A Notion alternative with no AI in it
Notion put AI into the editor, the search bar and the sidebar. If you want the block-based workspace without any of that, this page is an honest comparison — including the parts where Notion is the better choice.
ThinkTea is a block-based workspace built for media and game design coursework, with no AI features at all and nothing of yours used for training. Our paid plan is $5/month, flat — half Notion Plus’s $10/user for anyone paying. But Notion Plus is free for students with a school email, so if you have one, Notion costs you nothing and we cost $5. Choose ThinkTea if you want a no-AI workspace with 3D and frame-accurate video critique built in; stay on Notion if you need relational databases and integrations, or if a free student plan is what decides it.
| ThinkTea | Notion | |
|---|---|---|
| AI features | None, on any plan. Nothing you write is used to train a model. | Notion AI across the product; limited trial on Free and Plus, full access on Business. |
| Free plan | 1 workspace, 5 each of pages, boards, kanbans, projects, models and videos, up to 250 MB of storage, full sharing and live collaboration. | Generous — unlimited blocks for solo use, with limits once a workspace has several members. |
| Paid plan | Personal: $5/month. Flat, not per seat. | Plus $10/user/month, Business $20/user/month, billed monthly; around 20% off annually. |
| Storage | Up to 50 GB held at once on Personal; optional +50 GB for $2/month, as many times as you need. A ceiling, not a monthly allowance. | Unlimited blocks; file upload size is capped on Free and uncapped on paid plans. |
| Students | Same free plan as everyone. No student discount. | Plus free with a school email — better than our free tier, and cheaper than our paid one. |
| 3D models in a page | Yes — .glb, .gltf, .obj, .stl and more, with orbit, zoom and HDRI lighting. | No. |
| Video critique | Step frame by frame; comments pinned to an exact frame, click one to jump there. GIFs and image sequences play as video. | No timecode-anchored comments. |
| Image and PDF annotation | Pins placed on the artwork itself. | No. |
| Databases and relations | No. Pages, boards, kanbans and projects only. | Yes — this is Notion’s core strength. |
| Integrations and API | None yet. | Large ecosystem and a public API. |
| Real-time collaboration | Free on every plan. | Yes. |
Why people look for a Notion alternative
The reason we hear most is AI. Notion added it to the editor, to search and to the sidebar, and for people doing creative coursework the objection is not that it works badly — it is that they do not want their work to be an input to it at all. Art and design students in particular tend to feel this strongly.
The other two reasons are weight and price. Notion can do a great deal, and the flip side is that a page can take a while to become the thing you wanted. And per-seat pricing adds up for a group project team. On price we are the cheaper option for anyone paying — $5/month flat against Notion Plus’s $10/user — but a student with a school email gets Notion Plus free, and free beats $5, so for them Notion still wins on cost.
What ThinkTea does that Notion does not
ThinkTea is built for coursework that is not text. You can drop a 3D model into a page and orbit it under real HDRI lighting, leave a comment pinned to 0:47 of a video and click the timecode to jump straight there, and put annotation pins directly on an image or PDF. For an animation, film or game design student, that is the difference between a notes app and somewhere the actual work happens.
It is also a smaller product on purpose. Pages, boards, kanbans, projects and a weekly planner, and no configuration step before you can use them.
Where Notion is the better choice
If you need relational databases — a table that links to another table, filtered views, rollups — Notion does that and we do not. It is the single biggest functional gap and there is no workaround here worth pretending about.
If you depend on integrations, an API, or a plugin someone in your class already built, Notion has an ecosystem and we have none yet.
And if you are a student with a school email, Notion Plus is free. We charge $5/month. For that student, free beats $5, so on price alone Notion wins — we would rather say that plainly than hope you do not check. For anyone paying, though, $5 flat is half Notion Plus’s $10 per user, and the gap only widens with each extra seat.
Why we charge $5
This is a defence of the price, not a retraction of the paragraph above: if a free student plan is what decides it and you have a school email, Notion is still the cheaper answer.
The $5/month plan covers pages, boards, kanbans and projects — and Video items with frame-by-frame stepping and comments pinned to an exact frame, GIF and image-sequence playback, and 3D Model items with critique markers placed on the model. Those are storage-heavy: a single 1,000-frame image sequence runs 1.5–3 GB. Personal holds up to 50 GB, and you can add 50 GB more for $2/month, as many times as you need.
If you only want pages and projects, that is a real argument for paying us less by not paying us at all — the free plan is permanent, not a trial, and full sharing and live collaboration are on it too.
Moving across
There is no automated Notion importer today. In practice people bring across the pages that are still live — the current term, the project in flight — and leave the archive where it is. Pages, checklists, tables and callouts all have direct equivalents, so rebuilding a page is mostly paste-and-tidy.
Exporting back out is deliberately easy: any page, board, kanban, project or whole workspace exports to Markdown, images and PDF, on the free plan. We would rather you could leave than feel stuck.
Who each one is for
Choose ThinkTea if…
- You want a workspace with no AI in it, at all
- Your coursework is video, 3D, illustration or game design
- You want critique attached to the work, not in a separate thread
- You want one flat price rather than per-seat billing
Choose Notion if…
- You need relational databases, filtered views or rollups
- You rely on integrations or the API
- You are a student with a school email — Notion Plus is free for you and we are $5/month
- Your team already lives in Notion and switching costs more than it saves
Questions
Does ThinkTea have any AI features?
No. There are no AI features on any plan, and nothing you write is used to train a model. That is the point of the product rather than a setting you toggle.
Is ThinkTea cheaper than Notion?
For anyone paying, yes: ThinkTea Personal is $5/month flat, against Notion Plus at $10/user/month — half the price for a single seat, and less still for a team, since ours is flat. But students and educators get Notion Plus free with a school email, so for a student Notion is cheaper than we are, full stop.
Can ThinkTea replace Notion databases?
No. ThinkTea has pages, boards, kanbans and projects, but no relational databases, filtered views or rollups. If your workspace depends on linked databases, Notion remains the better tool.
Can I import my Notion pages?
There is no automated importer yet. Most people move the pages they are actively using and leave the archive in Notion. Blocks map closely, so rebuilding a page is largely paste-and-tidy.
What can ThinkTea do that Notion cannot?
Embed 3D models with orbit, zoom and HDRI lighting; pin video comments to an exact timecode and jump back to them; and place annotation pins on images and PDFs. Notion has none of these.
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Last updated 2026-08-12. Notion pricing and features were checked on that date; if something here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.