Guide
Apps Like Notion But Faster
Notion changed how people think about productivity software. The all-in-one workspace concept is genuinely powerful. But let's be honest — Notion is slow. Pages take seconds to load, the mobile app lags, and large databases grind to a halt. If you love the idea of Notion but can't stand the performance, here are your options.
Why is Notion slow?
Notion is a web app at its core. Even the desktop app is essentially Chrome running Notion's website. Every page load requires a server round-trip, and complex databases need to fetch and render large amounts of data. This architecture makes collaboration easy but performance poor. When your workspace grows beyond a few hundred pages, the slowness becomes a daily frustration.
Fast Notion alternatives
Obsidian stores everything as local markdown files, so it's blazing fast. But it's text-only and requires plugins for basic features. Craft is a beautiful native app with good performance, but it's limited to documents. Bear is fast and elegant for notes, but lacks task management and databases. Each of these apps is faster than Notion, but each one gives up something significant.
What if speed didn't mean compromise?
The real problem isn't that fast apps don't exist — it's that fast apps sacrifice features. You shouldn't have to choose between speed and capability. A local-first architecture with a native app shell can give you both: the instant response times of a local app with the richness of a full workspace tool.
Melo: the speed of local, the power of a workspace
Melo is built local-first on Electron. Your data lives on your Mac, so there are no server round-trips and no loading spinners. But unlike other local-first apps, Melo gives you a spatial canvas with notes, tasks, web embeds, AI chat, clipboard history, and calendar. It's what Notion would be if it were built for speed from day one. One-time purchase, no subscription.