# Baalda vs Confluence

> Baalda vs Confluence: Confluence is a heavyweight cloud wiki for enterprises. Baalda is a lightweight, local-first, open-source team second brain on plain markdown.

Source: https://baalda.com/compare/confluence
Site: Baalda, https://baalda.com

Pick Confluence if you want a heavyweight enterprise wiki tightly integrated with Jira and Atlassian. Pick Baalda if you want a lightweight, local-first, open-source team knowledge base where every page is a markdown file you own, edited live, with AI over MCP.

## Side by side

| | Baalda | Confluence |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time multi-user editing | Yes · CRDT, keystroke-level | Yes |
| Notes are plain markdown files on your disk | Yes | No · cloud pages |
| Local-first (works offline, you own the files) | Yes | No |
| Open source | Yes · Apache-2.0 | No |
| AI reads & writes your files (MCP) | Yes | No |
| Per-file permissions | Yes | Yes · space/page |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Data Center (being phased down) |
| Price | Free + Team plan | Per-seat |

## Where Confluence wins

- Deep Atlassian/Jira integration for enterprise processes.
- Mature admin, governance, and space permissions.
- Built for large-org documentation at scale.

## Where Baalda wins

- Lightweight and fast, with notes as plain markdown files you own.
- Local-first and open source, versus a cloud wiki you rent.
- AI over MCP on your real files, and no per-seat lock-in to an enterprise suite.

## Moving over

Export Confluence pages to markdown and copy the files into a Baalda vault. Your wiki becomes plain files your team edits live and truly owns.

## FAQ

### Is Baalda a Confluence alternative?

Yes, for teams that find Confluence heavy or cloud-locked. Baalda is a lightweight, local-first, open-source knowledge base where pages are markdown files you own.

### Can Baalda replace a team wiki?

Baalda works as a live team wiki and second brain: shared markdown with backlinks, graph, search, per-file permissions, and real-time editing, all on files you own.