IdeaBoardz
3.6Free shared brainstorming boards
IdeaBoardz is a long-standing free brainstorming and retrospective board where anyone can spin up a shared URL, add ideas in customisable sections, vote, and export to PDF or Excel. The site is still online and the app still works, but the product appears to be in maintenance mode at best — Terms were last updated in April 2020 and there is no blog, changelog or roadmap to suggest active development.
Full review →
Ludi
6.9Playful collaborative whiteboard for agile teams
Ludi (formerly Metro Retro, rebranded August 2025) is a visual agile collaboration whiteboard with 100+ templates spanning retros, planning poker, icebreakers and futurespectives. Its signature illustrated canvas and gadgets make ceremonies feel engaging, and a first AI feature — sticky-note clustering — shipped February 2026.
Full review →Summary
IdeaBoardz scores 3.6 overall and is best for throwaway retros and quick distributed brainstorms when nobody wants to sign up. It offers a free tier.
Ludi scores 6.9 overall and is best for agile teams who want retros, planning and workshops to feel visual and fun, with a solid Jira-backed delivery loop. It offers paid plans from $5/user/mo.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. Ludi leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations and enterprise-grade.
Across our seven scoring dimensions, Ludi edges ahead with an overall score of 6.9. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | Ludi |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Small | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | 30-day free trial; boards become read-only when the trial expires |
| Starting price | Free | $5/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Custom | $120/mo |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2012 | 2020 |
| HQ | Pune, India | UK |
| Features | 6 | 33 |
| Integrations | 0 | 1 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | Ludi |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓ note |
| AI action items | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| Polling | — | ✓ note |
| Action dashboard | — | — |
| Custom templates | ✓ note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ note |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | — |
| Agile Estimations | — | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Team Kudos | — | ✓ note |
| Whiteboard | — | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | — | — |
| Jira | — | ✓ note |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | — |
| Slack | — | — |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ note |
| GDPR | — | ✓ |
| SSO/SAML/SCIM | — | ✓ note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Data residency (US/EU) | — | ✓ note |
IdeaBoardz — Pros
- + Genuinely free, no paywall, no paid tier
- + No signup required to participate — just share a URL
- + 1-10 customisable sections cover most retro formats (Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, etc.)
- + PDF and Excel export built in
- + Voting and async input out of the box
IdeaBoardz — Cons
- − UI is unchanged from the early 2010s and shows it
- − No timer, no facilitation phases, no drag-and-drop grouping
- − Zero integrations with the agile stack (Jira, Slack, Teams, Confluence, etc.)
- − No prebuilt templates, no health checks, no AI features
- − Boards are public-by-URL with no SSO, SOC 2, or stated privacy controls
- − Apparently in maintenance mode — Terms last updated April 2020, no changelog or blog
Ludi — Pros
- + Genuinely delightful, illustrated UI that energises in-person and remote retros
- + Broad template library (100+) covering retros, icebreakers, planning poker, futurespectives, planning and estimation
- + Solid two-way Jira integration: backlog refinement, estimation and issue creation in-board
- + Facilitator controls, private writing mode and shareable team spaces
- + First AI feature shipped Feb 2026 — Sort into Topics auto-groups stickies into labelled topics
- + EU-hosted (Amsterdam) on SOC 2 / ISO 27001 infrastructure; GDPR-aligned
Ludi — Cons
- − No async retro mode, no recurring or scheduled retros
- − No team health check or longitudinal pulse product; mood/radar work via whiteboard templates only
- − Integrations limited to Jira — no Slack, Teams, Confluence, GitHub, Linear or Azure DevOps
- − AI limited to one clustering feature — no summaries, action-item extraction, sentiment or coaching
- − No ongoing free plan; expired trials become read-only
- − SSO gated to Enterprise tier; no SCIM, audit logs or domain restrictions advertised