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 →
ScatterSpoke
7.1AI copilot for team feedback
ScatterSpoke is an AI-powered feedback platform that turns retrospectives, standups and team feedback into themes, sentiment metrics and prioritised action items for engineering leaders.
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.
ScatterSpoke scores 7.1 overall and is best for engineering orgs in Jira/Slack that want AI to surface themes and impact across many retros. It offers a free tier.
IdeaBoardz leads on value. ScatterSpoke leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations and enterprise-grade.
Across our seven scoring dimensions, ScatterSpoke edges ahead with an overall score of 7.1. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | IdeaBoardz | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Retrospectives | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Small | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Fully free, no paid tier | 1 team, 10 users, unlimited retros, 20 AI reports/month, 90-day history |
| Starting price | Free | $50/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | Custom | $50/mo |
| Enterprise | No | Yes |
| Founded | 2012 | 2014 |
| HQ | Pune, India | USA |
| Features | 6 | 29 |
| Integrations | 0 | 3 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | IdeaBoardz | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | — | ✓ |
| AI grouping/clustering | — | ✓ |
| AI action items | — | ✓ |
| Action tracking | — | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | ✓ |
| Polling | — | — |
| Action dashboard | — | ✓ |
| Custom templates | ✓ note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | — | — |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | — | — |
| Confluence | — | — |
| GitHub | — | — |
| Jira | — | ✓ |
| Linear | — | — |
| Microsoft Teams | — | ✓ |
| Slack | — | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | — | ✓ note |
| GDPR | — | ✓ |
| SSO/SAML/SCIM | — | ✓ note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Data residency (US/EU) | — | — |
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
ScatterSpoke — Pros
- + AI themes, sentiment scoring and impact analysis across retros
- + 20+ retro formats plus custom formats with real-time collaboration
- + Cross-team goals, metrics and executive-style rollups
- + Action items sync to Jira; standups and async feedback included
ScatterSpoke — Cons
- − Integration coverage is narrow (Jira, Slack, Teams only)
- − No native health checks, team radars or mood tracking
- − Tier-based pricing jumps sharply ($0 to $50 to $500/mo)
- − SAML and SCIM gated to Business/Enterprise tiers