Seal vs Notion for Markdown review and approval

Notion is a workspace for writing and organizing; Seal is a review-and-sign-off layer for Markdown that has to stay Markdown. The moment you import a .md file into Notion it becomes Notion blocks — fine for a wiki page, a problem for a document your AI agent or your repo owns, because getting the reviewed text back out is a manual export and clean-up. Seal keeps the document as the same .md file, renders it for reviewers in the browser, and — with the free local plugin — commits the approved version straight back. Use Notion for your team’s knowledge base; use Seal when a specific Markdown file needs comments and a formal approval.

Can I review a Markdown doc in Notion?

You can paste or import it, and teammates can comment — but the review happens on a converted copy, not the file. The Markdown structure your agent or repo depends on is gone, and when the review ends someone has to carry the changes back by hand. In Seal, reviewers comment and suggest on a rendered page of the actual .md: each reviewer gets an AI summary written for their role, suggests concrete edits inline, and accepted suggestions flow back into the file. Seal is not an editor — your agent or your own editor writes the Markdown; Seal is where humans review it and sign off.

What counts as approval in each?

In Notion, “approved” is a comment, an emoji, or a checkbox someone toggled — nothing verifies who clicked it or which version of the text they saw, and the page keeps changing afterward. In Seal’s hosted tier, approval is an identity-verified action bound to the content hash of the exact wording the approver read. If anyone edits the approved part later, the approval lifts on just that part and goes back to the approver to re-check. That gives you a tamper-evident record that a named person approved exactly these words — something a Notion comment can’t be.

Side by side

	Notion	Seal
Source format	Imported — Markdown becomes Notion blocks; export back is not the same file	Stays a real .md file; renders, then commits back
Round-trip to your repo	Manual export and clean-up, by hand	Local plugin commits approved text straight back
Per-reviewer summary	No — everyone reads the whole page	Yes — an AI summary written for each reviewer’s role
Formal sign-off	No — a comment or emoji is not a verified approval	Identity-verified approval bound to the exact wording (hosted)
Approval goes stale on edit	No approval concept — edits move on silently	Automatic — approval lifts on the changed part and returns to you
Reviewer setup	Workspace member or guest invite to comment	A link; free account only for verified sign-off
Best for	Team wiki, knowledge base, co-writing prose	Agent-written .md that needs review and sign-off
Editing	Full block editor (not Markdown)	Not an editor — your agent/editor writes the .md; Seal reviews and signs off

When should I use Notion instead of Seal?

Use Notion when the document’s permanent home is your team workspace: wikis, meeting notes, project hubs, anything you co-write and browse rather than formally approve. Reach for Seal when the document is a .md file that lives in a repo or an agent’s workspace, when reviewers are outside your Notion workspace, or when you need a verified record of who approved which exact version. Many teams use both: knowledge lives in Notion, and the specific specs, PRDs, and policies that need sign-off go through Seal.

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