Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Bonsai VS Notion

Compare Bonsai VS Notion and see what are their differences

Bonsai logo Bonsai

One platform to streamline your agency business. Consolidate your projects, clients and finances into one integrated and easy-to-use platform.

Notion logo Notion

All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03
  • Bonsai
    Image date //
    2024-05-03

Bonsai is a one-stop platform for creative and digital agencies, consultancies and professional service providers. It is designed to provide businesses with a complete and real-time overview of their business. Simplify your business operations and consolidate your projects, clients and team into one integrated, easy-to-use platform. From contracts, proposals and project management to client billing and revenue tracking, we've got you covered.

Team Time Tracking: Get an instant report of your team's tracked hours with accurate timesheets & see who's over capacity at a glance. Monitor your business's utilization & get clarity on your team's efficiency & profitability. Fully integrated into project management & billing.

Project Management: Assign projects & tasks to your team, prioritize your week and see exactly how your projects progress. Set project budgets & avoid unexpected costs. Kanban view, integrated timer for easy billing, and collaboration with external partners for an efficient work.

CRM: Manage your clients and their projects in one place. Create unique client profiles with all your notes, contacts, rates and tags. Invite your clients to your branded Client Portal where they can access projects, documents and links you’ve shared with them.

Resource Management: Everything you need to allocate work to your team and track utilization. Manage team capacity, track your budget, tasks and hours and get insights on your business.

Reporting: Get better visibility into your business's performance and financial health with real-time reports. Make informed decisions with profitability reports, utilization reports, and more.

  • Notion Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12

Bonsai features and specs

  • Project Management
  • Client CRM
  • Billing & Invoicing
  • Team Time Tracking
  • Collaboration
  • Client Portal
  • Contract Management & E-Signature
  • Proposal Management
  • Task Tracking
  • Forms & Surveys
  • Tax & Bookkeeping Management
  • Income & Expense Management
  • Credit Card
  • Free Document Templates
  • Quarterly Taxes Estimate
  • Online Banking
  • Multi-Currency
  • Workflow Automation
  • Scheduling
  • Resource Management & Planning

Notion features and specs

  • All-in-One Workspace
    Notion combines note-taking, task management, databases, calendars, and collaboration features in a single platform, reducing the need for multiple tools.
  • Highly Customizable
    Users can tailor Notion to fit their specific workflow with customizable templates, pages, and databases, making it versatile for various use cases.
  • Collaboration Features
    Notion offers seamless collaboration with real-time editing, comments, mentions, and shared workspaces, enhancing teamwork and productivity.
  • Cross-Platform Availability
    Notion is available on multiple platforms, including web, desktop, and mobile, providing flexibility and accessibility from anywhere.
  • Integration Capability
    Notion supports integrations with various third-party applications like Google Drive, Slack, and Trello, allowing for a more interconnected workflow.

Possible disadvantages of Notion

  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and customization options, new users might find Notion challenging to learn and navigate initially.
  • Performance Issues
    Some users report that Notion can become slow or experience lag, especially with large databases and complex pages.
  • Offline Limitations
    While Notion offers some offline capabilities, its functionality is significantly reduced without an internet connection, which can be inconvenient for some users.
  • Pricing for Teams
    Though Notion offers a free version, its premium plans can be expensive for larger teams, which may be a constraint for startups or small businesses.
  • Privacy Concerns
    As with any cloud-based service, there are potential privacy and data security concerns, especially for users handling sensitive information.

Analysis of Bonsai

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Bonsai is considered a good option for freelancers and small business owners who need an all-in-one solution to handle different aspects of their business operations. Its suite of integrated tools, combined with a clean interface, makes it a popular choice in its niche.

Why this product is good

  • Bonsai (hellobonsai.com) is a comprehensive platform tailored for freelancers and small businesses to manage their work efficiently. It offers a range of features including contract management, invoicing, time tracking, and project management. Users appreciate its user-friendly interface, customization options, and the ability to streamline various aspects of running a freelance business in one place.

Recommended for

  • Freelancers looking for an all-in-one business management tool
  • Small business owners managing contracts, invoicing, and projects
  • Professionals who value a streamlined workflow
  • Those needing customizable contract and proposal templates

Bonsai videos

Intro to Bonsai

Notion videos

The Most Powerful Productivity App I Use - Notion

More videos:

  • Review - I switched to Notion for a week... Here's what happened!
  • Review - Notion is Truly an All-in-One Productivity Tool (App Review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Bonsai and Notion)
Project Management
22 22%
78% 78
Productivity
8 8%
92% 92
Time Tracking
100 100%
0% 0
Task Management
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Bonsai and Notion. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Bonsai and Notion

Bonsai Reviews

7 Best QuickBooks Alternatives for Small Businesses
Next up on our list of QuickBooks alternatives is Bonsai — an all-in-one product suite for freelancers that has some nifty accounting features built in. With Bonsai, you can track your billable expenses by creating an expense, assigning it to a project and attaching those expenses to an invoice. You also can connect your bank account to import your expenses. What’s more,...
Source: www.fundera.com

Notion Reviews

  1. jk22
    · consultant at GFI ·
    Notion has helped in documenting our business

    It's been very very helpful to streamline different people on our team, especially remote workers to help them understand what's going on in our business without 100s of meetings.

    👍 Pros:    Ui is very attractive|Easy to use|Great for collaboration|Good customer service|Free to use
    👎 Cons:    Steep learning curve
  2. Ramesh Kumar
    · Product Manager at Aerial ·
    Extremely helpful- made life easier

    My remote-first start-up has eliminated more than 200+ hours of meetings and 1000s of mismanaged documents because our entire communication happens through Notion.

    👍 Pros:    Clean ui|File sharing|Modular
    👎 Cons:    Learning curve
  3. Boyd Richardson
    · Writer at SE ·

    As someone who's always on the lookout for the perfect productivity app, I was excited to try out Notion. It promises to be an all-in-one tool for everything from note-taking to project management to personal wikis.

    From the moment you open Notion, you can tell that it's different from other productivity apps. The interface is sleek and modern, and it's easy to navigate. The app is divided into pages, which can be customized with different templates to fit your needs. You can create to-do lists, databases, wikis, calendars, and more.

    One of the things I love about Notion is the ability to create relationships between pages. For example, you can create a database of your favorite books and then link to a page with your book reviews. Or you can create a to-do list and link to a page with notes about the task. This feature makes it easy to keep all of your information in one place and to connect related items.

    🏁 Competitors: Microsoft Loop
    👍 Pros:    Highly customizable|All in one|Collaboration|Cross platform
    👎 Cons:    Steep learning curve

Top 10 Productivity Apps for MacOS 2025
Okay, I know, I know. Notion is probably the most predictable pick for a productivity app list. But here’s the thing: It’s popular for a reason. Notion’s flexibility, customisation, and overall smooth user experience make it a standout, no matter how many times it pops up on productivity lists. Whether you’re organising tasks, taking notes, or creating databases, Notion lets...
Source: dev.to
Top 10 Notion Alternatives for 2025 and Why Teams Are Choosing Ledger
If you're looking for a Notion alternative that supports real, scalable teamwork, you're not alone. Whether you’ve outgrown Notion or are just exploring more robust, team-friendly platforms, here’s a breakdown of the top 10 alternatives in 2025—and why Ledger is becoming the go-to choice for modern teams.
How Tight-Knit Teams Get More Done with Innovative Project Management Tools
Notion: More than a task manager, it acts as a knowledge base. You can store guidelines, references, wikis, and to-do lists all under one roof.
Source: medium.com
11 Popular Knowledge Management Tools to Consider in 2025 
Notion AI (Optional Add-on) – $8 per user/month (billed annually). Available for all plans (including the free plan)
Source: knowmax.ai
11 Best Google Keeps Alternatives for 2024
Unlike other note-taking apps, Notion stands out for its endless customization. It’s like an all-in-one workspace structured by pages and blocks.
Source: upbase.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Notion seems to be a lot more popular than Bonsai. While we know about 441 links to Notion, we've tracked only 2 mentions of Bonsai. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Bonsai mentions (2)

  • How to start a fintech company?
    Hey there, If you want to easily build a first version of your product, I recommend using Stripe. In my company (hellobonsai.com) we've built out a few FinTech products in only a few months thanks to Stripe Treasury (providing an online bank account to our user) and Stripe Issuing (providing bank cards). Source: over 3 years ago
  • Online invoicing/accounting software for international payments?
    I tried a platform called Bonsai (hellobonsai.com), but I dropkicked them for hidden fees. They charged me a currency conversion fee when no currency conversion occurred. Source: over 3 years ago

Notion mentions (441)

  • Cool SHIT you can do with docker
    Two of the most popular open source note taking app are affine (basically notion but open source) and obsidian (which stores notes in markdown). - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2024)
    Notion | https://notion.so | Android Engineer | SF | hybrid (in office 2x a week) | Full time
      Level: Mid/Mid+ (4-6yrs experience).
    - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Karyam: Simples everyday writing app
    Advanced Notion and Google Doc writing editor. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • My blog post workflow
    I manage my non-work and work-adjacent tasks in Notion. Whenever I have an idea, regardless of how big or small or silly or achievable it is, I'll add it to Notion, and use labels to categorise it by type of output (e.g. blog, silly project, website update). Today I wanted to write a short post for my site. I clicked on the filtered blog post view, and selected this one (because I hoped it would be a quick one!). - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • 6 AI tools that feels illegal to know🤖
    Notion.so redefines workspaces. With its intelligent organization and collaboration features, it's more than a productivity tool—it's a digital haven. Discover the art of streamlined and efficient teamwork. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Bonsai and Notion, you can also consider the following products

AND CO - AND CO helps freelancers, entrepreneurs and other small businesses run their business smarter.

Trello - Infinitely flexible. Incredibly easy to use. Great mobile apps. It's free. Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details.

Stripe - Online payment processing for internet businesses. Stripe is a suite of payment APIs that powers commerce for online businesses of all sizes. Use Stripe’s payment platform to accept and process payments online for easy-to-use commerce solutions.

Asana - Asana project management is an effort to re-imagine how we work together, through modern productivity software. Fast and versatile, Asana helps individuals and groups get more done.

FreshBooks - The ideal accounting software for small business owners.

Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.