Comparison
Baalda vs Tana: which second brain fits your team?
Supertag outliner that pivoted toward agentic meetings in 2026.
Pick Tana if you want a structured supertag outliner and its meeting-capture direction, all in the cloud. Pick Baalda if you want a local-first, open-source team second brain where notes are markdown files you own, edited together in real time, with AI writing to the same files.
At a glance
| Feature | Baalda | Tana |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time multi-user editing | Yes — CRDT, keystroke-level | Yes |
| Notes are plain markdown files on your disk | Yes | No — cloud nodes |
| 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 — closed AI |
| Per-file permissions | Yes | Partial |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Price | Free + Team plan | Free + paid |
Where Tana is the better choice
- Supertags and a structured, queryable outline model.
- Meeting capture and agentic features in its 2026 direction.
- A strong outliner experience for power users.
Where Baalda wins
- Local-first plain markdown you own, versus cloud nodes in Tana's store.
- Open source and self-hostable.
- AI over MCP writing to your real files, and a simple markdown model instead of a bespoke structure.
Can you switch?
Export your Tana content and bring it into Baalda as markdown. From there it's plain files on disk your whole team can edit live.
Frequently asked questions
Is Baalda a good Tana alternative?
Yes, especially if you want ownership and openness: Baalda is local-first, open source, and markdown-based, whereas Tana keeps your content in the cloud in a proprietary node structure.
Did Tana stop being a second brain app?
In 2026 Tana pivoted toward an agentic meeting platform, with its outliner continuing separately. Teams wanting a dedicated, owned second brain increasingly look for alternatives like Baalda.