synoia or Baalda?

The open-source team second brain synoia is built on.

The short answer

Pick Baalda if you want a live, permissioned markdown vault with an AI connector, and you're happy to run it yourself or use its hosted plan and answer your own security questions. Pick synoia if you want the same core run for you in London, with Google or Microsoft sign-in, organisations with teams and guests, and a logged record of your AI's writes.

synoia and Baalda, feature by featuresynoia as built today, before release. Baalda as found in September 2026.
Feature	synoia	Baalda
Notes are plain markdown files on your computer	YesA vault is a folder of .md files on each person's computer. Obsidian opens it.	YesPlain .md files on your computer.
Edit together, live	YesEdits merge as you type, and you can see who else is in a note.	YesLive co-editing with cursors and presence.
Restrict a folder or page to named people	YesShare a vault, a folder or a note. Restrict a folder to named people or teams.	YesFolder and file shares, including deny.
Work with people from other organisations	YesInvite guests by name to a vault, a folder or a note.	PartlyPeople are invited one at a time. We found no organisation layer.
Your own AI reads and writes, within your access	YesClaude, ChatGPT or any MCP client reads and writes within the person's access. Every write is logged.	YesAn MCP endpoint bound to the person's permissions.
Sign-in	Google or Microsoft only. No passwords.	Email and password, with Google as an option. We found no single sign-on or multi-factor authentication.
Where it runs	One service on AWS in London, behind Cloudflare. Notes also live on your computers.	Self-host anywhere, or use Baalda's hosted Team plan.
Plugins	NoNo plugin system.	NoNo plugin system.
Mobile app	NoDesktop first. macOS leads.	NoNo mobile app.
Price, as found	Free for pilot members. Priced after the pilot.	Free locally and to self-host. Team plan $10 per vault a month, or $97 a year.

Yes, No and Partly describe Baalda as we found it in September 2026, from Baalda's repository at version 0.1.61 and its pricing page. Products change; check with Baalda's maintainers before you rely on a line here. For synoia, each line describes the product as built today. Nothing is released yet.

Where Baalda is the better choice

Baalda is open source and free to self-host. If you can run your own server and answer your own security questions, Baalda gives you live co-editing, folder permissions and an AI connector bound to each person.

synoia owes Baalda its foundation. It's built on Baalda's Apache 2.0 code, and it says so.

Where synoia fits

What a team needs around that core: sign-in through Google or Microsoft only, organisations with teams and guests, admission by invitation, attributed and logged AI writes, and a service we run in London with nightly encrypted backups.

synoia is a hard fork that we maintain. Security fixes from Baalda are taken by hand.

Switching

Can you switch?

At the file level it's the same markdown. Accounts don't carry over, because synoia has no passwords.

Questions

Is synoia just Baalda with a new name?

It started from Baalda's code, deliberately, and says so. Since then it's been a hard fork that we maintain. Sign-in, organisations, teams and guests, the scope and record of the AI connector, and the hosting are our work.

Why not use Baalda's hosted plan?

If it suits you, do. Choose synoia if you need Google or Microsoft sign-in, an organisation layer, or a service run in London by a UK company.

Does synoia follow Baalda's releases?

Security fixes, yes, taken by hand. Features, selectively. The fork has no obligation to take what upstream ships.

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