Freehand by InVision vs. Notion

InVision Freehand has quickly evolved to be a very robust solution for our pre-design process and collaboration with stakeholders and other product teams. It has brought a lot more hands-on workshopping opportunities and created engaging spaces for cross functional teams. Internally to our design org we are able to prototype ideas faster and generate insights or changes BEFORE going into more hi-fidelity design tools or processes.

Incentivized

At the company I work for, we use Notion as an organizational base for all sectors and projects. For example, we use it for the marketing team, customer support team, among others. And for each one, we can create pipelines, tasks, due dates, execution time, tags with different colors. It's something very versatile that helps with everything around here. We've even created a sales funnel in Notion.

Incentivized

• Bring in and embed external files and view them on the board without having to move out of freehand. eg. pdf's, power point, youtube etc.
• Creating wireframes, flow maps, all and any kinds of created art boards to share with team members.
• Ability to create text and link to external sites
• Can format and create pages with text and bullet points right in freehand, rather than having to go to another software to do the same.
• Collaborate with Team members all on the same board and project at the same time and get feedback live in a meeting and/or even later.
• Love the different templates that have been provided for me to use as a starting point.

Incentivized

• I love that you can create nested pages, allowing for separate sections to organize information as needed.
• I appreciate the convenience of effortlessly uploading images to any section.
• I appreciate that when adding links, you can embed them so the website displays directly on the page.

Incentivized

• The resolution: Our webpage designs always pass the resolution threshold to where freehand starts to work its compression. During presentations, it can be a little embarrassing when we can't read the copy because it looks like potatoes.
• Embedding videos: GIFs are only good to a certain point, and creating Vimeo embeds is tedious. I wish I could embed MP4s or web assets a lot quicker.
• Touchpad panning: I can't tell you how many times I've "gone back" in my browser when I'm just trying to pan across the freehand. Has honestly made me wanna force quit on many occasions.
• Sticky notes and text in shapes: Overall, it's really hard to use the sticky notes and text inside rectangles without the text just getting all over the place. It's different sizes, it gets too tiny, it gets way too big, and overall, it just doesn't look professional, even with a lot of fussing.
• No ability to crop/mask an image. Nice to have, but sometimes we just need to delete a chunk off a screenshot, and it requires opening PS or taking a screenshot to edit anything.
• Wish there was a way to have "internal comments" that are not visible to our clients.

Incentivized

• I use Notion on my personal tablet, and unlike on the computer, I have a lot of difficulty editing backgrounds, GIFs, and page dividers. It's not as user-friendly, and often the elements end up cut off or misaligned, which is frustrating.
• While the current calendar feature is helpful, I'd love to see more customization options. The Google Calendar style isn't always ideal, especially for tasks without specific times or for ongoing projects that require daily maintenance.
• It would be fantastic to have more flexibility in customizing Notion pages. For example, I'd love to create planners with the freedom to add illustration boxes, stickers, or GIFs without being restricted to a fixed layout.

Incentivized

Honestly as in any organization it's up to budget. I feel like every organization I go to I'm constantly striving to keep InVision as part of the main funded tools used by the team especially in a remote environment. I feel there is a push to move to Figma and Zooms new white boarding tool but I'm still not a fan of Zoom's tool. Microsoft also created a white boarding tool which has been buggy.

Incentivized

We're too settled in the ecosystem and we have no major complaints with it. No reason to move unless you have a burning pain point

Incentivized

Color Selection can be tricky when changing colors for shapes and text I've seen other users struggle with creating sticky notes and getting text to fit in the box properly and had to abandon the tool for a workshop for this reason After having a demo, I learned of new features I wasn't using. I don't know it would have been intuitive to find on my own.

Incentivized

Notion addresses most of our needs and help teams to organize their tasks, track their progresses and then archive for future reference. The company uses Notion to share announcement, holiday schedules, employee contact information and organizational structures. Everyone finds it useful and helpful. The notifications are instant. Reminders are on time.

Incentivized

For availability, we never have to even think about whether inVision Freehand is going to be available for us to work with. There has never been a time when we have opened up the application and had any issues of any kind. I can't imagine why anyone would work with a platform that is unreliable. inVision Freehand is realibel, stable, and getting better all the time. Whether it's their built-in tools or the expanding of Templates to work with Freehand has been a reliable go-to platform for us.

Incentivized

It is a little slow when bringing artboards from Sketch to Freehand using Craft. I have had some issues loading and redrawing pages when I have a lot of images on my freehand board. It gives me an error message while I am in the file and starts to reload and redraw all the photos again. Not sure if it has a limit on how many images it can handle on a board at a time.

Incentivized

I haven't had to use the support team for anything, which is great news because that means the product usually works as expected! In terms of online support, I've been able to find videos that show how new features work. Also, many of the people I work with have experience with the tools so they are a great resource for me.

Incentivized

The implementation is pretty much easy-peasy and plug-n-play. We simply download the applications and install, signed in and were good to go. I really cannot imagine that there would be anyone who would have any difficulty whatsoever in getting started in more than just a few minutes. It's really how implementing these officewide improvements should always go.

Incentivized

Miro (formerly Realtime Board) is the original product concept for this tool and I used it for 3-4 years for product development. Invision is aesthetically a carbon copy of the tool but lacks in fine usability controls. We actually didn't choose Freehand, it just came as an added tool under our Invision subscription. It's helpful but knowing the previous tool, it's been a hard sell because it's just not as good. Again, it's really fine tuned usability things like navigation, zoom, switching from tool to tool, selecting and deselecting, etc

Incentivized

Jira is a great tool, that is probably more robust than Notion and more scalable. But for a small company (under 50 people) the investment is hard to swallow without a significant revenue stream justifying it. Notion is a perfect low cost option that meets 80% of the capability, and that extra 20% is not needed by most organizations.

Incentivized

Getting set up with inVision Freehand was super simple. We figured how many of our team members were going to be using it and we set up our account knowing that. There were no negotiations, contract hassles or anything that would have been a waste of our time, efforts or resources.

Incentivized

Not everyone in the company has access to Invision, and they can't view the links I provide to them. I also wish everyone could view a file without logging in to the enterprise account. It comes in handy when I am doing focus-group studies or other studies with our customers that don't have Freehand. Unfortunately, if that is possible, I don't know how to do that.

Incentivized

We didn't use an outside vendor - that's why I gave this option a 10.

Incentivized

• Positives all around. Everyone is able to see and collaborate.
• Granting access is sometimes a pain. Sending the link does not always work, and I get emails as people try to access boards.
• No negatives really, I love learning all of the different ways it can be used.

Incentivized

• The first positive impact of using Notion is saving time and increased productivity. Since switching to Notion, I spend less time searching for notes, tasks, or messy documents. Everything is in one place, making my workflow at least 30% more efficient compared to using multiple apps.
• The second positive impact is a better organization (and it leads to fewer missed business opportunities). Before Notion, it was easy to lose track of ideas, follow-ups, or small tasks. Now, I rarely forget important details, which has led to more consistent execution of projects and fewer last-minute rushes.
• Because Notion’s free plan has been more than enough for my needs, using the free plan has another positive impact on ROI for me. If I had to replace it with separate tools for note-taking, task management, and project planning, I’d likely spend $10–$30 per month on multiple subscriptions.
• Although they are very few, Notion has some negative impacts or limitations on ROI. I think the most important one is the offline mode issues can interrupt productivity. There have been times when I needed to access an important document while traveling or in a meeting with poor internet and couldn't. This led to delays or extra effort to work around the issue.
• While Notion is fantastic for organizing work, it's not a full replacement for spreadsheets, collaborative docs, or task management software in all cases. This means I still need to use some other apps for specific tasks, which slightly reduces the efficiency gain.
• If I need to give some figures; Notion helps me at least 3-5 hours per week to save time; $10–$30 per month by not needing multiple apps. Even with some limitations, Notion has had a net positive impact on my productivity, organization, and overall efficiency, all at zero cost!

Incentivized