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.
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ScatterSpoke
5.6AI copilot for team feedback
ScatterSpoke was rebuilt from scratch as v3 in August 2026: guided retro boards, static surveys and AI-run interview surveys, and Ask, which answers questions across closed retros and surveys with cited evidence. An official OAuth MCP server is included on every tier, including Free.
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.
ScatterSpoke scores 5.6 overall and is best for engineering orgs that want AI to synthesise feedback across many teams and surveys — and agent builders who need a survey backend over MCP. It offers a free tier.
Parabol leads on ease of use, retro toolkit, fun factor, integrations and enterprise-grade. ScatterSpoke leads on value and open platform.
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 | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Category | All-in-One Agile | Retrospectives |
| Team size | Any | Mid-market |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free limit | Unlimited users, 2 teams, 10 meetings/month, 30-day history, 2 custom templates, 3 AI retro summaries per team | 1 seat and 1 team; unlimited static surveys and responses; retro boards with manual grouping and voting but no AI; 10 Agent Surveys and 50 Ask queries one-time; MCP connection but no reading results over it |
| Starting price | $8/active user/mo | $29/user/mo |
| Est. 3 teams × 8 people | $192/mo | $149/mo on Business (monthly list price) — 3 teams exceed Pro's 2-team cap; the 5 included seats cover the facilitators, since participants and guests never take a seat |
| Enterprise | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2015 | 2019 |
| HQ | Remote (San Diego, CA) | USA |
| Data residency | United States · European Union · Self-hosted | — |
| Languages | English only | English only |
| Export formats | CSV · Email | CSV |
| Features | 54 | 40 |
| Integrations | 8 | 0 |
Feature & integration comparison
Side-by-side checklist across features, integrations and security. Hover a note for details.
| Capability | Parabol | ScatterSpoke |
|---|---|---|
| Features | ||
| Custom templates | ✓note | ✓note |
| Anonymous input | ✓ | ✓ |
| Health Checks | ✓note | ✓note |
| Action tracking | ✓ | — |
| Async mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whiteboard | — | — |
| Independent voting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polling | — | ✓note |
| Icebreaker games | — | — |
| Agile Estimations | ✓ | — |
| Team Kudos | — | — |
| AI grouping/clustering | ✓note | ✓note |
| AI action items | — | — |
| 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 | ✓ | ✓note |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| SSO / SAML | ✓note | ✓note |
| SCIM provisioning | ✓note | ✓note |
| ISO 27001 | — | — |
| On-premises | ✓note | — |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓note |
| 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
ScatterSpoke — pros
- + Official MCP server on every tier including Free — OAuth sign-in, 33 tools spanning surveys and retro boards; reading results is where the paid line sits
- + Only facilitators need seats — team members and email-verified guests join boards free, so 3 teams of 8 fit Business's $149/mo base
- + Private-until-reveal writing and blind voting are on by default, and Group with AI leaves hand-made groups alone
- + Ask cites the retro or survey behind its answers, and closed-retro summaries track which themes repeat across runs (paid plans)
- + AI-run interview surveys follow up on each answer — a real option for async health checks between retros
ScatterSpoke — cons
- − <strong>No action items</strong> — the v3 board has no action object, so decisions go into card comments
- − No integrations in v3: nothing pushes to Jira, GitHub or Azure DevOps or posts to Slack or Teams, whatever the homepage badges say
- − One CSV export from a closed retro; audit logs are Enterprise-only
- − Retro AI is paid and Ask is metered — a shared monthly pool of 250 queries on Pro, 2,000 on Business
- − The docs describe Signals and Automations pages that the shipped web app doesn't include as of October 2026
Keep comparing
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Not sure which to pick? Read our guide on how to choose a retrospective tool.