Notion is a great place for docs, wikis and project databases. pylo is the backend for when those databases turn into real processes: typed API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms and analytics, hosted in Germany.

TL;DR

Notion is a workspace for docs, wikis and databases, and it's very good at all three, hence why many teams start tracking customers, orders or projects in Notion databases and end up running real processes on them. That works until other software needs the data, the database grows large or the permissions get complicated. pylo is a backend platform built for exactly that part. pylo covers data model, typed API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms, events and AI access through pylo MCP in one system. Keep Notion for your docs and wiki, but move the data and processes your business runs on into pylo.

What is pylo?

pylo is a Backend-as-a-Service platform from Germany, which you can use to build the operating system for your company. You model entities, fields and relations in the admin panel or through the API, and pylo generates a typed GraphQL API with great developer experience automatically. The same permission model governs data, the admin UI, forms, flows and the MCP server. So with pylo you build apps, automations and products on one coherent base across your whole team.

What is Notion?

Notion is a US company whose product combines docs, wikis, project management and databases in one collaborative workspace. Databases have relations, rollups, formulas and many view types, from tables and boards to calendars, timelines, charts and maps. Around them Notion offers forms, automations, buttons, Sites for publishing pages or sharing them to the outside, Notion AI with agents and custom agents, a REST API and a hosted MCP server. It has a huge template gallery for many standard usecases and is used by millions of teams.

At a glance

A fully-fledged backend instead of a workspace

Notion databases are flexible and pleasant to work with, but they get harder when they become the system other software depends on. A database holds up to 250,000 rows, and Notion's own guidance says complex formulas, rollups and chained relations slow it down and the API for connecting them with the outside world only allows 180 requests per minute per connection or 600 on Business and Enterprise. A query returns at most 10,000 results, there are no aggregations and formulas over relations only evaluate the first 25 references through the API. Once you try to build more complex apps or tools which depend on data stored in notion, you have to scheme your architecture around these limitations.

In pylo you add an entity, a field or a relation in the admin panel and the typed GraphQL API updates at once, without any migrations or redeployments. Possible field types include relations, enums, JSON, public or private files, rich text, dates, booleans and number/text formatters, with validation built in. Relations work across your whole workspace, you filter across them and group aggregations by any field and API requests are unlimited on every plan.

Permissions that follow the data everywhere

Notion shares pages and databases with members, teamspaces and guests, in addition you can limit rows to the people named in a Person or Created-by property and hide single properties from certain users on Business and Enterprise plan. Enough for internal wikis or documentation, but not enought for running your whole business on. pylo separates tenants at the row level, inside a single tenant, any entity can act as the requester (ARO) and any entity as the requested object (ACO), with hierarchies and field-level rules. Every path into the data is GraphQL, so the same permission rules apply to every part of pylo: the API, the admin panel, forms, flows and MCP. pylo also offers a wieder variety of login-functionality with SSO through Google and Microsoft accounts.

pylo flows instead of database automations

Notion automations react to new pages, property changes or schedules and can edit properties, add pages, send notifications, mails and webhooks. The Free plan only gets Slack notifications, where custom agents on Business and Enterprise take on more open-ended work with AI. For anything beyond that, teams connect Notion to Zapier, Make or their own code through the API and build their automations outside of Notion.

In pylo you build automations in a visual workflow engine called pylo flows, where any event in pylo can start a flow, in addition you can use cron triggers or webhooks. pylo flows include retries, custom rate limiting, error handling and full event logs and everything is statically typed, so each node knows exactly what input and output they need. pylo ships integrations for email sending and a range of third-party systems, for anything else you want to extend your flows with, write a custom flow action in TypeScript.

Admin views and forms built on the same permissions

Notion's views are among the nicest ways to look at data and we won't pretend otherwise; with their many templates and views you can also customize each page to your specific needs.

pylo's admin UI has a different focus; you can compose list and detail views from predefined components, decide who sees what and show or hide fields depending on a record's state. The views use the same permission model as the API, so nobody sees data through a view that they couldn't read anyway.

Notion forms write into a database on all plans, with conditional logic on Business and Enterprise. With pylo forms, you can create forms that are public or authenticated, with hidden fields, conditional rendering, direct mapping to your entities, including relations, and submission limits per form or per user.

Events and dashboards built in with pylo analytics

Notion offers chart and dashboard views on databases and keeps page history, from 7 days on Free up to 90 days on Business. Analysis across changes over time means exporting data or building it yourself with webhooks, which only send IDs and need a second request to fetch the actual data.

Every create, update and delete in pylo emits an event with the full before and after state, which you can combine with external events you bring in through the API, stored for unlimited time on every plan. You can then build visualizations and custom dashboards on top of both, internal and external data and events.

AI and MCP with guardrails

Notion AI is mature: agents that work across your workspace, custom agents, AI search across connected tools and meeting notes, all on Business and Enterprise. Notion's hosted MCP server lets assistants create and update pages, databases and views and query your data. Writes apply directly, any confirmation comes from your AI client.

pylo's MCP server is live for customers, you simply connect it as a specific user and the AI gets exactly that user's read permissions, nothing else. pylo never applies an AI's writes directly, instead they arrive as proposals that a human accepts or declines. That makes it safe to let an assistant work on production business data without giving up writes altogether.

File handling

Notion limits uploads to 5 MB per file on Free and has no file size limit on paid plans. Files live inside pages and follow the page's sharing.

pylo stores files in EU-hosted object storage with public or private links, no file size limit and any file type, as fields on your entities with the same permissions as the rest of the record.

Agencies and multi-tenant work

With pylo, agencies can run many client workspaces from one user account, where each workspace is its own tenant and permissions and one login switches between them. The database separates tenants with row-level security. In Notion every member is a paid seat, guests are free but only see what you share with them, so giving a client's team real access usually means paying for their seats too.

Pricing

Notion charges per member, so ten people cost $100 a month on Plus and $200 on Business, billed annually, and each new hire raises the bill. For a team that mainly writes docs, that's a fair price for a great tool.

pylo has a different approach with usage-based pricing, so every plan includes unlimited users and API calls, which means the price stays the same when your team grows or when you give a client's staff access. Its price already includes pylo flows, the full admin UI, forms, analytics and personal onboarding, every pylo plan has every feature, the plans differ only in included usage for flow runs, stored records and used file storage size.

Hosting, compliance and reliability

All pylo content data, data models and databases live in data centres in Germany, our subprocessor list is public and names every non-EU parent company openly. A GDPR data processing agreement is part of the terms and we never use customer data to train AI models. Paid plans come with a 99.5% availability SLA, hourly encrypted backups kept for 30 days at a separate German location and support from the team that builds the product.

Notion runs on AWS and stores data in the US by default. EU data residency in Frankfurt is available on the Enterprise plan only and even then account data, AI processing and some features stay outside the selected region. Notion holds SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and BSI C5 and offers a GDPR DPA.

Where Notion is the better choice

We would rather tell you than have you find out later:

• Docs, wiki, projects and databases in one place, with real-time collaborative editing. pylo is not primarily a docs tool.

• More view types, including board, calendar, gallery, chart and map, where pylo offers table, kanban and timeline.

• Formulas, rollups and buttons work without any code.

• Mature AI with agents, custom agents, AI search across connected tools and meeting notes.

• Huge adoption, a large template gallery, Sites for publishing and native mobile and desktop apps.

• Formal certifications like SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and BSI C5, and open signup. pylo is in private beta.

If your team needs one place to write, plan and track, Notion is excellent. pylo is for the data your business runs on, the part that other software, automations and customers depend on.

Where pylo is a great Notion alternative

We think these are the main reasons to pick pylo over Notion:

• A backend, not a workspace. Typed GraphQL API, unlimited API requests and aggregations across relations, no per-database row ceiling and no 10,000-result limit per query.

• One system instead of a stack. The data model, API, permissions, flows, admin UI, forms, events and MCP are all one product. You don't need Zapier or a second database next to your tables to get the heavy lifting done.

• Permissions down to the field, on every plan. API, admin panel, forms, flows and MCP all go through the same permission layer, with hierarchies and field-level rules, without upgrading to a higher plan.

• Login for your own users. Build portals and apps on your data with pylo's auth, instead of inviting customers as guests into your workspace.

• Automation that goes further. The flow builder covers event, cron and webhook triggers, with retries, rate limiting, typed actions and full logs. Custom actions are plain TypeScript.

• Non-developers can still work without you. Configurable admin views, state-dependent fields and a full form builder let operations teams handle their own changes.

• Analytics you don't have to instrument. pylo records every change as an event with before and after state and custom dashboards sit right next to the data.

• AI access that's safe for production. MCP runs with the connected user's exact read permissions, and every write goes through human approval as a proposal.

• No per-seat pricing. Unlimited users and API requests and all features on every plan, only three meters are billed: flow actions, records, and file storage/traffic.

• Built for agencies. You can run many client workspaces with separate tenants and permissions, switch between them with one login and give client teams access without paying per seat.

• German hosting from a German company. pylo hosts user data in Germany on every plan and the DPA is part of the terms. You get a 99.5% SLA from the first paid plan, hourly backups with 30-day retention and personal support from the people who build the product.

FAQs - Questions and answers about pylo

• Should I replace Notion with pylo completely? Probably not, many of our customers and we ourselves keep Notion for docs, wikis and notes. pylo is for structured data and the processes that other software depends on.

• Can I write docs or wikis in pylo? Only to a certain extend: pylo has rich text fields and you can build your own wiki tool on top, but it is not primarily a document editor.

• Is pylo open source? No, but you can export all data at any time as CSV or JSON or through the API. The data models, flow definitions and generated SDK code are yours to keep, even after you leave.

• Can I self-host pylo? No, but if you need specific hosting options, we can discuss them as part of the Enterprise plan.

• Where exactly is my data? Content data is in data centres in Germany and backups are kept at a different German location.

• Can I get access now? pylo is currently in private beta, you can just request access and we will set up your first entities with you on a call and onboard you personally for your first project.