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Nodary
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A Notion alternative for game studios, and for any team that links its documents.

Notion organises pages and databases. Nodary puts a team’s linked documents on one map, with spreadsheets, moodboards, reviews and the blocks a game needs, and AI agents connected over MCP. Here is what each one does, checked against Notion’s own pages.

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In short

Choose Notion if

  • You want one tool for notes, wikis, projects and databases across a whole company, with Notion’s integrations.
  • You need single sign-on (on Notion’s Business plan), guests on every paid plan, or data hosted outside the United States (on Enterprise).
  • You rely on desktop and mobile apps and on pages saved for offline use.
  • Your team works in database tables and boards more than in linked documents.
  • You want a lower price per seat: Notion Plus is €11.50 a month (€9.50 billed yearly), against €15 (€12) for Nodary Pro.

Choose Nodary if

  • Your project is many documents that depend on each other, and you want to see and work them on one map.
  • You write game documentation: string tables, loot tables, branching dialogue, art review and milestone burn-ups are built in.
  • You want AI agents to work in sheets cell by cell, see boards as pictures and decide on art, with a version kept before every agent write.
  • You want more than verified or not: each document canon, exploration, obsolete or superseded by a named document, and AI agents told before they read it.
  • You want AI without moving to Notion’s Business plan: Nodary Pro at €15 a seat includes 800 ☄ of Studio AI a month, where Notion’s full AI comes with Business at €23.50.

Feature by feature

Nodary and Notion side by side, checked on 23 October 2026. Prices are as each maker lists them and change over time: each number leads to its source.
What you compareNodaryNotion
Price of the paid plansPro: €15 per seat per month, or €12 billed yearly. Studio: €29, or €24 billed yearly. Plus tax where it applies.2Plus: €11.50 per member per month, or €9.50 billed yearly. Business: €23.50, or €19.50 billed yearly.1
Free plan2 members, one project, 10 documents, 50 MB of files and 20 ☄ of Studio AI a month, with no time limit.2Unlimited blocks for one person; a limited number of blocks once two or more members share it; 10 guests; 5 MB per upload; 7 days of page history.1
Views of documentsLive views list matching documents as a list, a table, a board of columns, a gallery, a timeline or a progress chart; a calendar and a schedule show every due date.Databases shown as a table, board, timeline, calendar, list, gallery or chart.3
Links between documentsLinks say why (related, inspired by, blocks, depends on) and read the right way from either end; each document lists what links to it.Backlinks show every page that links to the current one.4
Marking what is currentEach document can be canon, exploration, obsolete or superseded by another, and AI agents are told before they read it.Verify any page on Business and Enterprise; pages in a wiki can be verified too (Notion’s help names no plan for it).1,5
CalculationsA spreadsheet inside any document: about 60 functions, references between the sheets of a document, and live charts drawn from it.7Formula properties in databases, calculated for each row.6
Built-in AIStudio AI on every plan, counted in Comets: 20 ☄ a month per person on Free, 800 per Pro seat, 1,500 per Studio seat.2A limited trial on Free and Plus; Notion Agent, AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search (beta) on Business.1
MCP server for AI agentsOn every plan, Free included within its limits: OAuth or an API key, 98 tools, 120 requests a minute and no daily write quota.10A remote MCP server hosted by Notion, on every plan, connected with OAuth.8,9
ExportA document as Markdown, JSON, CSV tables or an editable PowerPoint, or printed to PDF; a whole project as a .zip of Markdown with editable sources.A page as PDF, HTML or Markdown & CSV; a whole workspace as HTML, Markdown and CSV.11
Version historyEach editing session of up to ten minutes and every agent write make a version; the 50 newest by people and the 50 newest by agents are kept per document, to compare and restore.7 days on Free, 30 on Plus, 90 on Business, unlimited on Enterprise.1
People outside the teamNo guest seats: read-only share links to a document, a branch or a whole workspace, with an end date or none, revocable at any time.10 guests on Free; unlimited guests on paid plans.1
Apps and offline useA web app for desktop and phone browsers, installable from the browser. No offline mode and no native desktop or mobile app.13Desktop apps for macOS and Windows, and mobile apps; pages downloaded for offline use (chosen pages on Free, recents and favourites on paid plans).12,1
Single sign-onNot available: email and password, with optional two-step verification by authenticator app.2SAML single sign-on on Business and Enterprise.1
Where data is storedAWS in the United States (us-east-1, Northern Virginia) for the app, the database and files. No EU hosting option.15The United States by default; data residency in other regions, the EU included, on Enterprise.14
IntegrationsNo native Slack, Jira, GitHub or Notion integration: review decisions can post to Slack or Discord, and agents connect over MCP.Plus connects tools such as Slack and Google Drive; Business adds GitHub, Asana and more.1

Inside Nodary

A map you work on, not only look at

Every document of a project sits on one map, filed in folders you open like clusters. You drag a document to file it, draw a link that says why, assign it and filter the map to what is overdue, while your teammates’ pointers move on it live.

  • Links read the right way from either end: blocks, depends on, inspired by, related
  • Filter to what is yours, overdue, due this week or undated
  • Change the owner, status or due date of many documents at once, with Undo
  • Follow a teammate from the map into the passage they are reading

What it does not do The map shows documents and their links, not an RDF knowledge graph; graph views and canvases from other tools are not imported.

A sample game project on Nodary’s map: 43 documents grouped around eight area hubs, linked by hierarchy lines and labelled links, with two teammates’ pointers on the map.

Owner, status, review and truth on every document

Each document says who has it, by when and where it stands: draft, in review, approved, published, done or blocked. Ask one owner or admin of the workspace or of the document’s project to review it, or ask them all; one of them approves or requests changes with a note, signed with who and when, and the person who asked decides only when nobody else can. Mark it canon, exploration, obsolete or superseded, and agents are told before they read it.

  • Six work statuses and four truth statuses
  • When two documents disagree, both passages side by side, word for word
  • Live views list documents as a table, a board, a timeline or a progress chart
  • Review decisions can post to a Slack or Discord channel

What it does not do A review request names one reviewer, an owner or admin of the workspace or of the document’s project, or asks them all; there is no approval chain with several steps.

A game pitch open in Nodary’s editor: the outline, status, owner, due date and project properties in the left rail, the key art and the text in the page, and the document’s AI assistant on the right.

AI agents that work with your permissions

Studio AI works inside Nodary, and Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or VS Code connect over MCP on every plan. An agent reads and writes documents block by block and sheets cell by cell, with the permissions of the person who connected it, and every write keeps the version before it.

  • 98 MCP tools, with OAuth or an API key that can be limited to one project
  • One connection can work in several workspaces you tick
  • Agents’ versions never push out people’s
  • Share links, members, roles, keys and billing stay human decisions

What it does not do Studio AI runs on Claude models through Amazon Bedrock in the United States, and its use is counted in Comets with a monthly allowance per plan.

The API keys and MCP section of a Nodary profile: the MCP endpoint to paste into Claude, Claude Code or any MCP client, and an agent key for one workspace.

Built for game production, nothing to install

The blocks a game team needs are part of the editor: string tables with a state per translation, length and placeholder checks and files for Unity, Unreal and Godot; loot tables read in players, with pity rules; branching dialogue exported to Yarn Spinner; Fountain screenplays.

  • String tables export CSV, JSON, gettext .po and XLIFF
  • Drop rates: the pull by which nine players in ten have an item
  • Branching dialogue played through and read as a graph
  • Moodboards, palettes with contrast checks and signed picture decisions

What it does not do Dialogue conditions are written in brackets, not evaluated, and there is no Final Draft export.

A string table in Nodary: keys, context and maximum lengths with English, French, German, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese columns, each language’s progress, and warnings on a string that is too long and one that lost its placeholder.

Coming from Notion

Nodary reads Notion’s own export, in Markdown & CSV or in HTML, and shows you what it will create before anything is written.

  1. In Notion, export the pages you want with their subpages, as Markdown & CSV or as HTML (Notion’s help explains where).
  2. If the .zip holds other .zip files, unzip them first and keep the folder.
  3. In Nodary, open the project’s map, choose Import, then Import a folder, and drop the .zip or the folder.
  4. Check the preview: the ids Notion adds to names are removed, each database becomes a sheet with its row pages under it, and every file left out is listed with the reason.
  5. Import. Links between pages and to databases point to the new documents.

One import brings up to 200 documents and 300 pictures or files; the Free plan holds 10 documents. Nodary has no live sync with Notion: the import is a one-time copy.

Questions

Can Nodary replace Notion for a game studio?

For the design side, yes: game design documents, string tables, balance sheets, dialogue, art review and milestone tracking live on one map. If your studio also runs HR, sales or company wikis in Notion’s databases, you may keep Notion for those; Nodary has no Notion sync, only a one-time import.

Can I import my Notion workspace into Nodary?

Yes. Export from Notion as Markdown & CSV or as HTML, then drop the .zip on Nodary’s Import a folder. Databases become sheets with their row pages under them, Notion’s ids are removed from names, and the import lists what it left out.

Is Nodary cheaper than Notion?

Not per seat. For a team of five billed monthly, Notion Plus costs €57.50 a month and Nodary Pro €75 (checked on 23 October 2026): Notion Plus costs less per seat. With AI beyond a trial, Notion’s Business plan costs €117.50 a month for five, while Nodary Pro includes 800 ☄ of Studio AI per seat.

Does Nodary work offline or have desktop apps?

No. Nodary runs in the browser on desktop and phone and can be installed from the browser, but it has no offline mode and no native app. If you need pages offline, Notion’s apps offer them.

Where is my data stored?

Nodary is hosted by AWS in the United States (us-east-1). Notion also hosts in the United States by default and offers other regions, the EU included, on its Enterprise plan.

Do AI agents work with both?

Yes: both have an MCP server on every plan. Nodary’s has 98 tools that reach sheets cell by cell, boards seen as pictures and art decisions, and it keeps a version before every agent write.

Other comparisons

All comparisons

Bring your Notion export, see your project as a map.

Start free with two members and ten documents, or open the live demo first: a sample game studio’s workspace, no account needed.

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Free for two members and ten documents. No card.

How this page is made

Every fact about Notion comes from Notion’s own pages, read on 23 October 2026 and listed below. Every fact about Nodary comes from the product and its public pages. We compare what a team relies on, including where Notion does more, and we never rate or rank. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide.

Sources · Checked on 23 October 2026

  1. Notion: Pricing plans (notion.com)
  2. nodary.ai/pricing
  3. Notion Help Center: Views, filters, sorts & groups (notion.com)
  4. Notion Help Center: Links & backlinks (notion.com)
  5. Notion Help Center: Wikis & verified pages (notion.com)
  6. Notion Help Center: Formulas (notion.com)
  7. nodary.ai/game-balancing
  8. Notion Developers: Notion MCP (developers.notion.com)
  9. Notion Developers: Get started with Notion MCP (developers.notion.com)
  10. nodary.ai/docs/mcp
  11. Notion Help Center: Export your content (notion.com)
  12. Notion: Download the desktop app (notion.com)
  13. nodary.ai/game-design-document
  14. Notion Help Center: Data residency (notion.com)
  15. nodary.ai/privacy

Notion is a trademark of its owner. Nodary is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Notion.

Spotted a fact that is out of date? Write to support@nodary.ai and we will correct the page.