Miro
7.1Innovation 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 a 7,000+ template library (300+ retro formats among them), AI clustering by sentiment/keyword/author, Engage live polls and word clouds, real-time + async collaboration, and a 250+ app marketplace including Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Linear, Confluence, Slack and Microsoft Teams. Flows and Sidekicks ship as AI Workflows, a paid Enterprise product.
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, 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
Miro scores 7.1 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.
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.
Miro leads on fun factor, open platform and enterprise-grade. Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit and AI & insights.
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 | Miro | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Whiteboard | All-in-One Agile |
| Team size | Enterprise | Any |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | 3 editable boards, ~10 AI credits/mo, 100 MCP calls/day, full template library, 250+ app marketplace; no private boards, SSO, guests or two-way integrations | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries/month |
| Starting price | $8/user/mo | $8/active user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo billed annually (Starter, 24 seats) | $192/mo |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2011 | 2015 |
| HQ | Amsterdam, NL | Remote (San Diego, CA) |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Australia | United States · European Union · Self-hosted |
| Languages | 8 (English, Spanish, German, …) | English only |
| Export formats | Image · PDF · CSV | CSV · Email |
| Features | 39 | 46 |
| Integrations | 11 | 7 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Miro | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| AI Summaries | ✓ | ✓note |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓ | ✓note |
| AI action items | ✓note | — |
| Action tracking | ✓note | ✓ |
| Team Insights | — | ✓note |
| Polling | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action dashboard | — | ✓ |
| Custom templates | ✓ | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓note | ✓ |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agile Estimations | ✓note | ✓ |
| Health Checks | — | ✓note |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| Whiteboard | ✓ | — |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | ✓note | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓note | ✓ |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | ✓ | — |
| Confluence | ✓ | — |
| GitHub | ✓note | ✓ |
| GitLab | — | ✓ |
| Jira | ✓note | ✓ |
| Linear | ✓note | ✓ |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | ✓ | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trello | ✓note | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ | — |
| On-premises | — | ✓note |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Webhooks | — | ✓note |
| MCP server | ✓note | — |
Miro — pros
- + Enormous template library (7,000+ board templates, 300+ retro formats) plus the Miroverse community gallery
- + AI clustering groups sticky notes by colour, tag, author, keyword and sentiment — real time saved on a 60-sticky board
- + Best-in-class integration catalog (Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Linear, ClickUp, Confluence, Slack, Teams) with two-way card sync
- + <strong>Engage</strong> activities — live polls, word clouds, scales, ranking — are bundled with Business; participants join by QR code with no Miro account
- + Enterprise-grade SSO, SCIM, audit logs, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, ISO 42001 (AI governance) and US/EU/AU data residency
Miro — cons
- − Per-seat pricing: 24 people cost $192/mo on Starter (annual). The tier that actually matters for retros — Business, with two-way Jira sync, SSO and Engage — is $480/mo
- − No health checks, mood tracking or longitudinal team pulse; Engage Scales reads the room once, it doesn't draw a trend line
- − No recurring retros, scheduling, action carryover or cross-team rollup — facilitators rebuild structure each sprint
- − SCIM, audit logs, domain control and data residency are Enterprise-only (30-seat minimum)
- − No built-in retro report or action-tracker dashboard; actions only persist as Jira/Azure DevOps cards
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
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.