Where to keep your knowledge when AI will read it
Three genuinely different answers, and the wrong one is expensive after two years of notes.
AI Tools Hub Editorial · published · updated
Three directions
| Notion | Tana | Local files | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | Sharing and structure | Fast capture with structure applied | Data ownership |
| Where data lives | Vendor servers | Vendor servers | Your disk |
| Suits | Team document store | Personal thinking record | Long-term or confidential |
| Learning curve | Low | High | Medium |
Notion for teams
Sharing, permissions, templates and databases, and nobody needs training to open a page. The built-in AI handles summarising and drafting; do not expect it to match a general-purpose assistant on analysis.
Tana for individuals
It applies structure at capture time, so notes become searchable and aggregatable without later filing. The concepts have to be learned, which makes it a poor choice to roll out to a whole team.
Local files when it matters who holds the data
Plain files on your own disk stay readable if a vendor disappears, and let you decide exactly what any model sees. With a local model you can search your own notes without anything leaving the machine.
Check the export before you commit
Migrating years of notes is heavy work whichever you pick. Whether everything exports to Markdown is the question that matters later.
FAQ
Can I run several?
You can, and then you spend your time remembering which one you wrote it in. AI search does not fix a split corpus. Pick one.