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 →
Miro
8.1Innovation Workspace where retros happen on the same canvas as discovery and planning
Miro is the dominant online whiteboard, now repositioned as an AI-powered Innovation Workspace. It pairs an infinite canvas with 5,000+ retro templates, AI clustering by sentiment/keyword/author, Sidekicks (AI teammates) and Flows (multi-step AI workflows), real-time + async collaboration, and a 250+ app marketplace including Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Confluence, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
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.
Miro scores 8.1 overall and is best for large product, design and engineering orgs that already run discovery, planning and retros on one canvas and want AI clustering plus deep Jira/Azure DevOps/Asana sync. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. Miro leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations and enterprise-grade.
Across our seven scoring dimensions, Miro edges ahead with an overall score of 8.1. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | Miro |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Whiteboard |
| Team size | Small | Enterprise |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | 3 editable boards, 10 AI credits/mo per team, 5,000+ templates, 160+ integrations |
| Starting price | Free | $10/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Custom | $240/mo |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2012 | 2011 |
| HQ | Pune, India | Amsterdam, NL |
| Features | 6 | 37 |
| Integrations | 0 | 8 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | Miro |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | — | ✓ |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓ |
| AI action items | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | ✓ note |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| Polling | — | ✓ note |
| Action dashboard | — | — |
| Custom templates | ✓ note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ note |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | — | ✓ note |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| Whiteboard | — | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | ✓ note |
| Azure DevOps | — | ✓ note |
| Confluence | — | ✓ |
| GitHub | — | ✓ note |
| Jira | — | ✓ note |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Slack | — | ✓ |
| Trello | — | ✓ note |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ |
| 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
Miro — Pros
- + Enormous template library (5,000+) and Miroverse community for retro formats
- + AI clustering groups sticky notes by sentiment, tag, author and keyword; Sidekicks and Flows extend AI deeper into the canvas
- + Best-in-class integration catalog (Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Confluence, Slack, Teams) with two-way sync
- + Enterprise-grade SSO, SCIM, audit logs, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 (AI governance) and EU/US/AU data residency
- + Same canvas works for discovery, planning and retros — no context switching
Miro — Cons
- − Per-seat pricing scales painfully if retros are the primary use case
- − No native health checks, mood tracking or longitudinal team-pulse
- − No recurring retros, scheduling, action carryover or cross-team rollup — facilitators rebuild structure each sprint
- − Jira/Azure DevOps/Asana sync and SSO sit behind the $20/user/mo Business tier; SCIM and audit logs only on Enterprise (30-seat min)
- − No built-in retro report or action-tracker dashboard