Compared
Notula and Google Docs
Google Docs is the reference point for what reviewing a document should feel like. The problem was never the editor. It is that the document ends up somewhere your repository is not.
What Google Docs is better at
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Several people typing at once
Live cursors, in the same paragraph, with no notion of whose turn it is. Notula is built on git, so two people editing one document is two commits and Notula shows you the other one arriving. That is asynchronous by construction and it always will be.
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Suggestion mode
Accept and reject, tracked per person, over any part of the text. Notula has suggested edits in a comment thread, which is the same idea with less surface.
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Everybody already has it
No install, any device, and nobody has to be told what it is. Notula is a desktop application you download, and on macOS it is not signed yet.
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It is not only for documentation
Meeting notes, a contract, a letter. Notula is for the Markdown in a repository and nothing else.
What Notula is better at
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The file stays in your repository
Plain .md on your disk, in the repo it belongs to, reviewed in the same pull request as the code it describes. Nothing is exported, because nothing was ever imported.
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The history is git
Every revision, with the message and the author, in the same log as everything else. It survives the app being deleted and the company being wound up.
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AI agents read and write the same files
Claude Code, Codex and Cursor operate on files in a repository. A specification in Google Docs is invisible to them; the same specification as .md is something they can be pointed at.
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No account and no server
It works on a plane and it works on a private repository behind a VPN. The app is free, with no seat to buy.
Side by side
| Capability | Google Docs | Notula |
|---|---|---|
| Comment on a passage, reply, resolve | ||
| Several people typing at once | — | |
| Suggested edits | Partly | |
| Works in a browser on any device | — | |
| Files stay plain .md in your own repository | — | |
| History is your git history | — | |
| AI agents can read and edit the same files | — | |
| Works with no network and no vendor account | — | |
| Reviews in the same pull request as the code | — |
Both columns are filled in, including the rows Notula loses. A table where one column is ticks all the way down is an advert, and the first four rows of this one are things the other tool does and Notula does not.
Which one to use
Use Google Docs when
The document is not about the software, or four people need to be in it at the same time on a call. Google Docs is better at both and Notula is not trying to take that.
Use Notula when
The document belongs beside the code - a spec, an RFC, a runbook, an ADR - and today it is pasted into Docs for review and pasted back afterwards. That round trip is the thing Notula deletes.
Try it against a real repository
Free, with no account and no server. Open a repository you already have and the documents in it are a tree in about a second.
Apple silicon and Windows x64 above. Intel and Arm builds, and what to do if macOS calls it damaged.