Hey Coda folks,
Just stumbled upon Notion’s recent update: they’ve finally rolled out offline mode, allowing you to download pages (or just use Recents/Favorites on higher plans), work on them offline, and sync back later all from their (native) desktop and mobile apps. (Working offline in Notion—Everything you need to know) Really sleek and honestly, something many of us long-time Coda supporters have been wishing Coda would deliver for ages and yet…
It got me wondering… anyone still actively doing major work on Coda? It’s been ages since I’ve seen any big updates. A lot of announcements but nothing resulting out of it. Looking back over the last 18 months, most updates have been pretty minor polish, some formatting tweaks, admin roles, small Packs, import/export tools, useful, sure, but nothing close to a game-changer.
I sincerely hope that the next few months will prove me wrong.
I have similar questions. Love Coda and this community, but I’ve been selling my team on the promise of what’s to come while other apps, notion being one of them, address major pain points for us.
Coda Brain is a good example of this. I’ve asked several times over the past year about the status, whether it’d be released to non-enterprises customers, and nothing.
Similar to the notion announcement, Clickup just released their own “brain” application. Haven’t used this, but my team perceives updates like this as signs of stronger product investment. They don’t see the same momentum in Coda, which shapes where they think we should commit workflows.
The last example I’ll mention is the recent “we’re listening” thread. Heavy on promise and light on actually commitment. No clue what’s actually going to be deployed this year other than minor UI updates.
ClickUp Brain MAX | One AI to Replace them All ClickUp Brain MAX | One AI to Replace them All
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This is a tad confusing.
Is this a VOTE for Coda Ofline Mode (in which case I would vote for it).
Or is it a question about the amount of engineering work being done inside Coda?
Or is it asking if any of us are still working on major Coda Projects?
Coda Offline Mode:
I train all my clients to keep their main Coda Document open on their laptops at all times, and to HIBERNATE their laptop instead of shutting down. (Use the settings in Windows to define what happens when you close the lid or press the power button).
This way, they ALWAYS have their main doc up and running, even if they have no internet connection.
It’s a clumsy workaround - but it covers the rare occasions when they have no internet.
Coda engineering:
There is a HUGE amount of work being done internally to integrate Coda into the Grammarly universe and to bring to life the Coda Brain vision. It may not be called Coda Brain when it is completed, but there is a lot of work in progress.
The recent announcement of the revamped Grammarly Docs editor (now entirely based on the Coda.io document editor surface) shows progress towards the new Grammarly/Coda integration vision.
Major Client Projects:
As for ‘Coda Classic’ automations - my clients have been reassured by Grammarly and Coda management that their investments in Codaworkflow automations are safe and assured well into the future - so that I am busier than ever working on bigger than ever Coda projects, including building AI Agents with Codaa.
So…
Which question are you asking in the OG @Stefan_Huber ?
Respect
Max
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We are actively doing major work in coda. Our workspace grows every day, data-wise as well as function-wise.
Recent updates might have not been flashy but actually tackled huge problems for us. Loading speed, subitems and decimal-system to name a few. At least for us, offline mode is the last thing we would wish for.
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Coda, as it is today, can achieve transformational process improvements for all kinds of workflows. I am consistently using Coda to set up new projects for the various companies I consult for and they are delighted with the results. If Coda stopped shipping updates today and simply maintained their product as-is, I would see no reason to leave.
I’m personally more afraid that Coda will bloat their product and break preexisting docs in the pursuit of “Major Updates”, than I am wishing for new features. That is, I do want new features such as support for larger datasets, better access controls, and a good mobile app; but I would much rather have Coda as a stable, reliable surface for process optimization, than as a bloated mess of disjointed, ad-hoc features like Monday or Clickup.
Notion is certainly one to watch, but currently, Coda’s formula language and Packs are simply superior for data-centric workflows.
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I, too, would appreciate more of a roadmap as to what is going on with Coda. Lots of announcements. I had a bit of a fear than when they announced their partnership with Grammarly that it would completely stagnate. Lots of promise of product growth, but not much follow through.
I was really hoping to hear something the last few weeks. I was just thinking about this today before I saw this thread, how much it seems like so often something I love just completely stagnates with product updates. They tend to focus more on small little things long-time users don’t really care about. I have had the same issue with YNAB (You Need a Budget). Good product, but could be made great if their product team actually had vision on where to go. They give little updates here and there, but nothing major, and othing I even care to use.
I really hope Coda doesn’t do this for much longer. I’m hoping they do some pretty great updates soon, especially with the overall UI.
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@Jessie_Roberson
Not sure if you’re aware but there’s currently a beta of the new UI.
You can sign up here Sign up for Coda's product betas.
Also for anyone wondering about progress / product development etc, What's new, explore new Coda features and product updates - Coda is a good resource to check back on monthly. For last month, the things im most excited about - new formulas for Pages admin were introduced and update to google calendar back with free times.
Cheers!
Mel
P.s. if anyone actually looked into it closely, the notion offline mode is not what it seems (maybe its still in its infancy) but there are a lot of limitations (need to manually download pages, the associated database tables unless downloaded don’t work, quite a few features/utility are not available in offline mode) and they have not addressed the team collaboration issue (if one team member works offline, then comes back online, what is priority of the data?).
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I mean, if what is seen in the little GIF in the link you provided is what you are talking about, I’m not entirely sure how that is necessarily impactful in an overall UI experience. I’m certainly hoping you are talking about much more in development for the UI…
its more extensive than what is displayed in the gif.
as per what is says below the gif …
everything from navigation and page settings to table configuration.
here is a doc with summary of the changes (13 categories in total thus far, with multiple individual changes found in corresponding Description column).
There are also screenshots of Before and After.
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It would seem not. But such an assumption would be wrong.
In 24 months, Notion will seem quaint. It will still be an all-in-one doc/table/pub tool with a little faster performance and some clever AI integrations. It might have some agents, but they will be weak, relying mostly on other vendor’s technology.
Products that will cause it to seem quaint will have fully established themselves as omnipresent platforms that orchestrate multiple agents for everyday workers. The agents will perform local and cloud tasks. These post-agentic products (which is likely to include Grammarly) will live everywhere the cursor blinks and understand every context of the user. Notion cannot easily catch up to this architecture despite its sizable user base. The collection of technologies required to compete will outstrip its capitalization. It will need a serious infusion to cross into the post-agentic era with a competitive offering.
Notion is doing fine today with what is defined as pre-agentic work styles. However, there’s no ‘notion’ of a path that carries it to post-agentic architecture and work styles.
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Okay, so I’m confused. You love Coda, but you want it to be different in several ways, otherwise it is considered stagnant, and therefore undeserving of your love?
I love Coda too. The features I used in 2021 to build an extremely powerful suite of vision AI training and eval tools are the same features I used last week to build a killer AI web search agent that extracts competitive lease bidding for oil & gas companies. I’m rather happy with this form of ‘stagnation’. 
Without question we all want improvements and new features. With the current base features and integration options, almost nothing stands in the way of crafting modern solutions.
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