Naveed Harri
Naveed Harri is an individual solo developer and creator who builds Baalda, an open-source, local-first second brain for teams and AI. Baalda keeps notes as plain Markdown files on users' disks while adding real-time collaboration and AI access over MCP.
At a Glance
- Teams and companies
- Solo users
- Students
- AI-native teams using MCP clients
- +1 more
AI Tools by Naveed Harri
(1)
Baalda
Open Source Markdown Team Notes
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Latest News
Baalda v0.1.88 released for the desktop app
Published 'AI to organize notes: the ones that can move a file, and what a team should let them touch'
Baalda v0.1.87 released
Published 'What is a team second brain (and why nobody built one until now)'
Products & Services
Open-source local-first desktop application for notes and knowledge. It stores notes as plain .md files on a user's disk and supports real-time team editing, vaults, permissions, backlinks, version history, offline work, and AI collaboration.
Hosted service at api.baalda.com for multi-device sync, team collaboration, managed vaults, and hosted AI/MCP access. The managed service is free for two people and one synced vault; larger teams use the paid Team plan.
The Apache-2.0 core backend that users can run themselves with Docker, Compose, Railway, or Coolify. Self-hosting is free and unlimited, and the same desktop binary can be pointed at a user's own server.
Market Position
Baalda positions itself between local-first Markdown tools such as Obsidian and collaborative cloud workspaces such as Notion. Its claimed differentiator is combining files users own, real-time CRDT collaboration, per-file permissions, self-hosting, and AI that can read and write the same notes over MCP; its own comparison material names Obsidian, Notion, Logseq, AFFiNE, Anytype, Reflect Open, Tana, Capacities, and Heptabase as alternatives.
Leadership
Founders
Naveed Harri
Solo founder and maintainer of Baalda; F6S identifies him as a Senior AI Consultant at Ben AI. His public LinkedIn search profile describes him as a backend engineer who started in Pakistan's technology ecosystem, designing microservices, optimizing distributed systems, and leading teams.
Executive Team
Naveed Harri
Solo founder, creator, and maintainer of Baalda
Senior AI Consultant at Ben AI; public profile material describes a backend-engineering foundation covering microservices, distributed systems, and team leadership.
Founding Story
Harri started Baalda to bridge a gap he saw between AI-editable notes stored as ordinary Markdown files and real-time team collaboration. The project's stated initial vision was a shared, always-current context layer where teammates and AI assistants can edit the same files without proprietary storage, lock-in, or whole-file overwrites.
Business Model
Revenue Model
Open-core model: the desktop app and core backend are Apache-2.0 and free to run locally or self-host; revenue comes from the optional managed backend's per-seat Team subscriptions.
Pricing Tiers
For two people and one synced vault on the managed backend; includes unlimited notes and attachments, real-time collaboration, MCP, and self-hosting with no limits.
Managed hosting for teams of three or more; minimum three seats, unlimited people and synced vaults, standalone file sync, and priority support.
Target Markets
- Teams and companies
- Solo users
- Students
- AI-native teams using MCP clients
- Organizations and developers that want to self-host open-source collaboration software
- A shared team second brain and knowledge base
- Client or project workspaces with separate permissioned vaults
- AI-assisted note taking, organization, search, and editing
- Company process documentation and onboarding
- Research archives and linked notes
- Personal local-first note taking