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Notion API – public beta

developers.notion.so

81–90 of 262 posts

Re: Notion API – public beta

#81
Thank you for the reminder that I should try converting from Evernote to Notion again. Last time I tried (~2 months ago), the automatic importer died after importing ~10% of my Evernote content.

Though, based on some of the comments in this thread, maybe I _shouldn't_ and should try Obsidian instead.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#82
post #56

I like the look of this site. Where can I get graphics similar to those cartoons on the page?

Here's some illustration sites / products I collected for a recent project as possible resources / inspiration:

  - https://storytale.io/
  - https://control.rocks/
  - https://picchustudio.webflow.io/
  - https://undraw.co/illustrations
  - https://craftwork.design/downloads/friday-illustrations/

Re: Notion API – public beta

#84

Big fan of notion. Not a fan of the data lock-in or haphazard security. For tools like this, SaaS will almost always beat open source just by virtue of elbow grease and a product direction. So I’m willing to forego the open source alternatives. But I really wish Notion gave me more options for how to host my data. AFAICT they offer no “dedicated storage” or “on premise” plan, even if you want to pay for it. In fact I…

(Cristina from Notion here)

We shared a bit more in the past about how most of our user content was stored in a single database instance (see more here: https://www.notion.so/notion/Focus-on-performance-reliabilit...). That is no longer true and we recently re-architected this database to scale horizontally.

Totally understand that you want more options for how to host your data. Unfortunately, we don't have any plans on that front at the moment.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#85

Big fan of notion. Not a fan of the data lock-in or haphazard security. For tools like this, SaaS will almost always beat open source just by virtue of elbow grease and a product direction. So I’m willing to forego the open source alternatives. But I really wish Notion gave me more options for how to host my data. AFAICT they offer no “dedicated storage” or “on premise” plan, even if you want to pay for it. In fact I…

Apart from the HN growd + a few more, I think more users likely just don't care about options to host data.

Many regulated organizations do, though.

Single reason we didn't adopt notion is lack of ability to self host.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#86
post #37
post #4

I currently use a 1-person Slack workspace instead of Notion because I can write bots to help me with various things. I'll have to see if this API is complete enough to do what I want with Notion.

Do you have a blog or some sort of writeup?

Not yet but I'll strongly consider writing one soon! Didn't realize there was so much interest in this.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#87
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many other applications out there that don’t hold your data hostage like Notion. I learned after spending an hour to transfer notes that they have a “limit” on the number of “blocks” (aka notes) that I can have. Absolutely terrible user experience and turned me off from ever using Notion. I ended up going open source with vimwiki (and obsidian as a visualization layer, although as comments pointed out it’s not ope…

Obsidian isn't as bad as Notion, but it's also proprietary. Unfortunately, there is no good company in this space.

Outline is open source https://getoutline.com

Re: Notion API – public beta

#88
post #64
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those like myself ignorant about the company, Notion appears to be a project management tool with integrated wiki and docs support. With at least a claimed strong user focus.

Yup, that’s how they present it, though in reality it’s pretty clunky as a project management tool, and you’d almost always be better off using a purpose-built solution. Notion makes a decent tool for a personal/organizational wiki but it’s too slow/unresponsive/janky to use for many other purposes IMO. I’ve been using it for a couple years and I used to hold out hope that the performance could be optimized, but at t…

Your comments reflect my almost two-year experience with the paid version of Notion.

I found it very difficult to figure out how to use the tools beyond very narrow use-cases they provided in examples.

And I found the docs were almost useless in explaining the overarching design. As a result, despite a lot of time spent, I kept bumping into unexpected limitations or design corners with no way out other than to scrap the document type I was trying to construct.

I went back to Trello for project management, Todoist for to-do's, and my Dropbox-backed markdown files for notes.

It's a shame because with more attention to the user experience and better docs, I think they'd have a killer product.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#89

Big fan of notion. Not a fan of the data lock-in or haphazard security. For tools like this, SaaS will almost always beat open source just by virtue of elbow grease and a product direction. So I’m willing to forego the open source alternatives. But I really wish Notion gave me more options for how to host my data. AFAICT they offer no “dedicated storage” or “on premise” plan, even if you want to pay for it. In fact I…

(I work at Notion, but not on the Infrastructure team)

We completed our sharding migration almost a month ago (https://twitter.com/jitl/status/1383235281457876993?s=21), and are now using >1 primaries. The project took a long time and really made the “changing the engine while the car is doing 200MPH” analogy true for me.

Re: Notion API – public beta

#90
post #47

When I initially signed up for Notion, I did so thinking the API was already usable. It was used as a selling point for their premium service even though it wasn't implemented. This was a year and a half ago or so. I felt pretty burned by it and killed my subscription. Hopefully this turns out well for the people who've been waiting for it, but that experience left a terrible taste in my mouth.

For those like myself ignorant about the company, Notion appears to be a project management tool with integrated wiki and docs support. With at least a claimed strong user focus.

I set up Notion as an intranet for my wife's company and it has been enormously useful for posting company documents, policies, handbooks, announcements, etc. Employees are invited as "guests" at no additional charge.

We also use a Notion database with various views for tracking customers, sales pipeline, rewards, and a lot more.

When we bring on a new customer, we quickly create (from a template) a personalized welcome page for them with an embedded copy of their service agreement and a few other things. Notion can generate a public link so we send this right away and it makes a nice impression.

Performance isn't great but it is so useful for us that I don't mind. I do hope they provide an offline version soon as that is my biggest wish right for it right now.

* I'm not affiliated with the company, just a pleased customer.

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