Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

WakaTime VS Notion

Compare WakaTime VS Notion and see what are their differences

WakaTime logo WakaTime

Analytics for programmers using open-source text editor plugins.

Notion logo Notion

All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.
  • WakaTime Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26
  • Notion Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12

WakaTime features and specs

  • Comprehensive Time Tracking
    WakaTime provides detailed metrics on the time you spend on different projects, languages, and tasks, making it easier to understand where your time is going and how you can optimize your workflow.
  • Wide Integration Support
    WakaTime supports a broad range of IDEs and text editors including popular ones like VSCode, PyCharm, Sublime Text, and more, ensuring you can utilize its features regardless of your preferred development environment.
  • Automatic Tracking
    The service automatically tracks your activity in the background without requiring manual input, allowing you to focus on your work without constant interruptions.
  • Visual Reporting
    WakaTime provides visually appealing reports and dashboards that offer insights into your productivity patterns through charts and graphs.
  • Project Management
    WakaTime’s ability to track time per project helps in accurately billing clients or managing time spent on different parts of a project, making it useful for freelancers and team managers.

Possible disadvantages of WakaTime

  • Privacy Concerns
    As WakaTime tracks and sends data about your coding activities to their servers, there could be privacy concerns for those who are cautious about sharing their work habits and sensitive project information.
  • Subscription Costs
    While WakaTime offers a free tier, more advanced features require a paid subscription, which may be an additional cost for individual developers or small teams.
  • Potential Overhead
    The continuous tracking and data processing could potentially introduce a slight overhead in terms of system performance, particularly on less powerful machines.
  • Dependency on External Service
    Relying on an external service for time tracking means that any downtime or disruption in WakaTime’s service can affect your ability to track progress accurately.
  • Complexity for Beginners
    For developers who are not familiar with setting up plugins or extensions, the initial setup process might be somewhat daunting and complex.

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.

WakaTime videos

DEVELOPERS! Monitor your activity with Wakatime - Tools reviews

More videos:

  • Review - Visual Studio Code - Wakatime

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 WakaTime and Notion)
Time Tracking
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100
Project Management
5 5%
95% 95
Invoicing
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

WakaTime Reviews

We have no reviews of WakaTime yet.
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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 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
20 Obsidian Alternatives: Top Note-Taking Tools to Consider
Notion is a popular alternative to Obsidian for its simplicity, minimalistic interface, and large community. On top of note-taking, you can use Notion as a task management tool to create simple to-dos or build a personal knowledge base. You can also embed links, images, videos, code snippets, etc. Notion also has bi-directional functionalities enabling you to interconnect...
Source: clickup.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Notion should be more popular than WakaTime. It has been mentiond 441 times since March 2021. 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.

WakaTime mentions (47)

  • # Using Open-Source APIs like WakaTime to Track Your Coding Stats in Your Projects
    Curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ https://wakatime.com/api/v1/users/current/stats/last_7_days. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Lite 🚀 ApolloNvim Distro 2024
    👉 Wakatime a service that is able to measure how much time you spent coding on your pc and also on which project. WakaTime can be found at here. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2024)
    SEEKING FREELANCERS | REMOTE We built an automatic time tracker for devs. We're looking for freelancers to test our product. Website: https://wakatime.com Contact: alan@wakatime.com. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Wakatime.com — Quantified self-metrics about your coding activity using text editor plugins, limited plan for free. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Show HN: I ported my Python background task queue to TypeScript
    Hi Hackers, One year ago I posted[0] on HN[1] about writing my own replacement for Celery, a background task queue for Python. WakaQ has been running in production[2] for over a year, and it's performed flawlessly. I've even been able to reduce the amount of worker machines needed, saving compute costs, even though the number of tasks executed has increased over time. Now I'm starting a new Next.js project using... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

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 / 6 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 / 7 months ago
  • Karyam: Simples everyday writing app
    Advanced Notion and Google Doc writing editor. - Source: dev.to / 11 months 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 / about 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
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Toggl - Toggl is an online time tracking tool. It features 1-click time tracking and helps you see where your time goes. Free and paid versions are available.

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.

ManicTime - Track your computer usage and use collected data to accurately tag time.

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.

Clockify - Simple and free time tracker. Perfect for small and mid-sized businesses as well as freelancers. Unlimited projects and users, unlimited productivity. Get all the premium functionalities, completely free.

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.