Carnet

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A Notion alternative for people who want to plan their week, not build a system

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Notion is free for one person and can become almost anything: a document, a wiki, a database, a project tracker. If you're looking for a Notion alternative because all you wanted was a place to plan your week and keep your notes, and you ended up maintaining a system instead, Carnet is the one to look at. Carnet costs $10 a month. Notion is free for individuals, and its Plus plan is $10 to $12 a month per member.

We make Carnet, so read this page with that in mind. Carnet replaces Notion for exactly one use: one person's weekly planning and notes. It does not replace a team wiki, a database or a document tool, and this page names other tools for those. Every Notion fact below comes from Notion's own site, checked on October 9, 2026.

Notion vs Carnet at a glance

NotionCarnet
What it isA workspace that brings docs, wikis, projects and databases togetherA weekly planner on a two-page spread, born from a paper bullet journal
Planning your weekYou build it: a database, a Date property, a calendar viewBuilt in: seven day boxes, nothing to set up
Things with no date yetA filtered view you createA "This week" box that waits in sight
NotesPages anywhere, nested as deep as you likeA Notes box, pages inside every day, a daily brain dump page
CalendarNotion Calendar, included in the Free planReads Google Calendar, read-only
Working with othersShared workspaces, guests, permissionsNone. Carnet is for one person
AINotion AI: a trial on Free and Plus, Notion Agent from BusinessNone
PlatformsWeb, Mac, Windows, iOS, AndroidWeb, on any screen. No native app
PriceFree for individuals. Plus: $12 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly, per member$10 a month during the beta
Free planYesNo
Try before payingThe Free plan7-day free trial, card required. A demo on the homepage, no account needed

The short verdict

Stay with Notion if:

  • you need documents, a wiki or databases, alone or with a team;
  • you like building your own setup and adjusting it;
  • free matters. For one person, Notion's Free plan has no limit on pages or blocks;
  • you need native apps on desktop and phone.

Choose Carnet if:

  • the only thing you wanted from Notion was a week and somewhere to write;
  • you have rebuilt your planner page more than once and still don't open it;
  • you would rather pay $10 a month than maintain a system;
  • your head is full, and you need a place for thoughts that aren't tasks.

Choose neither if what you're replacing is a team wiki or a database. Skip to the other Notion alternatives further down.

What Notion does well

A great deal, and it would be dishonest to say otherwise.

Every item in a Notion database is also a full page, so a task can hold its own notes. The same database can be shown as a table, a board, a calendar, a timeline, a list, a gallery or a chart.

The Free plan is generous for one person: unlimited pages and blocks, with file uploads capped at 5 MB each and seven days of page history. Students and educators get the Plus plan free.

And if you don't want to build, Notion's Marketplace has a whole category of weekly planner templates, with a filter for the free ones.

If you run a team's knowledge in Notion, or you enjoy shaping your own tools, stay.

Why people look for a Notion alternative

Three reasons follow from how Notion is built.

Planning starts with construction. Notion has no weekly planner out of the box. You create a database, add a Date property, add a calendar view, switch its layout to Week, then add a filter for the tasks with no date. None of it is hard. But it is a project, and the project is not your week.

A template is someone else's system. Duplicating one skips the building. You then live inside the properties, views and filters another person chose.

The price climbs with the team. Plus is $10 to $12 a month per member and Business is $20 to $24. Notion Agent, the AI that completes multi-step tasks, starts at Business. Five people on Business, billed yearly, come to $1,200 a year.

That third reason has nothing to do with Carnet. If cost per seat is why you're leaving, go to the other alternatives.

How Carnet is different

The week is already there

You open Carnet and the week sits on two pages, with a box for each of the seven days. There is no database to create and no view to configure. Appointments have a time, and they can come from your Google Calendar.

A task gets a day, not a set of properties

"Send the invoice" goes in Wednesday's box. That's the whole operation. If Wednesday fills up, you slide it to Thursday.

What has no day yet goes in a box called "This week". In Notion, that's the filtered view you have to build. Here it waits on the spread, in sight.

Notes without a structure to maintain

Carnet has three places to write:

  • a Notes box on the spread, with no status and no due date;
  • pages inside every day, with headings, lists and checkboxes;
  • a brain dump page each day, to empty your head first and sort later.

There are no folders and no tags. You press ⌘K, type a word, and the page comes up.

Paper, on purpose

The look is a notebook: a dark cover, two cream pages, ink. Five marks come from the bullet journal (to do, appointment, note, done, migrated), and three highlighters mark what matters. There are no streaks, no dashboards, no AI and no notifications.

What Carnet doesn't do

Read this before you switch.

  • No databases, no blocks. You can't build a tracker or a wiki out of it. Carnet is a planner and nothing else.
  • No native app. Carnet runs in the browser on a computer, tablet or phone, and syncs across your screens.
  • No free plan, but a 7-day free trial. A card is required, and nothing is charged before the trial ends. You can also try the spread on the homepage without an account, but nothing you write there is saved.

Notion pricing in detail

Notion's pricing page lists four plans. Prices are per member.

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearlyPer year, per member
Free$0$0$0
Plus$12 a month$10 a month$144 or $120
Business$24 a month$20 a month$288 or $240
EnterpriseCustomCustomOn request
  • Free: unlimited pages and blocks for one person, uploads up to 5 MB, seven days of page history, a trial of Notion AI. With two or more members, the number of blocks is limited.
  • Plus: unlimited file uploads, 30 days of page history, unlimited charts.
  • Business: Notion Agent, AI meeting notes, single sign-on, 90 days of page history.

Carnet has one price: $10 a month during the beta, which is $120 a year, the same as Notion Plus billed yearly. You can cancel anytime, and your access runs to the end of the month you paid for.

Other Notion alternatives

Carnet answers only one of the reasons people leave Notion. If you want apps like Notion for the other jobs, here is what each one's own site says.

  • You need a team wiki: Confluence, from Atlassian, is built for team documentation. Its Free plan covers up to 10 users.
  • You need databases: Airtable has a free plan. Its Team plan is $20 per user a month, billed annually.
  • You want private notes that stay on your device: Obsidian is free and stores your notes locally, in open file formats.
  • You only want a task list: Todoist has a free plan with 5 personal projects. Its Pro plan is $7 a month, or $60 a year.
  • You want a daily planner with time-blocking: see our Sunsama comparison.

FAQ

What is the best Notion alternative?

It depends on what you used Notion for. For a team wiki, look at Confluence. For databases, Airtable. For private notes stored on your device, Obsidian. For planning your own week and keeping notes next to it, Carnet.

Is Notion free?

Yes, for individuals. The Free plan gives one person unlimited pages and blocks, with file uploads limited to 5 MB each and seven days of page history. Workspaces with two or more members get a limited number of blocks before they have to upgrade.

Is Notion worth it?

For one person the Free plan costs nothing, so the real cost is your time. Notion is worth it if you use what makes it different: databases, linked pages, sharing. If you only use it as a weekly to-do page, you're maintaining a workspace to do a planner's job.

Can Carnet replace Notion?

Carnet is an alternative to Notion for one use only: personal weekly planning and notes. If you use Notion for documents or with a team, keep Notion for that.

Try the spread before you decide

You don't need an account to see whether a week on two pages suits you. Open the homepage, click a line and write. Nothing is saved, it's scratch paper.

Try Carnet's weekly spread

Sources

Checked on October 9, 2026.