Notion vs Trello

Notion and Trello can both run a team's projects on boards, but they solve different problems. Trello is a simple visual board tool from Atlassian, where cards move across lists as work progresses. Notion is a workspace for docs, wikis and databases, and a board is one of several ways to view a database. Choose Trello if you want a board your team can use today. Choose Notion if you also need written documentation in the same place and are willing to design the workspace.

What is the main difference between Notion and Trello?

Documents. Trello's own model is boards for projects, lists for stages and cards for tasks. Each card holds a description, checklist, due date, assignees, labels, attachments and comments. G2 reviewers name the lack of built-in document creation as one of Trello's most common shortcomings.

Notion starts from pages built from blocks, such as text, images, tables and embeds, nested into a team wiki. Databases inside those pages hold tasks or projects and show them as tables, boards, calendars, timelines or charts. Relations link items across databases, for example tasks to the project they belong to. A Notion board can look much like a Trello board, but it sits inside a wider workspace.

How do Notion and Trello compare on price?

Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on 1 November 2026, in US dollars per seat or user per month.

Trello's entry plan costs half as much. Trello Standard at $5 adds unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, card mirroring and 1,000 automation command runs a month. At $10, Trello Premium and Notion Plus cost the same. Premium adds Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views and unlimited command runs. Notion Plus adds unlimited blocks, custom forms and sites, charts and database automations.

AI is packaged differently. Trello's paid plans use AI to capture and organise messages, summarise cards and generate boards. Notion's full AI features, including Notion Agent, Custom Agents and AI Meeting Notes, need the Business plan at $20, while Free and Plus get a limited trial.

Which is easier to set up?

Trello. Its board, list and card model needs little setup, and G2 reviewers most often praise its ease of use and visual task management. The cost of that simplicity is depth: the most common complaints are limited features, statistics and customisation.

Notion is a blank canvas. Its most common G2 complaint is the learning curve, and its ease of setup score (8.2 out of 10) is lower than its score for meeting requirements (8.8). You decide which databases to create, which properties to add and how pages link, which is powerful but takes time.

Which has the better free plan?

Trello's, for teams. Trello Free allows up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace, with unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups and 250 automation command runs a month. Planner, which puts cards on your calendar, is view-only on Free.

Notion's Free plan suits individuals best. A single-member workspace can add as many pages and blocks as it likes, but block storage is limited once two or more members join, uploads are capped at 5 MB and page history lasts 7 days. Any Trello Workspace can start a free trial of Premium, while Notion's pricing page shows no time-limited trial of paid plans.

Which works better for marketing teams?

Trello suits small marketing teams that track campaigns and content as cards moving from idea to published. Cards hold the brief, checklist, due date and files, and the Inbox can catch requests from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams. Premium adds a Calendar view for content schedules. Reporting is limited, which G2 reviewers mention.

Notion suits marketing teams whose work is mostly written. Campaign briefs, content calendars, onboarding guides and meeting notes can live in one workspace, the same content database can show as a board by status or a calendar by publish date, and pages can be published as a simple website.

Which works better for sales teams?

Neither is a CRM. A Trello board can use lists as deal stages and cards as deals, which may be enough for a founder tracking a few opportunities. Notion suits sales knowledge, such as playbooks and onboarding guides, and its template marketplace has a CRM category listing more than 2,000 templates for teams that want a simple tracker.

If your team needs pipelines, email tracking and forecasting, use a dedicated CRM such as HubSpot CRM or Pipedrive.

What do users say about Notion and Trello?

On G2, Notion holds 4.6 out of 5 from about 14,000 reviews, and Trello 4.4 from 14,068 reviews. Notion reviewers praise ease of use and range of features, and complain about the learning curve. Trello reviewers praise simplicity, flexibility and collaboration, and complain about limited features, reporting and customisation. These ratings were checked on 31 October 2026.

The bottom line

Choose Trello if you want a free or low-cost board that your team understands on day one, and you keep documents elsewhere. Choose Notion if you want docs, a wiki and project boards together, and someone on the team is happy to design the workspace.

Read our Notion profile and Trello review for more.