IdeaBoardz
2.9Free shared brainstorming boards
IdeaBoardz is a long-standing free brainstorming and retrospective board: pick 1-10 sections, name them yourself, share the URL, add ideas anonymously, upvote, and export to PDF or Excel. The app still works and is still in daily use, but development stopped years ago — the public source repository's last feature commits date to April 2020 and the Terms have not been revised since.
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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, async standups, team check-ins and lightweight team health, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
Full review →Summary
IdeaBoardz scores 2.9 overall and is best for throwaway retros and quick distributed brainstorms when nobody wants to sign up. 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, standups and lightweight team health. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, 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 | IdeaBoardz | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | All-in-One Agile |
| Team size | Small | Any |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries/month |
| Starting price | Free | $8/active user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Free (no paid tier) | $192/mo |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2015 |
| HQ | Pune, India | Remote (San Diego, CA) |
| Data residency | — | United States · European Union · Self-hosted |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | PDF · Excel | CSV · Email |
| Features | 9 | 46 |
| Integrations | 0 | 7 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | — | ✓note |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | — |
| Action tracking | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | ✓note |
| Polling | — | ✓note |
| Action dashboard | — | ✓ |
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | — | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | ✓note |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | ✓ |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | — | ✓ |
| GitLab | — | ✓ |
| Jira | — | ✓ |
| Linear | — | ✓ |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | — | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ |
| GDPR | — | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | — | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | — | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | ✓note |
| Public API | ✓note | ✓ |
| Webhooks | — | ✓note |
| MCP server | — | — |
IdeaBoardz — pros
- + Genuinely free — no paywall, no paid tier, no trial clock
- + No signup required to participate — just share the URL
- + 1-10 free-text sections build Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls or Six Thinking Hats by hand
- + Drag one sticky onto another to merge them; the votes are added together
- + PDF and Excel export on every board, plus a working phone view
IdeaBoardz — cons
- − No templates at all — the only format choice is how many sections you want
- − No timer, no phases, no action items, no grouping beyond merging two stickies into one
- − Unlimited anonymous upvotes with no per-person vote budget
- − Zero integrations, no SSO, no SOC 2 and no published privacy policy — the URL is the only access control
- − No product work since April 2020; support is a Gmail address and a Twitter handle
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment
- + 40+ retro templates plus poker, standups, 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 discussion threads on <em>every</em> tier
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule and Google Calendar sync
- + DoD Iron Bank hardened container, cleared to IL4 via Platform One
Parabol — cons
- − Free tier capped at 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Health-check is a single emoji poll — no custom radars or trend dashboards
- − AI grouping and team health checks need the paid Team tier; Pages Insights needs org-level enablement
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − No Confluence, Trello or multi-language support
Keep comparing
Other IdeaBoardz comparisons
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.