, and one that comes ready to write in.
Search for "commonplace book template" and Notion fills the results. It makes sense. Notion can become almost anything: a wiki, a task list, a reading log, a commonplace book.
That flexibility is its biggest strength. It is also the reason so many Notion commonplace books stall after a few weeks.
xotes takes the opposite approach. It does one job, keeping the quotes, ideas, and notes worth holding onto, and the structure is already built.
The short version
- Choose Notion if you enjoy designing systems, want your commonplace book inside the same tool as your work, or need to share pages with other people.
- Choose xotes if you want to open the app and write, without building or maintaining a setup first.
At a glance
| xotes | Notion | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, unlimited journaling | Yes, for individuals |
| Paid plans | Core $7/month, Pro $10/month | Plus $10/month billed yearly, $12 month to month |
| Setup | None | You build it, or start from a template |
| Organizing | One-tap title, category, and tags | Databases, properties, and pages you design |
| AI | Sort and Scan on every plan, metered | Limited trial on Free and Plus; full Notion AI starts on Business |
| Sharing | Private to you | Pages can be shared and edited with others |
Where Notion is stronger
Flexibility. Notion databases can hold any property you can think of: author, rating, date read, status. If you want your commonplace book to double as a reading tracker, Notion can do it.
One tool for everything. If your work already lives in Notion, a commonplace book there sits one click from everything else.
Sharing and collaboration. Notion pages can be shared, published, and edited together. xotes is private by design, so entries are visible only to you.
Templates. Free commonplace book templates for Notion are easy to find, many built by people who have thought hard about the practice.
Where xotes is stronger
No setup. A Notion commonplace book asks you to decide on properties, views, and tags before you write a word. Then it asks you to keep them consistent. xotes asks you to write.
Capture that stays fast. Open Capture, write, and tap Sort. xotes suggests a title, category, and tags, and you can change any of them. In Notion, tagging is manual unless you pay for Notion AI, and it is the step most people skip.
Paper pages. Photograph a page from a book or an old journal, and Scan turns it into text you can edit. On Core and Pro, Split turns one page into separate entries.
Built for rereading. Reading mode lays your entries out like one long article, and once a day, revisit brings one of your own entries back to you. A commonplace book earns its keep when you reread it.
AI without the jump. Sort and Scan work on every xotes plan, including Free. In Notion, full AI access starts on the Business plan at $20 a member per month, billed yearly.
The real cost of a blank page
Notion is free for individuals, and Plus is $10 a month billed yearly. xotes is free, with Core at $7 and Pro at $10. The pricing page has the details.
The bigger cost is time. A Notion setup is a project, and projects get abandoned. If you have built and rebuilt a Notion commonplace book before, that pattern is worth noticing.
Which one
If building the system is part of the fun, Notion will reward you. If you would rather spend that time on the reading and the writing, xotes is built for that.
Prices checked October 2026. Check each app's pricing page for current details.