GoRetro
5.3Make every sprint impactful, efficient, and fun
GoRetro is a sprint-centric retro and estimation suite combining retrospectives, planning poker, capacity planning and a Jira-fed sprint monitor, with a limited free plan and flat per-team paid pricing.
Full review →
Parabol
7.4Open-source agile meetings for retros, poker, standups and check-ins
Parabol is an open-source agile meeting platform spanning retrospectives, sprint poker, team check-ins and recurring team health checks, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, Zoom and Google Meet transcript capture, a scoped GraphQL API, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
Full review →Summary
GoRetro scores 5.3 overall and is best for scrum teams that live in Jira and want a polished retro plus planning-poker bundle priced per team, and can live without an active roadmap. It offers a free tier.
Parabol scores 7.4 overall and is best for distributed agile teams that want one open-source tool for retros, poker and team health checks. It offers a free tier.
GoRetro leads on value. Parabol leads on retro toolkit, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Parabol edges ahead with an overall score of 7.4. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | GoRetro | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | All-in-One Agile |
| Team size | Any | Any |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Free plan: 1 team, 5 public boards, 2 team boards per 31-day cycle, 3 columns per board, unlimited users and guests, 20+ templates. Excludes exports, retro analytics, Jira sync, happiness index, polls, icebreakers and action-item management. No longer listed on the pricing page; the shipped app still defines it as the plan a team drops to when the 30-day trial ends. | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries per team |
| Starting price | $29/team/mo | $8/active user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $87/mo (Premium, 3 teams, billed annually; $105/mo billed monthly) | $192/mo |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2020 | 2015 |
| HQ | Israel | Remote (San Diego, CA) |
| Data residency | United States | United States · European Union · Self-hosted |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · CSV · Image | CSV · Email |
| Features | 34 | 54 |
| Integrations | 2 | 8 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | GoRetro | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓ | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓note | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓note | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓note | ✓ |
| Team Kudos | ✓note | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | — |
| AI Summaries | — | ✓note |
| Team Insights | — | ✓note |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓note | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | ✓ |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | ✓note |
| GitHub | — | ✓ |
| GitLab | — | ✓ |
| Jira | ✓note | ✓ |
| Linear | — | ✓ |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓note | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | — | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | ✓note |
| Public API | — | ✓ |
| Webhooks | — | ✓note |
| MCP server | — | — |
GoRetro — pros
- + Flat per-team pricing ($29/team/mo annual) with unlimited members per team, plus a genuinely free plan for one team
- + Polished, real-time facilitation UX with per-board anonymity toggles (hide author, hide cards, hide votes) and drag-to-merge grouping
- + Bundles planning poker, capacity calculator and a Jira sprint monitor with retros
- + Real engagement extras — Giphy picker on cards, an optional kudos column, icebreakers, polls and a happiness index
- + Tight Jira Cloud integration; action items push through to Slack
GoRetro — cons
- − <strong>Effectively in maintenance mode</strong> — the production app was last built 9 Feb 2025, the changelog stopped 23 May 2023 and the blog 28 Jul 2023, and two features are still badged "coming soon" from that era
- − <em>No AI anywhere in the shipped app</em> — no clustering, summarisation or sentiment analysis; the .ai is a domain, not a capability
- − Integration breadth is narrow — Jira and Slack only, with no native MS Teams, Azure DevOps, GitHub, Linear, Confluence or Trello
- − No public API or webhooks; exports capped at PDF/CSV/PNG; US-only hosting with no EU residency option
- − The security page contradicts its own hero: SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 are billed as certified up top and "pending audit" in the detail row
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment, plus a DoD Iron Bank hardened container (IL4 via Platform One, IL5 via Arcus)
- + 40+ meeting templates plus poker, check-ins and team health in one tool
- + Strong backlog write-back to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear
- + CSV export of reflections, groups, votes and threads, and a public GraphQL API with scoped personal access tokens, both on <em>every</em> plan
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule and Google Calendar sync, plus an opt-in facilitator rotation queue
Parabol — cons
- − Free Starter capped at 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries per team; AI grouping and Team Health need the paid Team tier
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Team Health, as of Oct 2026: 5 Likert questions per check across 5 fixed categories, trend limited to the last five checks in one series (no standalone history view), org-wide reporting still "coming soon", no export of health scores
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − English-only UI; no Trello, Asana, ClickUp or Notion integration
Keep comparing
Other GoRetro comparisons
Other Parabol comparisons
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.