Kunbaa is for families who want a private tree of the people they know — built by everyone, with the photos, the stories and the birthdays beside it — rather than a research tree that reaches back to 1820.
MyHeritage is the stronger choice for researching ancestors: billions of historical records, DNA tests, Smart Matches and photo restoration tools. Kunbaa is the better fit for a private, invite-only tree of the living family, which relatives build together, with a wall for the photos and stories, events with birthday reminders, and chat and calls in the app. Everyone joins Kunbaa free and the tree has no size cap; Kunbaa has no records and no DNA, and imports a GEDCOM file on the web rather than fetching a tree from MyHeritage.
At a glance, as of September 2026. Kunbaa facts describe the current release; MyHeritage facts are quoted from its own site.
| Compared | Kunbaa | MyHeritage |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | The living family: a private tree of the people you know, with the photos, stories, birthdays and events around it | Family history research: historical records, DNA testing and automatic matches that push a tree back through the generations |
| Who sees the tree | Only the relatives you invite. Invite-only, no ads, nobody's data sold | Your family site and the members you invite by email; paid plans also match your tree against records and other members' trees |
| Building it together | Everyone you invite can add relatives and fix mistakes on the same tree, and an invitation links each relative to the place already made for them | Site owners invite family members to the family site and can grant them access |
| Tree size on the free plan | No cap. The tree is free for the whole family, both sides, all the branches | The free Basic plan holds up to 250 people; Premium 2,500; PremiumPlus and above have no limit |
| Historical records and DNA | None. No records, no DNA, no research hints | Billions of historical records on the Data, Complete and Omni plans; DNA kits sold separately |
| Around the tree | A wall for photos, stories and voice notes with an audience per post, Memory Lane, and events with birthday reminders on the web today; chat and calls in the Kunbaa app, coming soon | Photo tools — colourisation, enhancement, animation — and a family site built around the research tree |
| Children | On the tree and in the photos, added by adults; every account is held by an adult (18+) | Built for adult researchers |
| Tree files (GEDCOM) | GEDCOM import on kunbaa.com, matched to the people already in your tree and confirmed before anything is written; GEDCOM export and tree merging are not switched on yet | GEDCOM import and export, with photos if you choose |
| Who pays | One person pays for Kunbaa Plus; everyone else joins free | Plans are bought per account; MyHeritage lists no family or multi-seat plan |
| Price | Free to start. Kunbaa Plus is $15.99/mo or $159.99/yr for the whole family (yearly is about $13 a month for the whole family) | Billed yearly, priced by country, with a lower first year. From Australia in September 2026: Premium A$164, PremiumPlus and Data A$249, Complete A$379, Omni A$519 a year |
Your aunt traced the family to 1820 on MyHeritage. Bring it across as a GEDCOM file if you like, or leave it where it is — and give the living family a tree they will actually open: the cousins, the babies, the photo from 1987 with the names finally written on it.
Half the family in Ireland, half in Sydney, and nobody sure whose baby that is in the group photo. On Kunbaa each branch adds itself, the birthdays come off the tree, and the photo lands beside the person it shows.
Your father knows every name back four generations and has never written one down. Sit with him, put them on the tree together, and record him telling the stories as voice notes on the wall — in a space only the family can enter.
MyHeritage is good at its job. This is the plain list of what changes if your family moves this part of its life to Kunbaa.
Start with the people you know. Each relative you invite lands on the place already made for them, adds their own side and fixes the dates only they know. There is no cap on the free tree, relatives who have passed stay where they belong, and children are added by adults without an account of their own.
The Kunbaa family tree →
A research tree holds names and dates. The Kunbaa wall holds the scanned albums, the wedding video and Nani's voice note, each captioned with who, where and roughly when, and each landing beside the person on the tree. Choose who sees a post — everyone, the extended family, or just your household — and scroll back through it all in Memory Lane.
The wall and Memory Lane →
Every birthday on the tree becomes a reminder, so nobody is forgotten. Plan a gathering as an event with a to-do list, keep it to the relatives it concerns, and attach the photos afterwards.
Events and reminders →
Group and one-to-one chat, and calls that start from a relative's page on the tree: voice and video one-to-one, and group calls of up to 4 people including you free (up to 6 on Kunbaa Plus). Only relatives in your family space can ring you. Chat and calls arrive with the Kunbaa app, coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.
Chat and calls in Kunbaa →An admin decides, per relative, whether they can add people to the tree, post to the wall, or message members — so the uncle who loves a good story can post all he likes without moving anyone's grandmother. A relative can request more access from inside the app.
How private is Kunbaa? →For a private tree of the living family — one your relatives build together, with the photos, stories and birthdays beside it — yes. For researching ancestors it is not: Kunbaa has no historical records, no DNA and no research matches. If that is the job, MyHeritage is good at it, and many families use both.
Partly. MyHeritage's Basic plan is free and holds a family tree of up to 250 people. Larger trees, Smart Matches, the historical record collections and the photo tools need a paid plan — Premium, PremiumPlus, Data, Complete or Omni — billed yearly and priced by country.
Yes, as a file. Export your MyHeritage tree as a GEDCOM (Family tree → Manage trees → Export to GEDCOM) and import it on kunbaa.com in a browser: Kunbaa matches it against the people already in your tree and writes nothing until you confirm. Kunbaa reads nothing from MyHeritage itself, and merging two Kunbaa trees is not switched on in this release.
Only the relatives you invite. A Kunbaa family space is invite-only and cannot be searched, there are no ads, nobody's data is sold, and your tree is never matched against anyone else's. An admin sets per-member permissions for adding to the tree, posting and messaging.
No. The tree is free for the whole family with no cap on people — both sides, all the branches, as many generations as you know. MyHeritage's free Basic plan stops at 250 people.
No. Kunbaa has no DNA features, no record collections and no research hints. It is a tree of the family you know, with the photos and stories beside it. For records and DNA, MyHeritage or Ancestry is the right tool.
Yes. Children are added to the tree by an adult and appear in the photos; they do not hold an account, because every Kunbaa account is for adults aged 18 and over. Adults keep it; kids are in it.
Everyone in the family joins Kunbaa free, and the tree has no cap. When the family wants room for the whole archive, one person takes Kunbaa Plus at $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year, about $13 a month for the whole family. MyHeritage plans are bought per account and billed yearly, priced by country.
More questions? Read the full FAQ or what private means in Kunbaa.
Put your parents, your siblings and the cousins on a private tree, invite them to add their side, and let the photos and stories gather beside the people they belong to.
Everyone in the family joins free. When you want room for the whole archive, one person takes Kunbaa Plus at $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year — about $13 a month for the whole family.