No. Not much. But it's dependent on a lot of personal stuff.
S9 is a TAD faster. Honestly jumping from an S7 Edge to an S9 barely registers to me as a massive. It's smoother, it's faster, but it's not that big to make me go WOAH like what happened when I jumped Note 2 to S7 Edge. What more from Note 8 and S9+
The camera is a bit better, but for most purposes the difference is to me irrelevant. As long as it takes good photos, it's fine by me. Plus if you're posting the photos in social media, the photos get compressed anyway so the quality gets damaged anyway. However this depends on your needs for the camera.
You sound like you don't care for the S Pen, so it might not be an advantage to you, but with the Note 8 cheaper you can just go for it and see if you like the pen.
The biggest most important differentiator would be support. Are you one of those who screams "Die Samsung!" when you get a delayed update? Or are you one of those who don't really care? The S9 will have updates for longer, up to Android Q, whilst the Note 8 will only get up to Android P. If Samsung follows with what they've done with the Note 4 and S5, the Note 8 will get security updates quarterly at least, until early 2020, while the S9 will get until early 2021.
If money and S-Pen was not an issue, I'd say get the best you can buy in terms of performance: S9+.
If money is tight, get the Note 8. Plus you get to try out the S-Pen.