The expert’s guide to Gallery View (Notion, Airtable & Tagbox)

A review of the Gallery View (AKA Image Galleries) in Notion, Airtable, and Tagbox)

By
Guy Barner
September 5, 2022

Productivity tools have come a long way over the past few years - from MS Word and Spreadsheets, we’ve graduated to advanced tools such as Notion and Airtable, which offer a better user experience, and more advanced collaboration options. 

While their text editors and table views have become widely used, one of the lesser known features of these tools is the Gallery View. 

In this post, we’ll discuss what is Gallery View, why you should use it, and key differences between the platforms.

What is Gallery View

If Notion’s text editor replaces some uses of Google Docs, and Airtable sometimes replaces Sheets, we can look at the Gallery View as an alternative for Google Drive.

Instead of the rigid folder layout of Drive, Gallery View offers a more visual and customizable layout. It also offers more advanced search options, such as tags and custom fields. Gallery View is especially useful for showcasing highly visual content.

While Gallery View can be great for your personal collection of favorite books, it’s especially powerful for business use-cases, where the advanced filtering really comes into play. 

Key Differences Between Platforms

As mentioned above. There are a few tools that support gallery view. And while they share a lot of functionality, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. 

Here’s a quick overview to help you pick the best tool for you:

Notion

Overview: 

As always, Notion specializes in a smooth, customizable user interface. Notion Gallery View is in fact an alternative view of a table (a database), with unique columns for the image, the filters, and other types of content. 

In fact - that’s Notion’s strength and weakness: it’s a database you can create wonderful things with, but it requires time, and a lot of familiarity with the ins-and-outs of the systems.

Since at its core, Notion’s Image Gallery is a Database, Notion allows you to have different views for the same data. This allows content organizers to quickly work in a Table View, while consumers use the more friendly Gallery View. 

It’s important to note that in the free tier, Notion has a 5MB limitation for file uploads, which means high-resolution images or medium-sized videos are out of the question. On the bright side, they don’t limit the total storage, so you can basically upload an infinite amount of content. The free tier also doesn’t allow to add collaborators (and the personal-pro plan, actually)

One downside worth mentioning is the lack of an image search - Notion’s search only supports text, which means that if you want your audience to be able to find something, you’ll need to manually add it in the title or as a tag. On the other hand, the do have advanced logical filters, meaning you can search for things like “A but not B”.

Pros:
  • The most familiar tool on the list
  • Great sharing & collaboration options in the advanced paid plans
  • Highly customizable
  • Can be embedded in a Wiki page
  • Logical filters
Cons:
  • Database setup can be a bit non-intuitive for some
  • No image search
  • 5MB limitation in the free tier
  • Can’t add collaborators in the free tier

Airtable

Overview: 

Airtable’s Gallery View is actually astoundingly similar to that of Notion. As in Notion, it’s actually an alternate view to Airtable’s default Table View, with very similar options for customizing the look and feel of the view. A key difference is that since Notion is not only a database tool, but also a wiki, it’s easier to embed the Gallery View in a page, while Airtable leaves you with the naked gallery view.

Filters also work the same in Airtable, allowing for flexible filtering by tags and custom fields.

Airtable is also more expensive than Notion, with advanced pricing starting at $10/user. While there’s no limitation on the file size for uploads, Airtable does take the more standard overall storage limitation, allowing up to 2GB of total storage in their free plan. They also restrict you to 1,200 records per base, with each of your gallery items considered as a record.

Pros:
  • Multiple views for the same data
  • Great sharing & collaboration options in the advanced paid plans
  • Highly customizable
  • Logical filters
Cons:
  • Database setup can be a bit non-intuitive for some
  • No image search
  • 2GB total storage limit
  • Can’t add collaborators in the free tier

Tagbox

Overview: 

As the newer tool on the list, Tagbox is less familiar, with fewer online tutorials and a smaller community. However, unlike Notion and Airtable, Gallery view is the main view on Tagbox, with a lot of unique functionality around it.

Similar to Notion and Airtable, Tagbox offers a clean user interface which makes it easier for new users to get started. They also offer the ability to publicly share the view via an open link, or to invite others to collaborate.

A key difference between the platforms is that Tagbox’s uses advanced AI to make the organization process a lot simpler. It offers image search (including text-in-image), which means the organizer does not have to manually add a lot of meta-data. And when you do want to have advanced filtering using tags, Tagbox’s auto-tagging does most of the heavy-lifting, saving hours in manual tagging.

Another key difference is in pricing. Tagbox’s free plan supports up to 1000 items, with a total storage limit of 50GB (25 times that of Airtable). There’s also no limit on the number of collaborators, meaning you can have your entire team using it at no charge.

Pros:
  • Advanced image search and auto-tagging
  • Easier to find what you’re looking for with omni-search
  • No limit on collaborators
  • Great free tier with huge storage
Cons:
  • Item cover is less customizable
  • Smaller community
  • No logical filters

Summary

Notion and Airtable offer a similarly good experience with their Gallery View. The differences between the two are negligible, with the main being that you can embed a Notion Gallery in a Wiki page. If you’re working in small teams with lots of content, both offer good pricing in their middle tiers, Notion being slightly cheaper.

Tagbox, on the other hand, offers more advanced search options, and can save hours of manual organization with its advanced auto-tagging. Tagbox’s free plan offers a lot more flexibility, with looser storage limits and no limitation on collaborators. Since its plans are not based on the number of users, it also offers much better pricing if you have large amounts of users.