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, team check-ins and recurring team health checks, with deep backlog sync to Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps and Linear, recurring meeting series, Zoom and Google Meet transcript capture, a scoped GraphQL API, and a built-in knowledge base (Pages) that auto-publishes every meeting summary and runs AI queries across past retros.
Full review →
Retro Rabbit
4.4Slack-first retrospectives with async note capture
Retro Rabbit is a Slack-native retrospective tool: the team drops notes into a Slack channel or the web app all sprint long, then runs the retro on a live synced board with drag-to-group, dot voting, a shared timer and assignable action items that carry over to the next retro. The CarrotIQ AI layer is gated to the $40/team/month Pro AI plan. Four-person vendor, Slack is the only integration, and there is still no public changelog.
Full review →Summary
Parabol scores 7.4 overall and is best for distributed agile teams that want one open-source tool for retros, poker and team health checks. It offers a free tier.
Retro Rabbit scores 4.4 overall and is best for slack-centric agile teams that want retro notes captured continuously through the sprint and a lightweight live or async board — and that don't need Jira, health checks or a procurement checklist. It offers paid plans from $30/team/mo.
Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, AI & insights, integrations, open platform and enterprise-grade. Retro Rabbit leads on value.
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 | Parabol | Retro Rabbit |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Small |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Free limit | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries per team | 14-day free trial, no credit card required |
| Starting price | $8/active user/mo | $30/team/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | $90/mo |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2015 | — |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | Boston, United States |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | United States |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | CSV · Excel · PDF |
| Features | 54 | 21 |
| Integrations | 8 | 1 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | Retro Rabbit |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓ |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | — |
| Action tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | — | — |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | — |
| AI action items | — | ✓note |
| AI Summaries | ✓note | ✓note |
| Team Insights | ✓note | — |
| In-meeting AI assistant | — | — |
| Action dashboard | ✓ | ✓ |
| Integrations | ||
| Asana | — | — |
| Azure DevOps | ✓ | — |
| Basecamp | — | — |
| ClickUp | — | — |
| Confluence | ✓note | — |
| GitHub | ✓ | — |
| GitLab | ✓ | — |
| Jira | ✓ | — |
| Linear | ✓ | — |
| Microsoft Teams | ✓ | — |
| Monday.com | — | — |
| Notion | — | — |
| Shortcut | — | — |
| Slack | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trello | — | — |
| Security & Privacy | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | — |
| GDPR | ✓ | — |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | ✓note | — |
| Public API | ✓ | — |
| Webhooks | ✓note | — |
| MCP server | — | — |
Parabol — pros
- + Open source (AGPL-3.0) with Docker/Kubernetes self-host, on-prem and air-gapped deployment, plus a DoD Iron Bank hardened container (IL4 via Platform One, IL5 via Arcus)
- + 40+ meeting templates plus poker, 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 threads, and a public GraphQL API with scoped personal access tokens, both on <em>every</em> plan
- + Recurring retro series with a real recurrence rule and Google Calendar sync, plus an opt-in facilitator rotation queue
Parabol — cons
- − Free Starter capped at 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history and 3 AI summaries per team; AI grouping and Team Health need the paid Team tier
- − No native whiteboard, presentation mode or screen-share mode
- − Team Health, as of Oct 2026: 5 Likert questions per check across 5 fixed categories, trend limited to the last five checks in one series (no standalone history view), org-wide reporting still "coming soon", no export of health scores
- − Webhooks stop at Mattermost/MS Teams notification URLs — no general event subscriptions and no MCP server
- − English-only UI; no Trello, Asana, ClickUp or Notion integration
Retro Rabbit — pros
- + Genuine Slack-first capture — notes land in the channel throughout the sprint, so the board opens full instead of starting with silent writing
- + Board covers the basics properly: drag-to-group with editable group names, dot voting with a configurable 1–50 vote budget, a shared pause/resume timer, and a per-user anonymity toggle
- + Action items carry forward — a dedicated <em>Old / Unresolved Items</em> tab plus per-room and per-person trackers, with Slack reminders to assignees
- + A GIPHY picker on notes that the marketing site never mentions — the one bit of levity on an otherwise plain board
- + Flat $30/team/month with unlimited users (3 teams of 8 = $90/mo), and CSV/XLSX/PDF export on every tier including Starter
Retro Rabbit — cons
- − Slack is the only integration — no Jira, Teams, Confluence, GitHub, Linear or Azure DevOps, and no public API, webhooks or MCP
- − No health checks, team radars or sentiment tracking; the only longitudinal view is a notes-per-day bar chart per room
- − AI is two calls — a per-retro summary and one action-item suggestion. The site's <em>intelligent note grouping</em> claim has no counterpart in the shipped web app
- − Enterprise controls are thin: SSO/SAML is Enterprise-tier only, no SCIM, no audit logs and no SOC 2 of its own. The privacy policy carries no GDPR or CCPA commitments and says retro feedback is not shared with third parties, the Slack Marketplace listing answers <em>uses large language models: no</em> and <em>has a dedicated security team: no</em>, and neither says where CarrotIQ processes notes
- − No free tier and no public changelog, from a four-person vendor whose marketing site has not changed since early 2025
Keep comparing
Other Parabol comparisons
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.