Mahfouz vs Notion

Notion organizes your work as blocks inside its own cloud database. Mahfouz keeps every note as a plain Markdown file on your computer — readable by any editor, script, or AI agent, with nothing to export because nothing was ever locked away.

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Compare	Notion	Mahfouz
File format & ownership	Proprietary blocks stored in Notion's own database — pages only exist inside Notion.	Plain `.md` files in a folder you choose — open, edit, or grep them with any tool.
Where it runs	Notion's cloud. Requires an account and a connection for full functionality.	Nowhere but your computer. No account, no server, no Mahfouz cloud — ever.
Version history	7 days on Free, 30 on Plus, 90 on Business — unlimited only on Enterprise.	Full history in a real Git repo, kept as long as you keep it — not a vendor's retention window.
Offline use	Limited: you choose individual pages to download; everything else needs a connection.	Fully local-first. Works offline by default — there's no "download for offline" step.
Real-time collaboration	Built in, inside Notion's hosted workspace.	Git-based: share a vault the way you'd share any repo, and everyone works from their own full copy.
Price	Free tier is limited; paid plans run from about €9.50/member/month (Plus) up to €19.50 (Business), billed per seat.	Free and MIT-licensed, forever. One download, no seats.
Data export / lock-in	Full workspace export (HTML/Markdown/CSV) exists but isn't on the Free plan, and it's a one-time snapshot, not how the data normally lives.	Nothing to export — your notes were never anything but files.

Notion pricing and plan limits shown as published on notion.com; check their pricing page for current figures.

Questions

Notion, answered.

Can I open my notes without Mahfouz?

Yes — every note is a plain .md file. Open it in any text editor, script against it, or hand it to an AI agent; nothing is trapped in a proprietary format the way Notion's blocks are.

Does Mahfouz have real-time multiplayer editing like Notion?

No — Mahfouz is a local-first, single-writer editor. Collaboration happens through Git: push, pull, and merge like any other repo, rather than everyone typing into the same live document.

What does Mahfouz cost compared to Notion?

Mahfouz is free and MIT-licensed, with no seats to pay for. Notion's paid plans are billed per member per month, and features like full workspace export or unlimited page history sit behind higher tiers.

See the rest of what Mahfouz can do.

Vaults, Markdown editing, Git sync, history, and more.