Review of Coda - Notion's free and functional competitor

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-15 16:39

A word processor, kanban boards, to-do lists, tables and charts - all in one application.

What is Coda

Coda is a new service for document editing and collaboration. Just like Notion or Evernote, Coda allows you to create files, add text, tables, lists to them, upload images and other elements.

To create a project, you need to click on the New Doc button. You can start from scratch or choose one of the templates.

Within a project, you can create an unlimited number of individual documents.

Coda's goal is to fit the functionality of many services into one platform. The result is a kind of harvester. Thanks to this, text, images, a Gantt chart, a to-do list, a kanban board, YouTube videos and much more can coexist in one document.

In this case, you can change the display of each element at any time. For example, now you need a table, but in a couple of clicks you can make a calendar or a chart out of it.

How Coda differs from other tools

It's not for nothing that I compared Coda to other services: it really has a lot in common with Notion, Evernote or Dropbox Paper. Nevertheless, there are also enough differences and peculiarities. Among them:

1. Graphs. Coda is a paradise for hardcore Excel and charting fans. It offers Gantt charts, bar, pie, bubble and other types of charts.
2. Buttons and other elements. With their help, you will make documents interactive and easy to use. For example, Coda allows you to create a voting button.

Or make a slider that displays the difficulty of the task.

Formulas. They work in much the same way as in Google Sheets, Excel and other similar programs. At the same time, you do not need to use cell names when compiling formulas (for example, B3 + A7 + C42). Instead, Coda only needs to specify the row and column names, which is much more intuitive.

What you can use Coda for

1. Personal notes and documents

Despite all the cool functions for working with charts and tables, no one forbids using Coda as a beautiful note-taking. Especially considering that its direct competitors in the face of Evernote or Notion require money for full operation.

2. To-do-lists

If you're looking for a service that lets you create simple to-do or shopping lists without the extra investment, Coda is the perfect fit. But, of course, the service cannot replace more narrowly focused tools. For example, in Coda, you won't be able to set reminders for tasks or link their completion to specific places on the map, as in Todoist.

3. Team projects

The creators of the service themselves emphasize this: for Coda, there are many templates dedicated specifically to interaction in teams. New product launches, plans to achieve goals, search for new employees, meeting results - all this can be recorded in Coda.

4. CRM and knowledge base

You can easily keep track of customers or create your own Wiki without buying expensive dedicated solutions.

At the same time, you do not need to think over the structure of the project and add all the elements yourself: the developers and the Coda community have created different types of templates that are easy to install and modify for your tasks.

Outcome

Coda is a flexible tool that combines the functionality of many applications, including kanban boards, note-taking, word and spreadsheet editors, and many others.

Due to the fact that it is somewhat similar to other services, it is easy to understand Coda. There are oddities, however. For example, in terminology: projects here are called doc, but the documents themselves are called sections. Understandably, the developers wanted to avoid comparisons to Google Drive or Evernote. But in their quest, they went too far, and such not the most understandable terms can confuse new users.

It is also worth mentioning that Google Drive resources are used to place documents: all your projects are stored in its main folder.

It seemed to me that this was not the most convenient solution. At a minimum, developers could make sure that all files from Coda go into a separate folder.

There are no questions about the speed of the web version: everything loads quickly. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Android version. It has poor performance, as evidenced by reviews and user ratings on Google Play.

Advantages

• Free - the service does not require additional investments, and all its features are available immediately after registration.
• Unique functionality - graphs, charts, custom buttons and sliders are available.
• Helpful Help - all the possibilities of the service are clearly shown with the help of short and understandable videos.
• Many useful and unusual templates - for project planning, HR tasks, personal productivity and more. There's even a Game of Thrones Season 8 template.
• Cross-platform - Coda is available for Android and iOS smartphones, as well as in the browser.

disadvantages

• Slow Android app - the program and projects take a very long time to open.
• No desktop apps - it would be much more convenient to use a native program for a computer than a web version.
• Not all features will be useful to a wide range of users - if you are not a fan of graphs and tables, Coda will seem to you just another text editor.
• The service is not translated into Russian - it will be difficult to understand without knowledge of English.

Web version of Coda →