A Notion Alternative for Visual References

Notion is a superb documents-and-databases tool that people keep bending into a visual reference library — and then fighting. If your “second brain” is mostly images, the honest move is to let Notion do text and structured notes and use a purpose-built visual tool for the pictures. Trying to make one app do both is where the friction lives.

Why Notion strains as a reference library

Notion treats images as attachments inside pages and rows, not as first-class objects. That single fact produces most of the pain:

• The gallery is a database view, not an image library. Gallery view shows a card’s cover image, but each image is really a page you have to create and open. You’re managing records, not looking at a wall of references.
• No real image search. Notion searches text — titles, page content. It can’t help you find “that muted-green interior shot” unless you typed those words yourself onto the page.
• Phone capture is clumsy for images. Saving a screenshot means creating a page and attaching a file. There’s no share-sheet “drop this image into my references” that just works.
• It gets slow with heavy media. Image-dense databases are a known drag on Notion’s performance.

None of that means Notion is bad — it means images were never its unit. So the fix isn’t a better Notion setup; it’s a second tool for the visual half.

The options

Kelu — built for exactly what Notion strains at: a tag-first library where images are the objects. Drop in a screenshot, tag it once, find it from your iPhone, Mac, or the web; share-sheet capture from the phone; first 2,500 items free. Keep Notion for docs, project notes, and databases — pull the visual references into Kelu. The two coexist cleanly because they’re doing different jobs.

Milanote — if what you wanted from Notion was a moodboard, a canvas fits better than a database. Arrange by hand on a board rather than filling rows.

Eagle — if you’re a desktop-only power user with a huge local asset collection and don’t need sync, a dedicated DAM beats a Notion database.

How they compare

	Notion	Kelu	Milanote
Images as first-class	❌ Attachments	✅ Core	✅ On canvas
Visual search	❌ Text only	✅ Tag-based	Manual
Phone image capture	Clumsy	✅ Share sheet	✅
Docs & databases	✅ Excellent	❌	Notes only
Handles thousands of images	Slow	✅	Awkward
Free tier	✅ Generous	✅ 2,500 items	100 cards

Bottom line

• Keep Notion for documents, notes, wikis, and structured databases — it’s the best there is at that.
• Use Kelu for the visual half: screenshots and references you want to see, tag, and find across devices.
• Milanote instead if the real need was arranging a moodboard.

The trap is expecting one app to be great at both text and images. Split the jobs and each tool gets to be good — starting with tags over folders for the visual side.