Typedream review • Notionize your web presence too. Or not.

TD;LR (too damn lovely to read)

If you like Notion–and want to create a modern, strikingly beautiful website fairly **fast don’t go any further. Use Framer.

But it doesn’t integrate with my <about anything>. I hear you. Then use WP–suck in • suck out–add all pro plugin-set library I recommend and you can recreate beauty–and extend to ecom, CRM, memberships, combined and beyond.

–And to today’s review.

If you looooveee Notion–and want to have sex with it as often see it in everything digital, then meet Typedream.

🤝

Your Dream.

Typedream’s main claim to fame is giving Notion’s editor to website building and then adding a few simple animations on top. And given how Audienceful—a Notion-styled minimalist email tool exploded to fame & praise, that didn’t seem like a bad idea. On paper.

First impressions on setup

The setup is simple and already very Notionist. Boys started a global trend there. Can’t wait for the first Notion car.

First bug. Hmpf. Choose between AI or template. Click on Plan with AI. Short load then back to here. Repeat. Back again.

Ok, I’m convinced. I’ll start with a template.

So, what do I want. FAQ? Testimonials? I want a site. Aren’t these just elements?

Ok, let’s pick blog.

Next up : Template library. There’s planty, with many similar. I see a lot are catering–understandably–to Notion geeks who are selling Notion templates. Or want to show they self-Notion. Is there a word Notionista, already?

Let’s pick one of the agency designs. Simple but likable. (who is Stephen? above the ‘use template’ button?)

Next : Other pages. Sell Notion templates. About. Policy. I need about all of these, but let’s pick blog.

And finally : We are in. Notion. Literally. No shame in these people. Just obsession love.

Ok so great news, you don’t have to learn the UX/UI, nor did they needed to hire anyone on that. The interface feels like I made a Notion workspace, and added the site nav. by pages with icons.

But my site (or me?) was named Fir Hare. Plus points to that.

The Editor

The editor is block/container-based and you can drag the side to adjust the widths. I like a lot that it shows gridlines as you adjust width.

To move the container up or down, you have to pick it up. Would’ve been nice to have a click-on-arrow based moving too, because dragging further than the screen height will scroll and speed up. So on a long page it’s a pain to find the spot—Thrive Architect is like that too.

Writing is nice and obstruction-free. You can type / and select from a few blocks, or insert a template.

Adjusting is where UX cracks start to show up

Adjustment settings are on the right side and, to be honest, it’s hard to get used to. There are two tabs, basic and advanced, but the distribution forces you to click back and forth quite a lot.

I didn’t find any global font and style settings, and it took quite a bit of scrolling and searching to find the adjustments I wanted.

It would help to see breadcrumbs or some hierarchy for nested blocks.

You can’t easily delete or duplicate a part within—the little icons are put on the bottom right corner.

There are a few preset color fonts, with two gradients in it. You can (in theory) choose a custom color, but on my screen (MacBook 14″) the selector is half out of the bottom screen and can’t be scrolled. (This will likely be fixed later.)

The Margin/Padding adjustments are a slider for all around, but require typing in individually, which is not too efficient.

Typedream offers a crapload of fonts, a bit too much even, given that it’s an endless list of mostly unknown typefaces without any categorization like in Canva. The default is Inter of course—staying true to the source.

The font size, weight, and other nuances are set on the other tab—by typing. I’d love to be able to change the size by dragging or with hotkeys.

I couldn’t figure out how to resize buttons, their text, or add a hover effect. These should be obvious to do.

Not too type dream

Overall, despite the name Typedream, the editor is anything but. Instead of simple n’ smooth typing, you’ll spend most of your time dragging the cursor around and clicking between tabs, hunting for the right adjustment settings.

The premade section snippets look nice, but most of them are not really editable. For example, I inserted a ‘featured company’ one, and the nice spotlight gradient background you see in Webflow is not editable in any way.

Also, some of these snippets bring in their own font, so you have to then individually set them to match the site’s.

You can’t select multiple elements at once and change their font.

Cut to Conclusion x Conclusion to cut

So overall, they are failing to deliver that promised annoyance free, inviting, fast and efficient edit.

If you can get away with just puzzling together the premade elements & adjust the copy – you’ll be fine.

But considering the alternatives on price – You pay $20 then $50 per month for Typedream – a UX-wise unpolished, somewhat limiting editor, and a very nice Notion dashboard to click around before you work. You can only sell downloads – 2% extra cut on transactions (vs. going straight to Stripe checkout).

For the same ~20/mo – you can get

• a full built site in Webflow
• in Framer
• in Wix, Squarspace and all the other second grade hosted builders
• or if you prefer simplicity you can have a more pleasant editing xp in Ghost with the mail list covered – there the start is at 9/mo.

So even if you are puzzling templates only to sell Notion template downloads – I don’t see why you’d choose Typedream.

Not recommended.

How they could do better.

Typedream will for sure improve some and fix the bugs. But the overall UX likely won’t change.

Audienceful nailed it with their concept to publish emails and Webflow posts from a single Notion-like editor. I loved it. Everyone does. That is where simplicity adds value.

On the other hand, it seems the dreamteam at Typedream (look at that flow there) realized halfway through how much more was needed for a capable site editor from a Notion doc.

You can’t have free drag and edit with type simplicity—it’s one or the other. I wish they would go for a more unique, typing-only experience. Where you set up something like a skin and then in the editor you really just type and use hotkeys with the skin applied.

To simply target minimalist bloggers or creators and doc sellers.