Mural
6.6Visual collaboration whiteboard with a mature facilitation toolkit and AI-assisted sessions
Mural is a long-established visual collaboration platform — an infinite canvas with sticky notes, anonymous voting, timers, Private Mode, 250+ workshop templates (eight of them retro-specific), Mural AI (cluster, summarise, mind-map, Classify by emotional tone), and a Facilitation Superpowers toolkit (Outline, Timer, Voting, Private Mode, Summon, Celebrate) refined for over a decade. Best-in-class enterprise posture: SSO/SAML with multi-IdP support, SCIM, BYOK, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001, GDPR and US/EU/Australia data residency.
Full review →
RetroTool
3.2Anonymous online retrospectives, no login required
RetroTool is a low-friction online retrospective board built by u2i, a ~60-person NY/Kraków software agency, as an internal tool it later opened up. Free anonymous retros run from a unique URL with no signup; paid tiers add private boards, team management, configurable retention and zero-knowledge encryption. The product works and is still used daily, but nothing has shipped visibly since 2024.
Full review →Summary
Mural scores 6.6 overall and is best for workshop-heavy teams (design, product, agile coaching) that want a polished facilitation canvas with strong retro templates and enterprise-grade controls. It offers a free tier.
RetroTool scores 3.2 overall and is best for small or ad-hoc teams who want a free, no-signup retro board with private drafting, secret voting and a dozen standard templates — provided you're comfortable running on a tool whose last visible build is dated May 2024. It offers a free tier.
Mural leads on retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade. RetroTool leads on ease of use and value.
Across our eight scoring dimensions, Mural edges ahead with an overall score of 6.6. That said, the right pick depends on your team — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown below.
Scores compared
| Detail | Mural | RetroTool |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Whiteboard | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Mid-market | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Unlimited murals but only the 3 most recently created stay editable (older go view-only); unlimited members and view-only visitors; no Mural AI or MCP | Anonymous boards; unlimited cards, columns, action points and participants; 3 basic templates; private sections, secret voting, dot-vote limits, timer, grouping, action points with owner and due date; Markdown export; 12-month retention. A free registered 'Participant' account (not advertised on the plans page) adds access to private retros and cross-device drafts |
| Starting price | $9.99/user/mo billed annually ($12/user/mo billed monthly) | $10/team/mo ($100/team/yr billed annually) |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $240/mo billed annually ($288/mo billed monthly) | $30/mo (Individual — 3 teams x $10/team/mo, unlimited members per team; $300/yr = $25/mo billed annually) |
| Enterprise | Yes | No |
| Founded | 2011 | — |
| HQ | San Francisco, US | Poland |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Australia | — |
| Languages | 9 (English, Spanish, German, …) | English only |
| Export formats | Image · PDF · PowerPoint · HTML · CSV | Markdown · Confluence |
| Features | 43 | 21 |
| Integrations | 10 | 0 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Mural | RetroTool |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓ | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓note | ✓note |
| Health Checks | — | — |
| Action tracking | ✓note | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | — |
| Whiteboard | ✓ | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | ✓note | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓note | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓ | — |
| AI action items | — | — |
| AI Summaries | ✓ | — |
| Team Insights | — | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | ✓note | — |
| Action dashboard | — | ✓note |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | ✓note | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓note | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓ | — |
| GitHub | ✓note | — |
| GitLab | — | — |
| Jira | ✓note | — |
| Linear | ✓note | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | — |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | ✓note | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | — |
| Trello | ✓note | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓note |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | — |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | — |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ | — |
| On-premises | — | — |
| Public API | ✓note | — |
| Webhooks | — | — |
| MCP server | ✓note | — |
Mural — pros
- + Mature facilitation toolkit — Outline, Timer, Voting, Private Mode, Summon, Celebrate — refined over 10+ years
- + Anonymous where it counts: votes hide who voted, and Private Mode can keep sticky authors hidden even after reveal
- + Best-in-class enterprise posture: SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and 42001, GDPR, SSO/SAML (multi-IdP), SCIM, BYOK, US/EU/Australia residency
- + Two-way work-item cards for Jira and Azure DevOps and, since September 2026, Linear issues and GitHub pull requests, all editable inside the mural
- + Five export formats (PDF, PNG, PPT, HTML bundle, CSV of stickies) — unusually broad for a canvas tool
Mural — cons
- − Per-seat pricing: a 24-person org pays ~$240/mo on the Team+ tier (annual), well above retro-native tools at that headcount
- − No health checks, mood tracking, recurring retros, action carryover or cross-team rollup — facilitators rebuild structure each sprint
- − AI (clustering, summary, sentiment Classify) helps inside a session but doesn't track trends across retros
- − SSO/SAML needs the $17.99/user/mo Business tier; SCIM, audit logs and data residency are Enterprise-only
- − The public API is still labelled beta and has no webhooks, and the MCP server is a public preview that needs the mural open in a browser tab
RetroTool — pros
- + Genuinely free anonymous retros with no account required
- + Three-click setup — unique URL, share, run
- + Per-column Private Sections keep drafting unbiased until people publish
- + Zero-knowledge encryption with custom passwords on the Company plan
- + Per-team flat pricing ($10 or $20/team/mo, 15%+ off annually) with <em>unlimited members per team</em>, not per-seat
RetroTool — cons
- − <strong>Dormant</strong>: the marketing build is dated 28 May 2024, the app still runs Meteor 2.9, the blog stopped in March 2022 and the legal pages are unchanged since August 2020
- − No integrations with Jira, Slack, Teams or any other agile-stack tool, no AI of any kind, and no health checks, recurring retros, async mode or cross-team reporting
- − Export is Markdown only (plain or Confluence wiki markup), copied to the clipboard or saved as a file
- − Most templates, image cards, named participants, private invite-only boards and zero-knowledge encryption sit behind paid tiers
- − Not SOC 2; Google sign-in only, with no SAML SSO, SCIM or audit logs
Keep comparing
Other Mural comparisons
Other RetroTool comparisons
See alternatives
Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.