FigJam
7.3Figma's whiteboard with AI sticky clustering, an official MCP server that reaches FigJam boards, and a $3 Collab seat — free tier caps at 3 boards
FigJam is the whiteboard product inside Figma — sticky notes, timer, music, stamps and emotes, voting sessions, one-click AI that sorts and summarises stickies, and 300+ ready-made templates including community retro boards. Design and product teams already living in Figma get retros without buying a second tool, backed by Figma's SAML/SCIM, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and Enterprise data residency in the EU, Australia, India, Brazil and Japan. Figma's official MCP server reads FigJam boards on every plan; letting an agent write to them is a beta that needs a Full seat. Voting sessions, open guest sessions, audio chat and webhooks all require a paid team; publishing custom templates requires Organization.
Full review →
NimbleRetro
3.8Time-boxed retros with 5-Why root cause analysis
NimbleRetro is the retrospective module inside NimbleWork's broader Nimble agile platform. It runs a time-boxed retro through Icebreaker, Ideate, Group, Vote, Discuss and Feedback stages, ending in a 5-Why root cause drill-down on whatever the team voted up. Action items created in the Discuss stage convert directly into Nimble work items (user stories, cards) in the project the retro was created from. There is no separate purchase — Retrospectives ship to every Public SaaS Nimble account by default.
Full review →Summary
FigJam scores 7.3 overall and is best for design and product teams already on Figma who want retros on the same platform as their design files, with playful engagement, AI sticky clustering and an agent-accessible canvas. It offers a free tier.
NimbleRetro scores 3.8 overall and is best for small agile teams already inside the Nimble suite that want a structured, time-boxed retro ending in a real root cause analysis, with the follow-up landing in the same backlog they already work from. It offers paid plans from $15/mo (up to 20 users).
FigJam leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, value, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, FigJam edges ahead with an overall score of 7.3. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | FigJam | NimbleRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Whiteboard | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Mid-market | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Free limit | Starter: 3 FigJam files per team (unlimited personal drafts), 150 AI credits/day up to 500/month, 300+ templates, timer, music, AI Sort/Summarize/Generate, REST API and 20 MCP tool calls/month, 30-day version history — no voting sessions, audio chat, open (no-account) sessions or webhooks | Free trial only; no permanent free tier published for the retro module. The suite pricing page's only $0 plan (10 users / 10 projects) sits in a tier table hidden on every device, and Retrospectives appear in neither the live tier table nor the suite's full feature-comparison table |
| Starting price | $3/user/mo (Collab seat, billed annually; $5 billed monthly) | $15/mo (up to 20 users) |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $72/mo (24 Collab seats × $3, billed annually; $120/mo billed monthly at $5) | $240/mo (24 users x $10/user/mo Nimble Team tier); NimbleRetro's own $15/mo plan caps at 20 users and no larger standalone tier is published |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2012 | 2002 |
| HQ | San Francisco, US | Cupertino, CA, United States |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Australia · IN · BR · JP | United States |
| Languages | 7 (English, Japanese, Korean, …) | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Image · CSV | — |
| Features | 42 | 21 |
| Integrations | 10 | 4 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | FigJam | NimbleRetro |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | — | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | — |
| Whiteboard | ✓ | — |
| Independent voting | ✓note | ✓note |
| Polling | ✓ | ✓note |
| Icebreaker games | ✓note | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓note | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓ | — |
| AI action items | ✓note | — |
| AI Summaries | ✓ | — |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | ✓note | — |
| Action dashboard | — | ✓note |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | ✓note | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | — |
| GitHub | ✓note | ✓note |
| GitLab | — | ✓note |
| Jira | ✓note | — |
| Linear | ✓note | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓note | ✓note |
| Monday.com | ✓note | — |
| Notion | ✓note | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓note | ✓note |
| Trello | ✓note | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | ✓note |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | — |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ | ✓note |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓note |
| Webhooks | ✓ | ✓note |
| MCP server | ✓ | ✓note |
FigJam — pros
- + Cheap $3/user/mo Collab seat (billed annually; $5 monthly) unlocks unlimited boards and full FigJam editing without a Full Figma seat
- + Free Starter tier includes real AI credits (150/day, 500/month), 300+ templates, the timer, music and AI Sort/Summarize
- + Playful, engaging UX — stamps, emotes, high-fives, music, cursor chat — lifts retro fun factor
- + Best open platform of any whiteboard here: REST API on every plan, webhooks on paid, and an <strong>official MCP server that reads FigJam boards</strong> on every plan
- + Strong enterprise posture inherited from Figma: SAML, SCIM, activity logs, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and Enterprise data residency in the EU, Australia, India, Brazil and Japan
FigJam — cons
- − No native action-item tracking, recurring retros or health checks
- − Anonymity is weak — votes reveal who voted once the session ends, and live cursors show who is writing even when a sticky's name tag is switched off
- − Action items leave the board only by hand: the Jira, GitHub and Asana widgets turn selected stickies into tickets, but Confluence, Linear and Notion are embeds only and there is no Azure DevOps
- − Free Starter caps a team at 3 FigJam files and excludes voting, audio chat, no-account guest links and webhooks; publishing custom templates needs Organization
- − Built primarily for designers — the canvas paradigm is fiddly for structured retros, and large boards get sluggish
NimbleRetro — pros
- + 5-Why root cause analysis is a <em>built-in retro stage</em>, not an afterthought — almost no other retro tool ships one
- + Anonymous voting plus a facilitator-set timer on every stage keeps a 60-minute retro on the rails
- + Action items convert directly into Nimble work items, so follow-up lands in the same backlog the team already works from
- + Included by default in every Public SaaS Nimble account — no separate purchase, no tier upgrade, available to all user roles
- + NimbleWork, Inc. holds its own SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 attestations, with reports on request through its trust center, and supports SAMLv2/ADFSv3 SSO
NimbleRetro — cons
- − The dedicated NimbleRetro iOS and Android apps have been delisted from both the App Store and Google Play, while the product pages still advertise them
- − No health checks, no recurring retros, no async mode, and no documented export of a retro board in any format
- − The platform surface — REST API, outgoing webhooks and the new Nimble MCP server — reaches Nimble cards only; none of it touches a retro, and no AI runs on retro data despite the Retrium comparison page ticking <em>Generative AI</em>
- − Participants are limited to members of the Nimble project the retro was created from, and the module is unavailable outside Public SaaS
- − No rate card: the only NimbleRetro-specific price NimbleWork publishes ($15/mo for up to 20 users) sits on a blog post, and the retro 'pricing' page is a product page with a demo form
Keep comparing
Other FigJam comparisons
Other NimbleRetro comparisons
See alternatives
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.