Comparison
Bladbase compared with Outline, Docmost and Notion
Bladbase is a documentation workspace, so the products worth comparing it against are other documentation workspaces. Here is where it differs, and where the others are the better choice.
Comparing with Notion specifically? The row-by-row comparison has more, including the rows Notion wins.
The short version
| Bladbase | Outline | Docmost | Notion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Realtime collaborative editing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | BSL 1.1 | AGPL-3.0 | No |
| Self-host today | Your own Firebase project, at general release | Yes | Yes | No |
| Agent connects as its own member | Yes | — | — | MCP: as a person. REST: a bot user |
| Unattended agent writes | Yes, bearer token | — | — | OAuth over MCP for now; REST takes tokens |
| Section-level agent edits | Yes | — | — | Exact-text replace and insert |
| Review gate before publish | Yes | — | — | Suggested edits; approvals built by hand |
| Maturity | Beta, one engineer | Established | Established | Very large |
A dash means the product does not publish a Model Context Protocol surface, so the row does not apply rather than the answer being no. All four remain scriptable through their own APIs.
Where each one wins
Choose Outline or Docmost if you need to run it yourself
Both are open source and self-hostable today — Outline under BSL 1.1, Docmost under AGPL-3.0 with enterprise features separately licensed. Docmost describes itself as an open-source alternative to Confluence and Notion, with spaces and permissions management. If your requirement is that the software runs on your own hardware this quarter, they are the honest answer and Bladbase is not.
What self-hosting Bladbase will mean
Your own Firebase project — never a Postgres box or another cloud. The whole platform is infrastructure-as-code: one Terraform configuration stands up Firestore, Cloud Storage, the Realtime Database, Firebase Auth, Cloud Tasks and Typesense, and four Cloud Run services (the app, realtime collaboration, background work, the MCP server) deploy against whichever project you name. You own the project, the data and the Google bill; the code is the same code the hosted service runs, and a workspace moves between the two whole — pages at the same short ids, revisions, comments, groups, people invited by email. The runbook a stranger can follow, and the monthly figure for a small team, ship with general release; until then the honest word is “not yet”.
Choose Notion if you need breadth
Databases, projects, agents that run inside it, desktop and mobile apps with offline editing, an enormous integration ecosystem and years of polish. Nothing here competes with that, and a team that wants one tool for everything should use it.
Choose Bladbase if agents write as much as people do
This is the case the others serve least. Notion's hosted MCP server currently requires completing an OAuth flow, and its documentation says non-interactive authorization for automated workflows is still being worked on, which makes an agent running on a schedule with nobody watching awkward to run over MCP. Notion's REST API does accept integration tokens, and its Custom Agents run on schedules inside Notion itself; what neither is, is an outside agent writing over MCP as a named member of the workspace. Notion can also edit part of a page — its MCP tool replaces exact text and inserts at a position — so the difference is not whether an agent can touch one section, but how it is addressed and what guards it.
Bladbase was built the other way round. A token binds a service member to one workspace, so an unattended system writes as itself and the trail reads “MarketPilot drafted · you approved”. An agent edits a section by anchor or ticks one task. A page open in the editor refuses the write rather than losing it. And anything asking for approval waits for a person, with the approval recorded and withdrawn automatically by any later edit.
Bring what you already wrote
A Notion export, a Docmost space export, or a Confluence space export as HTML imports as the same tree: nesting kept, links between pages rewritten to the new pages, images inline, files as attachments, Confluence's panels, expands, code blocks and task lists arriving as callouts, toggles, code with its language and tasks. Import it again and nothing doubles. A folder of Markdown works the same way, and so does a repository — pushes to a connected GitHub repo keep its docs here, one way.
A PDF becomes a page too: its text read as it is, headings and lists kept; a page that is only an image — a scanner app's export, a photographed notebook — read by the model the workspace chose, with the PDF kept beneath the text. Tables and columns are flagged for a look rather than guessed at.
Questions people actually ask
What is the difference between Bladbase and Notion?
Notion is far larger and does far more: databases, projects, agents that run inside it, apps and an ecosystem of integrations. Where Bladbase differs is how an outside agent writes. Over MCP it connects with a bearer token, as its own named workspace member, and can run unattended. Notion's hosted MCP server currently requires an OAuth flow, and Notion says non-interactive authorization is being worked on; its REST API does accept integration tokens.
Is Bladbase open source like Outline or Docmost?
Not today. Outline is BSL 1.1 and Docmost is AGPL-3.0, and both can be self-hosted right now. Bladbase is Firebase-native: self-hosting means deploying it to your own Firebase project, and that arrives with general release. If running it on your own hardware this quarter is the requirement, those two are the better answer.
Can an agent update part of a page instead of replacing it?
Yes, in both. In Bladbase an agent replaces a section by its heading anchor or ticks a single task. Notion's MCP tool notion-update-page replaces exact text or inserts at a position, and its REST API works on blocks. Bladbase also refuses a write to a page someone has open in the editor.
Do I have to choose between people and agents writing?
No, and that is the point. Both are members of the same workspace with roles, editing the same documents. A page open in the editor refuses an API write rather than losing it.
References
- Outline — BSL 1.1, realtime collaborative, self-hostable
- Docmost — AGPL-3.0, spaces and permissions, self-hostable
- Connect to Notion MCP — OAuth for the hosted server; non-interactive authorization in progress
- Notion's MCP tools — notion-update-page: update_content, insert, replace_content
- Model Context Protocol specification
Claims about Notion were re-checked against Notion's own documentation on 2026-09-29; claims about Outline and Docmost were checked on 2026-09-10. If something here is out of date or wrong,tell me and I will correct it.
Correction, 29 September 2026. This page previously said Notion's MCP server works at page level only and cannot edit part of a page. That is not correct: itsnotion-update-page tool replaces exact text and inserts at a position. It also said Notion has no bearer tokens without saying that is true of the MCP server only; the REST API takes integration tokens. Both are fixed above.