Antidetect browsers store profiles in one of two ways: locally on the machine that created them, or synced to the cloud. For a solo operator on one computer the choice barely matters. For a team, it decides how painful it is to scale.

Local-only profiles

The profile lives on one PC. Nothing leaves the machine unless you export it.

  • **Upside:** fast, no dependency on a server, and the data never leaves your device.
  • **Downside:** the account is trapped. Switching machines, or handing an account to a teammate, means manually exporting and importing profile folders — and every manual copy risks a mismatch that gets the account flagged.

This works until a second person or a second machine enters the picture. Then "where is that profile, and who has the latest copy" becomes a daily question.

Cloud-synced profiles

The profile environment is stored centrally and can be opened from any authorized machine.

  • **Upside:** accounts are portable. A teammate opens the same profile on their machine and it behaves as the same device. Work is not stranded on one computer.
  • **Downside:** it depends on the sync being trustworthy — the whole environment must move (not just cookies), it must be encrypted, and the same profile must never be live in two places at once.

The failure mode to avoid

Not all "cloud" is equal. Syncing only cookies leaves the fingerprint and proxy context behind, so the account still sees a different device on the second machine — the exact problem sync was supposed to solve. And if a tool lets the same profile run on two machines at once, you have traded one risk for another.

Good cloud sync means three things together: the **entire environment** syncs (fingerprint, storage, proxy context), it is **encrypted**, and each profile is **locked to one machine at a time**.

How to choose

  • **Solo, one machine, privacy-first:** local-only is fine.
  • **Any team, or any second machine:** cloud sync — but only the kind that moves the whole environment and enforces a single-machine lock.

GekkoLogin was designed for the second case: encrypted cross-machine sync, a single-machine lock, and role-based permissions so a teammate can use an account without being able to take it. Notably, cloud sync is included on the free plan, so you can test the team workflow before paying — see [the free plan](/free/) and the [cross-machine sync page](/sync-across-machines/).

The short version: local is simplest for one person on one device; cloud sync is what lets accounts follow the work instead of the computer — as long as it syncs the whole environment, not just the login.